This is absolutely embarrassing and shows the lack of racial awareness and understanding which permeates throughout Australia and its white centric institutions and political pillars. Woollahra Council, which is considered as one of the more affluent councils in Sydney and located in Sydney’s East, just a day ago voted down a motion to remove anti-racist signage in it local council area. The biggest problem is the motion was voted down literally by a hair. It was a very close vote with 8 votes wanting to keep the signs and 7 to remove. Geez…. the caliber of racial understanding in Australia is terrible if you look at this vote.
The narrow verdict came after three Liberal councillors proposed the removal of 12 signs on the basis they gave the “false impression that Woollahra locals are racists”, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
One of the councillors who voted to remove the signs is Liberal councillor Mary-Lou Jarvis. Jarvis was also very rigid in her views that she didn’t even accept a proposed compromise to remove the signs from residential areas and only have them on public areas. Here is what she said (via Sydney Morning Herald):
“It’s wokeism writ large and has created division where there wasn’t any before. This is all about making people feel good rather than taking actions to reduce racism,”
“I hope the people who got us into this mess feel good about what they’ve done,”
As usual, being a privileged white woman who has some political power, she used the excuse that she doesn’t want the council to engage in “race based politics” and said some stuff about “political correctness” etc etc…..usual shit.
The failed motion proposed by Liberal councillors Toni Zeltzer and Peter Cavanagh argued the signs were unjustified because there were insufficient “reports of racist incidents, name-calling or violence of any kind” – again another deflection about the issue.
The good news is the signs remain, but don’t expect these jelly councillors to stay silent about it. If you are interested in checking out the “Racism Not Welcome” project, please click here.
Images via News.com.au