Xenophobia and nationalism

What we are seeing today is a real evolution of racist sentiment. Whereas once we would have understood racism - I'm using racism and xenophobia interchangeably here - only in the sense that a lot of racist sentiment is directed at those who are not regarded as part of Australian society, who come here as migrants. While in the past racism typically involved the doctrinal belief in superiority, its expression today need not be predicated on a view of racial superiority. I would say that racial hostility, even if it's born of ignorance or fear, could still rightly be described as racist. You don't need to necessarily subscribe to biological racist theories in order to do or say things that have racist implications. In other words, you don't need to be a card-carrying member of an organized racist movement in order to engage in xenophobia or racism. I only mention this because I believe that in our public discourse today there still remains a great deal of resistance to recognising or acknowledging or labelling things as xenophobic or racist, because we have in our heads that you need to be an egregious moral character or essentially a Nazi in order to be a racist. And I don't believe that is the right approach to these issues.