Sunrise have been called out yet again for using their national platform to discuss race with an all white television panel.
On Sunday morning the hosts of Sunrise were joined by Gretel Killeen and Tim Ross to discuss a statement by the United Nations which warned that racism was on the rise in the Australian government and media.
Nation of Racists? United Nations says racism is "on the rise" in Australia and calls for section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act to be strengthened. More: https://yhoo.it/2BiHXjE #sun7
Posted by Sunrise on Saturday, 9 December 2017
How ironic that one of Australia’s largest morning shows would use their platform to discuss racism in the media by excluding the voices that racism affects most. It’s not the first time either. In the last few months we have called out Sunrise and the TODAY show for holding similar style debates on Indigenous issues. In October Sunrise used an all white panel to debate whether it would be appropriate to hold citizenship ceremonies during NAIDOC week. In the same month another all white panel decided that cultural appropriation was not offensive.
We will continue to call them out until they can figure out how to stop making such basic mistakes. Shout out to Gretel Killeen for pointing out the white privilege that was occurring on National Television.
There were so many flaws in the rest of the debate however with Samatha Armytage trying to divert the attention away from Australia by saying that all countries have racism. It was also suggested by Tim Ross that casual racism isn’t sinister and that Australian’s wouldn’t tolerate someone like Donald Trump gaining power in Australia even though support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation continues to grow to new heights never seen before.
