Actor Nakkiah Lui Has Shared A Video Of A Horrific Racist Incident In A Sydney Supermarket

Actor and playwright Nakkiah Lui has taken to Twitter after experiencing a harrowing racist attack in a Western Sydney supermarket, saying “I’m shaking right now” after the event.

If you’ve ever entertained the concept that Australia isn’t a country with deep and abiding racism at its heart, you really need to read through her story and watch this confronting video.

“For far too many people, the behaviour of the woman was very familiar to their own experiences with racism,” Lui told Junkee.

Lui tweeted that she and her mother were shopping in St Marys in Western Sydney, standing near a Sudanese family, when a white woman walked past and said “spot the Aussie”.

Lui’s mum confronted the woman, who allegedly replied “Yep, I am a racist and I’m proud of it.”

I’m shaking right now. I’m at the shopping centre waiting to buy some bread with my mum, an Indian server and next to a Sudanese lady.

An old White lady walks past and says “Spots the Aussie”

The looks on the family and server were heartbreaking. My mother and I were shocked.

— Nakkiah Lui (@nakkiahlui) October 22, 2019

I look at mum is utter disbelief and mum says “Yes, she said it”

So mum marches over to her and says “excuse me, I heard you say ‘spot the Aussie’ and that was racist”

She says, proudly, “Yep, I am a racist and I’m proud of it.”

I chime in “That’s disgusting”

— Nakkiah Lui (@nakkiahlui) October 22, 2019

Nakkiah, who is a 28-year-old Gamillaroi/Torres Strait Islander woman said: “The lady then proceeded to tell me to ‘Go back to where you come from’ This is the second time this year that someone in my family in a supermarket has been told ‘Go back to where you come from'”.

Lui caught the event on camera, and later posted it to her Twitter account, saying “This is the type of acceptable hate that breeds and grows until it’s rampant in society.”

So after she told me to go back to where I came from this happened. When I got my camera out, she said she was saying “Spot the Aussie” to her friend – which makes it no better & that I shouldnt call her racist because shes “terminally ill” – which also doesn’t excuse racism. https://t.co/pyapDslGgO pic.twitter.com/ewmL1LPuQM

— Nakkiah Lui (@nakkiahlui) October 22, 2019

Since posting the video, Nakkiah and her mother have been praised online for calling out racism.

Good on you for speaking up.

I know a lot of people will use class and lack of education as a way of excusing racism but plenty of lower/working class and people without education aren’t racist and hateful. And there are plenty of rich, educated racists.

— Benjamin Law 羅旭能 (@mrbenjaminlaw) October 22, 2019

Junkee reached out to Lui, to ask about the response since she posted the video online.

“Unfortunately videos of people being racist in public in Australia are pretty common, so many people seem unsurprised,” she said. “For far too many people, the behaviour of the woman was very familiar to their own experiences with racism. When you’ve experienced racism, so often when sharing your experience you are met with disbelief. People who are empowered by their race often don’t want to believe racism exists.”

“It’s a catch 22, you aren’t believed or you record the abuse and then you’re the problem. What that does is justify the racism against the victim, it makes them seem like they deserve it and that makes the racism ‘less bad’ and it makes the empowered race feel better and not guilty that they are empowered by their race.”

What makes me sad about this is that she’s clearly not an empowered person. This happened in St Marys,a low socio economic area. This woman left the supermarket with no name bread and chicken. Theyre the foot soldiers of Whiteness, of a system that they’re not even empowered by.

— Nakkiah Lui (@nakkiahlui) October 22, 2019

Lui also told us that people have attacked her decision to film and post the racist attack online.

“There’s been a very small minority who have opposed the video as a ‘public shaming’. Usually these comments are a Trojan horse for people wanting to defend the racist comments. That woman shamed herself in public when she repeatedly made racist attacks in a public place. Why don’t we look at people attacking others for their race as a public shaming? Myself, Mum, and the other people of colour were just exisiting in public and she shamed us for that because of our race and skin. The issue is, why is this racism allowed and so blatant? You won’t stop ‘public shamings’ unless you fix the actual issue.”

Thank you everyone for the support. Im fine but the Sudanese family has two young children. Her remarks were and traumatising. The msg to these kids is that they are less than, they don’t belong here and someone else (someone white) is the arbiter of the value of their existence.

— Nakkiah Lui (@nakkiahlui) October 22, 2019

However, while Lui says the “support has been overwhelming”, she also notes that the number of people who are telling her “about being in similar situations, experiencing the same behaviour, is frightening.”

“As an adult, encounters like this leave me shaken up and confused. The people the woman directed her comments to included two children of colour. Children. Her remarks were dehumanising and traumatising. The message to these kids is that they aren’t entitled to occupy the space they inhabit, that they are somehow lesser than, and someone else (someone white) is the arbiter of the value of their existence.

“It takes years to unpick that. And that racism eats away at people, it’s why Aboriginal youth suicide is the highest in the country. This happened to me, a fair skin, middle class Aboriginal person just waiting to buy bread. Imagine what it is like for people of colour who have darker skin or “less white” features, who are in lower socioeconomic economic areas, who are in more vulnerable situations?”