Right Pulse

The 1995 publication entitled “The End of Racism”, by Indian migrant to the USA Dinesh D’Souza, coined a phrase ‘rational discrimination’. This is when certain groups are discriminated against, not based on socially destructive motives, but for reasons that are perfectly rational. We have a home grown example of this, with the Anti-Discrimination Commission in Queensland having failed in its legal bid to have Boeing prosecuted:

In a landmark decision, Boeing has won support to ban existing and prospective employees, born in US terrorist-proscribed countries, from working on locally based projects involving the US military, despite opposition from Australia’s Anti-Discrimination Commissions, unions and human rights groups….

The countries banned by the US Government are Belarus, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Burma, China, Liberia, Sudan, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Lebanon, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Somalia.

This has nothing to do with race, but is based on nationality and the threat assessments of those nationalities. Is excluding non-Australian citizens from employment in national security areas of government racist also? If a naturalised Australian from Iran applied for a government job in national security that required a Top Secret security clearance, I’d think it highly unlikely they would satisfy security requirements and obtain employment. This would not be racist, but a rational response to the heightened security risk they represent because of their national background. It is the risk presented not the person’s skin colour that is the issue.