By Content warning: this article contains discussion around racial slurs.
Australian TV commentator and journalist, Peter Gleesons, has infuriated global audiences with his blatant use of racial slurs in an opinion piece published by Australia’s Sunday Telegraph.
The paragraph in question uses the terms “negroes” and cites that Australia’s protests against police brutality in response to the Black Lives Matter movement are “idiotic”.
The article has since been updated online and digitally syndicated across Australia via the News Corp’s distribution network. The updated version reads:
“The reality in this country – and the United States – is that the greatest danger to Aborigines and African-Americans is themselves. The protests are facile and irrelevant because police and indigenous (sic) deaths in custody are a small part of the complex jigsaw puzzle that goes into making black (sic) lives matter.”
The word “Aborigine,” used alongside the term ‘negroe’ was also used by Gleeson in the article, has been regarded as inappropriate since the 1960s and has caused further outrage within Australia’s indigenous communities.
Comments online reflect the outrage of the communities, with Sian Lilley expressing her thoughts:
Bigoted and harmful views should not be published in newspapers. Your personal opinion belongs in your personal journal at home. The views expressed by Peter Gleeson are outdated and have no evidence to support them as truth. The resilience, strength and adaptability of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people deserves far more respect than Peter Gleeson has ever earnt (sic). He should not only be fired, but he should be fined. Freedom of speech is not freedom of consequence.
Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash
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