‘We’re not being hypersensitive’

Not funny: Racist joke on 2 Broke Girls makes fun of Aboriginal people. Picture: Channel 9 Source: News Limited

CARLA McGrath does not think being told to "lighten up" over a racist joke aired on popular American comedy show 2 Broke Girls is at all amusing.

Australia's former prime minister Kevin Rudd has called on the show to apologise after a recent episode featured a male character describing an Australian girl he had been flirting with as "part Aboriginal, but she has a great personality!".

Ms McGrath, head of sustainability at the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence, said that she had been disappointed the general reaction to a news.com.au article on the offensive joke was that indigenous people should "lighten up" and stop being so precious.

"Being a Torres Straight Islander woman working in this space, very little surprises me. It's interesting when we have, as Australians, this idea that everybody needs to lighten up, that things aren't that bad and we should be able to make jokes about whatever we like, whenever we like."

RELATED: 2 Broke Girls slammed for racist joke

"It's not about being hypersensitive ... do we want to create a society where it's OK to say to any young person the things that were said on that TV program? I don't think we do, I don't think that any person would think that if it was about their own child or their own family.

"There is absolutely a place for comedy, I think what is being missed about this is that impact about everyday casual racism of the people who are targets. It is real and it is great and when we're talking about generations, we have a growing population, and that is a whole huge growing generation of young impressionable people," she said.

"And if that's what the General Australian narrative is saying to them about their worth, there's no way that you can believe that there's not an impact that comes from that.

"For so long Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people have been positioned as the other and it's become OK to say stuff, and if we let it slide we're doing irreparable damage."

Carla McGrath (centre) with two other indigenous women who travelled to Canberra to meet with female parliamentarians in 2011. Source: News Corp Australia

Ms McGrath said she had not watched the 2 Broke Girls episode but her first thought on reading about it was "where has that come from? How has that perception manifested itself at an international level?"

She said that her organisation was called the National Centre of indigenous Excellence and this was in direct response to the negative perceptions held by the general public.

"The change of language was intentional here, it is very important ... it's an intentional way of changing that conversation.

"That's very much what this story is all about, people have very different views about what impact language can have on people. But I don't think anyone generally believes that if you tell a young person they are worthless, or that they are disadvantaged enough times in their life that eventually it's not going to have some kind of impact.

"Really the two things are quite closely linked, that very intentional shift in language and conversation is exactly what we're trying to embody in what we do, and seeing these things pop up in our everyday conversation, on our television screens, sadly it doesn't surprise me."

Ms McGrath said she hoped Channel 9 would eventually give a meaningful response.

"Whether we like to believe it or not, racism exists in Australia, and it is in a variety of forms, it can be very in your face and it can be much more covert, such as a line in a television program.

"Young people do and young people are consuming this stuff consistently. It's very unfortunate that our youth suicide rates are higher than any others in this nation, its abominable."

Carla McGrath meeting with Tony Abbott last year. Source: News Limited

"Absolutely my hope is that these conversations are had more and more, that the position of society of what is and is not racism becomes more clear and we as a nation say it is not acceptable.

"Everyone has a right to an opinion, this is not an infringement on someone's right to be funny, but rather there are ways and means to have these conversations in a comical way and still not be offensive and still not have a negative impact on young people because it is speaking straight to the heart of where they come from and who they are."

"This country - we have our issues, we have a problem with racism but we can all start to come together around an understanding and an appreciation of the uniqueness of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Island people and our future together."

"Our young people are the leaders of our country moving forward and we can't sweep it under the rug."

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