According to the Australian Human Rights Commission, racism can take many forms and includes offensive comments or jokes, verbal abuse, harassment or intimidation, commentary in the media which inflames hostility towards certain racial groups, and the unfair treatment of people because of their race.
Institutional racism
Luke Pearson, Gamilaroi man, founder and CEO of IndigenousX, explains how institutional racism perpetuates white privilege, even if individual white people do not perceive themselves as racist.
If you remove most of the explicit rules enforcing whiteness…but you do not change or challenge the social norms and the thinking that underpinned it, you see a continuation of the status quo within [institutions] – disparities in power, in representation, in decision making, in reaping the benefits of these institutions […]
For those who are experiencing the barriers of exclusion within these institutions the continuation and perpetuation of racism is obvious, but for those who think racism is only encapsulated by the dictionary definitions…they do not see it. They cannot see it. They don’t want to see it. And their inability to confront it ensures its perpetuation. – Luke Pearson, CEO of IndigenousX