Skin deep; Intolerance and the youth of Australia

4.15
‘ding, ding’
The monotone droll of the school bell shocks me from my transcendent state and into the real world. Friday detention has just ended. “Students, you may go now”, the teacher folds her Vogue as I leave with the glassy eyed derelicts and self proclaimed rebels of our school.

I run the the train station to see my train driving off just as I arrive. Great. Twenty minutes until the next train arrives. I look for a place to sit, the train station has two benches. One bench is crowded, with five or six teenagers, not much older then me, crammed on to one bench, all silent and listening to ipods, and another with one girl sitting alone. She is Islamic and is wearing a Hijab as she reads ‘Twilight’. As I sit down next to the girl I wonder why is it that people would rather cram themselves uncomfortably on to one bench then sit next to someone who just looks different?

Intolerance. We couldn’t be an intolerant nation, could we?”. ‘No’ most of us would think, thinking of intolerance you would think of the segregation of blacks from whites in America and the stolen generation of Aboriginees. That is all in the past No-one would think that in the twenty-first century in a multicultural nation with no state religion intolerance would be so prominent, right? However, unfortunately, amongst the youth of Australia, it is.

The youth of Australia. The generation Ys. We believe we aren’t rascist, we couldn’t be!We’re more connected to the world than ever. Yet how come gay teenagers are being bashed and driven to depression, how come over 5000 youths banded at Cronulla beach to bash anyone of Middle Eastern appearance?

A sullen looking boy on the other bench pulls out his phone and logs on to facebook. The next generations of young Australians tweens, teenagers and people in their early twenties are using the internet to connect more and more. The internet, most young people spend more than their fair share of time using it. The internet is really useful for finding information and communicating with people all around the globe. Understanding how other people live is so much easier than fifty years ago when we got most of our information about others from gossip. However the internet has been abused and utilised as a tool to spread a message of intolerance and hate through groups on social networking websites, websites, blogs and video websites.

How young does intolerance start? Children as young as eight are calling people and things “Gay”, how is it children as young as eight are critisising people by slandering their sexual orientation?. Young girls are calling themselves and other fat when they have a perfectly normal body, why?, because the beauty ideal in Australian media is the impossibly beautiful, slender model. In Australia the average age of an Anorexia sufferer is now twelve and children as young as seven and eight are being treated for the disorder everyday.

In the eyes of the law, Australia is a multicultural and tolerant nation – all citizens over the age of eighteen have the right to vote regardless of size, race, gender or religion and all children can recieve an education regardless of size, race, gender or religion. All Australians are entitled to public healthcare and welfare if needed. So what is the issue?
Sitting here, I am realising it’s the attitudes of young Australians that need to change. We need to stop judging people on appearances. Acceptance – that’s what matters.