Why are the Rainbow People Letting Themselves Down with Racism?

I call my fellow Aussies the rainbow people, and before I move into the question of racism in my psychic reading editorial this week, let me explain why I do that.

The Rainbow People

When I was a young child and learning about the psychic arts I was guided that many people from all over the world would travel to live in Australia, and the spiritual words I heard were, "colors of the rainbow".

When I was born, the white Australia policy dictated who could come to live in Australia. Anyone who had an English heritage had our nation's arms extended out to them. Then after World War 2 in 1949, we allowed people of European descent to come to our country to start anew, and to build the Snowy Mountain scheme. The aboriginal people who had been living here for more than 40,000 years were not even considered citizens of our Australian 'nation' until the referendum of 1967.

As a young child I remember the first time I realized that our skin was irrelevant to our spiritual essence. My favourite doll was one I created myself. Her name was KerryAnne, she looked androgynous and had two colors. I had put the head of one doll and the body of another together and couldn't have imagined that this was unusual. It might have seemed to be way out there in the 1960's, but I loved that doll with all of my heart and I wouldn't let anyone interfere with her unique multi-color appearance.

I remember when the boat people started to arrive. I was watching a news coverage on black and white TV of some people who were uniquely beautiful and looked tired, stressed and needing a place to rest after escaping war in their country. The boat people of Vietnam I knew were some of the "colors of the rainbow" my spiritual guardians had guided me about.


I was so happy the new people were beginning to arrive and I jumped up and down and rejoiced at how all the other people from all different cultures would soon be arriving on our shores. I also equally love and respect the aboriginal people of our country. When I heard the didgeridoo playing it sent me into a light trance and I felt that I had walked the desert plains in another lifetime and loved how I was spiritually similar to the first people. They knew the importance of nature and our environment and lived with complete acceptance of the knowing that we must treat them with respect.

At this stage of my childhood I felt that I was in heaven.

But at that young age I was not fully aware how appallingly the aboriginal people of our country were treated by the first Europeans to arrive here. And little did I know that each wave of new people would also be treated as inferior human beings by many of those already here.

So many of us are ruled by our fears of the new, and try as hard as we can to hold back the things that we see as different from us. Often we do this to our own detriment.

Even when the arrival of each new wave of boat people widens our experiences, makes us more capable and enlightened and enriches our nation as a whole, we still fear them and the change they herald.

But shooting the messengers of change never stops the change, it still comes.

Racism

Today in the city, I overheard two guys talking to each other about going to Crown Casino. They said, "Let's go to the Casino and play Spot The Aussie".

They weren't simply commenting on the increased number of Chinese tourists coming to our Casino. They were seeing the new people as different than themselves, as inferior and yet more privileged than themselves, and there was a sense of resentment behind the statement.


Racism is the word we use when someone treats a person from a different race or culture as inferior to themselves. It stems from fear that is always in the background waiting to fill the void created by lack of knowledge and ignorance of truth.

The truth is that we are all the same, we're all individuations of the ONE and what we do to others, we do to ourselves.

The Illusion of Separation

The illusion of separation allows us to perceive difference between two or more things, which in turn allows us to experience all of what we are. Our problems start when we believe that this illusion of separation is real instead of a device.



So let's get stuck into the muck and mire of experience to look at how believing in separation causes racism and added suffering in our lives:

In Australia this week, racism reared it's ugly head once again on our national TV with the subject of Asylum seekers living in Australia under Bridging Visas. (A Current Affair - Who's Living Next Door). This is a difficult problem as it deals with people who have already suffered much hardship. Great care and understanding of everybody involved is required to deal with it in a way that will not cause more hardship.

And yet the TV reporter called the Bridging Visa a "Get out of jail card". Thus making the assertion that anyone with a Bridging Visa should be in jail and is therefore a criminal.

This was followed with the statement:
"Now, we're not saying anyone seen in our story tonight has ever committed a criminal offence while in our community, in fact I found every one of our interviewees incredibly polite and desperately struggling, BUT, there have been at least, 10 criminal incidents allegedly committed by people on bridging visas. Including an alleged sexual assault at this University (picture of Macquarie University), and an indecent assault on two girls who attended a celebrity event at this shopping centre."


Of the reported 11,500+ asylum seekers living on bridging visas in Australia, the one "alleged sexual assault" crime represents .008%, whereas the Australian national figure for sexual assault is .07%.

The "10 criminal incidents" represents just .08% of the asylum seekers on bridging visas, whereas the percentage for property crimes alone in the broader community of Australia is 3.4%. This means that statistically, you are significantly safer amongst asylum seekers on bridging visas, than elsewhere in Australia. (2011 Australian Crime Statistics)

But none of this was reported on the A Current Affair programme. Instead they used inflammatory language such as:

"Gangs of men roam our streets".

When a national TV programme pushes the false idea that all those on Bridging Visas are criminals, it drives a separating wedge between us, and gives voice to those who wish to express extreme views, like these comments on the A Current Affair FaceBook page:

"Long as they don't cut our heads off like in culturally enriched Britain, that would not be nice"

"Lets see some australians being given all of this assistance!!"

"They are not coming to my house they can go back to where they came from sinking boat or not"

"Bring back the gun"

"Send them back tighten the rules set up detention centres in the outback or country of origin.. keep them out of our suburbs and cities. We dont want them here"


Television programmes like this only inflame the problems and give no solutions other than a continuation of the established system that caused the suffering in the first place. Is it any surprise then that people vote for those politicians who offer more of the same suffering through a continuation of the same system, based on the lie of separation.

The lie in this message is that more separation will cause peace. The Truth is exactly the opposite.

Coming together causes peace and joy. Greater separation causes more pain and hardship. When we ignore the plight of asylum seekers whether illegal or legal, de-humanise them, treat them inhumanly and send them home without conscious, we do not learn from the experience. And instead of solving the problem, we perpetuate it.

We are ALL the victims of this unbalanced way of life.

The only way we can solve the problem of racism in our world is to realise that we are all ONE and what we do to others, we do to ourselves. When we realize that separation is only an illusionary device that allows us to experience ourselves, we will finally be able to experience all of our beautiful diversity without causing added suffering.

The more we separate ourselves from one another and see ourselves as different, the more suffering we experience. But when we come together we experience the peace of union, fear is dissolved and racism disappears.

We are the Rainbow People. We are all ONE.

Love and Light
Vine

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