It was a July evening in 2016 outside the ABC studios in Sydney, a gaggle of right-wing demonstrators were locked in an argument with “left wing traitors” who were there to protest a Q&A appearance from One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.

“You’re a race traitor, a fucking textbook warrior,” a white man barked at a younger white man who called him a racist; in the background, a pair of bearded white fellows tightened their grip on the poles attached to an Australian flag.

“You get bashed up, you get woken up at 12 o’clock every night like my 14-year-old daughter when Middle-Easterns do drive-by shootings,” he continued.

Both sides of that argument believed they’d won. Six of them were arrested. Not a single person of colour was to be seen, at least not in the now-removed videos posted in their Facebook groups.

“I guess we were all busy working,” I joked to my colleague as we watched it unfold over social media.

I referred to this event as “the showdown”, a microcosm of how politics and the media typically approach people of colour in Australia, even with the best of intentions. Bravado and shouting about minorities who are treated as abstract concepts, disconnected from genuine experience and stripped away of nuance before invoking Hanson’s name like they’re pushing a new Godwin’s law. Most arguments about racism in this country sound exactly like “the showdown” in the eyes and ears of minorities and, Luke Foley’s “white flight” comments are just the most recent billing in the grotesque theatre of cultural tensions.

“White Flight” Is Not Alright

In the latest episode of “hold up, that’s pretty racist,” the NSW Labor leader Luke Foley last week used the term “white flight” to characterise a “slow decline” of suburbs where Anglo families are fleeing as migrant families were moving in. Foley defended the use of the phrase, saying it was an “academic term” before backpedalling completely and conceding it was “inappropriate”, before he cross-his-heart-hope-to-die vowed to never use it again.

Indeed “white flight” was an academic term. I’m sure there was also an academic term for measuring the cranium sizes of slaves. I can’t believe it needs to be said that it’s a fucked up thing to determine prosperity by shades of whiteness — a method used by your dentist to check if you’ve been brushing.

Foley can attribute as much blame to the Daily Telegraph as he wants but those words describing racially-motivated exodus still left his mouth.

pic.twitter.com/QpquwlI1Wy

— Luke Foley (@Luke_FoleyNSW) May 24, 2018

There is a truth to Foley’s comments and it’s consistent with his platform as the opposition leader so far. Western Sydney needs more infrastructure and investment to sustain a rapidly growing population and Foley has long championed the idea that a western Sydney airport was a key to this. He’s also correct in saying it’s unfair for one council to accept over 75 per cent of a projected refugee intake, which doesn’t receive nearly as much federal support as it should. Settlement data taken from just the first quarter of this year from the Department of Social Services shows that there are very few humanitarian intakes in the Sydney metropolitan region and in general, they’re significantly outnumbered by skilled migrants.

We Need To Talk About Western Sydney

However, that’s not the point. It’s the adages, specific omissions and the obvious political calculations in Foley’s comments that have created a furious response. It’s also a stark reminder that we are incapable of talking about western Sydney and ethnicity in an intelligent manner. During election season, western Sydney is made up of “battlers” and “salt-of-the-earth Aussies”. But at other times, like during the same-sex marriage plebiscite, the population constitutes intolerant minorities and alien species who, despite their penchant for gang crime, serve up really great cuisines.

The allure of “the showdown” during the Foley debacle has also distracted voters from recognising the problem of “white flight” is actually backwards. White communities aren’t dwindling, they’re just no longer able to keep migrant communities out and the failure to accept this has led to the “huge burden” experienced in southwest Sydney today.

There has been a long debate about whether the “white flight” phenomenon was racially or economically motivated and the answer is that it is both. Black families in the United States, the shackles of segregation loosened, moved away from the rural south towards more affluent enclaves, and higher property taxes and lower-quality public services followed in their wake.

The exodus of Anglo-Saxons in Australia isn’t a perfect translation, but there are parallels, such as the rarely mentioned fact that legislation and government policy has historically locked out non-whites, or in 21st century parlance, locked them into a different economic “class”.

Residential segregation in the past century has been repeatedly cited as a significant factor in dissimilarity and disenfranchisement experienced by minorities in urban areas. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in towns and cities gather in sub-groups, keeping to their own, and as a result experience constraints to their job prospects and essential services. This is true for First Nation Australians in every state and territory.

I lived in Fairfield for almost 25 years after my parents arrived as refugees from the Vietnam War and it’s much the same with respect to Asian populations. It’s also not a coincidence that so many migrant communities have been established in spitting distance of Villawood Detention Centre, where refugees and migrants were held and processed. Over 20 years earlier, my family and other people “fresh off the boat” had already been delivered their own version of “white plight.”

The core concern around “white flight” is based on poor arithmetic. It operates on an assumption that the resources invested into migrants won’t see a return on investment. Or worse yet, if there is a return it won’t be something white communities would be interested in.

Yes, the rule of averages means those at the top are dragged down closer to the centre, but affluent, or pre-affluent, people aren’t leaving areas like Fairfield and Guildford because minorities have placed a considerable strain on services. They’re leaving because western Sydney isn’t the oasis politicians like Foley make it out to be and the white people who had better opportunities to pursue a better life just want to GTFO.

People are leaving western Sydney because they don’t see a future there, not as long as it is still being treated like the bottom rung on the ladder to success. Also it’s too far away from the CBD and the public transport system in NSW was clearly designed by a metal demon that escaped from a screaming mirror.

It’s ultimately a loss for everyone. For minorities it means a reinforcement of low-quality services and increased burden on local governments, leading to further disparity. For those leaving, it means having to dole out increased costs of living in an already crowded and competitive housing market only to suffer a reduction of services because demand outpaces growth. A considerable chunk of the stagnation experienced by people of all colours seems to be self-inflicted and we seem to be in deep denial about this.

But “the showdown” is still fun, right?

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Kevin Nguyen was a western Sydney council reporter for Fairfax Media. He is currently a journalist with Storyful and is the digital director of Media Diversity Australia. Follow him on Twitter @cog_ink