Sudanese activist Gor, acknowledged that crime is a problem for some newly settled African families, mostly of refugee backgrounds, dealing with the pressures of intergeneration trauma from the onset of conflicts. But he was keen to dispel double standards in media coverage and national political debates when it comes to young African men.

“There are young people involved in crime from many backgrounds including Anglo Australians, however when they commit crime ethnicity is not an issue” he told Quartz from Melbourne.

Sudan-born criminal offenders represent only 1.5% of all crimes committed in the state of Victoria, home to diverse African communities mostly from Eritrea, Ethiopia and more recently South Sudan. Australian-born offenders make up the majority of crimes committed and overall crime by young people under 25 has continued to fall in the past decade.

Victoria police has responded to the almost racialized debate by trying to remind the Australian public that the moniker of ‘gang’ is unsuitable and unhelpful.

Eunice Gibboyi, chairperson of the Afro Australian Student Organisation, has been working with the police and other multicultural organizations in developing more nuanced understandings of community policing with African communities who face the challenges of being stopped and frisked simply because of their.

“It is difficult to fit two identities into one…you kind have to mold yourself into …a a society that is probably not in favor of you. If there wasn’t an African Australian stereotype before, there’s definitely one now” she told Quartz.

Australia’s race relations have worsened under successive conservative governments with continuing institutional discrimination towards Aboriginal peoples and a White Australia Policy, which restricted immigration for non-whites until 1972. Australian celebrities and sports people still routinely don blackface unapologetically.

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