Actor's racism claim backedOne of New Zealand's most popular Maori entertainers has supported US actor Laurence Fishburne's claim that racism is alive in Australia.
"There's a definite superiority complex with regard to colour in Australia," Sir Howard Morrison said.
Morrison, 69, whose family of singers and actors includes Once Were Warriors actor Temuera Morrison, told the New Zealand Herald today.
"It's a peculiar situation in Australia," said Morrison, who has visited New Zealand's closest neighbour regularly since the 1950s.
"Anyone coffee-coloured or black doesn't fit into the culture that Australians feel comfortable with."
Morrison was commenting on remarks by the African-American actor Fishburne, about a "racist vibe" in Australia after he was mistaken for a "Maori bloke" when he first began filming the Matrix film trilogy in Australia in 1997.
Fishburne told The Sydney Morning Herald he felt a wariness and unease among people who assumed him to be Maori or Polynesian.
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Advertisement"There was a definite vibe," he said.
"I wouldn't even say it was hostility ... but there was a wariness and unease."
Fishburne, 44, said it was not until he gained greater recognition through The Matrix and two sequels that attitudes changed.
Morrison told the New Zealand Herald that Australia was "keeping apartheid alive" and was getting worse every year.
He said that when he was young, many Australians had served alongside Maori in World War II, but that generation was now disappearing.
He said racist attitudes came from the top down, with Prime Minister John Howard refusing to apologise to Aborigines for "the persecutions of the past".
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/03/30/1111862439074.html?oneclick=true
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