More on Harry Connick Jr. and Sol Trujillo...

An Aussie friend pointed out that Australians have no history of racial discrimination toward people of African or Mexican heritage, and because of that they weren't being racist in the cases I wrote about in the previous blog. The Aussies were just being funny--in an Australian context. Harry Connick Jr and Sol Trujillo were seeing the Aussie humour through their own American context--laden with American racist baggage--and interpreted it as something other than it was intended. As my friend concluded, "We're a weird mob." Ironically, that's also the title of an Aussie movie about Italian immigrants trying to survive racism in post WWII Australia.