• Posted on 1 Jun 2023
  • Updated on 1 Jun 2023
  • 5-minute read

When there is no record, it slips through our consciousness, reporters don't lead with these stories, policymakers don't think about them, and politicians aren't required to speak to them.

When instances of racism are not made public, people have a difficult time acknowledging that racism is an everyday reality for many Australians.

When there is no record, it slips through our consciousness, reporters don't lead with these stories, policymakers don't think about them, and politicians aren't required to speak to them. 

Call It Out is an online register and secure way for people to report (or ‘call out’) incidents of racism and discrimination toward First Nations people. The register was developed in collaboration between The National Justice Project and the at UTS.  

This public register enables Australians to bear witness to the often-painful realities of everyday racism, violence, and humiliation that First Nations people face, and that we would just rather not confront. This is an important first step, says Distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt OA, Director of Research at Jumbunna. 

“It's a cumulative process of storytelling and what makes it powerful is that it shows trends and different iterations and experiences of racism. It captures racism much more broadly than is defined in workplaces or other settings,” Professor Behrendt explains. 

"Racism’s impact on individuals is multi-faceted and leads to quite deep trauma that is often sitting on top of other trauma experiences, so it is important to validate people’s experiences of racism. I think what was striking about launching the website was that there was immediate take-up, so clearly there is a number of people already looking to tell their stories."

The data is held securely by the Jumbunna Institute to conduct evidence-based research that informs anti-racism action, supports the response of First Nations organisations and leaders, and helps educate the wider community. Such work is important to progressively impact public policy into the future, says Ariane Dozer, Project and Partnerships Manager at the National Justice Project. 

“We use these reports to educate communities and to put pressure on individuals, governments, and policymakers to take some action on these issues. The Call It Out tool is a way for us to point to evidence so we can show that the solutions are there and that there have been numerous reports about what needs to be done,” she says. 

The tool is especially important to understand the various ways racism comes to the fore, especially through mainstream channels and through systemic racism, says Jumbunna Professor Chris Cunneen. 

“Call It Out records a whole range of different types of racism. This might be interpersonal racism, or mainstream media, or it might be an instance of deep systemic racism, like discrimination in the housing market, in child protection, in policing or in education,” he explains. 

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Transcript

The Call It Out Tool is a First Nations racism register. It is an online register or website designed for people to be able to report all forms of racism and discrimination towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. People are constantly asking, "But what can I do to help?" And we are saying, "You can call it out." I hope that everybody across the university and beyond takes it upon themselves to call it out.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people know racism and discrimination exists. They've known it for a long time, but people aren't always heard or believed. So the purpose of collecting people's experiences of racism and discrimination is to have it held confidentially and analysed by the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research here at UTS.

The Call It Out register has one particularly important feature, and that is that it records a whole range of different types of racism. So it might be personal, interpersonal racism. It might be something in the media, it might be in social media, or it might be an incidence of systemic racism where people feel that they've been racially discriminated against.

We've already had over 300 registrations since March. To put that in context, that is more than what racial and anti-discrimination commissions in any state or territory would receive in a 12-month period.

To me, one of the really important things about the whole project is that it's a cumulative process of storytelling. And what makes it powerful is it shows trends and it shows different iterations and different experiences with racism. It captures racism much more broadly than it's often defined in workplaces or in other settings.

I think one of the things that we think deeply about at UTS is the kind of graduates that we send out into the world, and whatever they do, whether they're tax accountants, architects, nurses, we want them to be equipped to understand the environment they're working in and to understand how systemic racism works and how to identify it.

We can use this to educate the community and put pressure on individuals, governments, policy makers, to actually take some action about these issues. For higher education institutes like UTS, we have a really big commitment to our graduate attributes and see this kind of anti-racism work as a step in building that kind of experience and knowledge for our students.

The register fills an important void in Australia; while there have been surveys and projects previously related to recording racism against First Nations people in the past, they were always limited by either time or space. This has resulted in a gap between what is reported from official channels like the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board and the Human Rights Commission, and actual experiences of racism in the community. 

“Call It Out enables us to not only record an individual’s experience, but collate them with others and over time, so we are able to develop an archive on the nature and frequency of racism. On that basis of this evidence, we can advance law, policy, and collective strategies for change,” Professor Cunneen concludes. 

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