Everything Old is New Again

I am old enough to remember when the news was on they only referred to "the Thai Prime Minister" or "the German president" or whatever - never their names, just their titles. It was the same time when people would comment "good ol' Aussie name" and then laugh when someone with a European name was playing football, or in the Olympics or whatever. The "boat people" were coming so they weren't vaguely considered as "Australian" at the time, even after their refugee status was approved.

Some of it was certainly racist, some of it was ignorance (I mean who wanted to get one of those complicated foreign -type names wrong), and some of it was just adjusting to living in a country where everyone wasn't white and of English extraction.

SBS helped a lot.

I realize how far we have come when I consider "the Icelandic volcano" that has caused so many problems of late. Yes the famous Eyjafjallajokul :-) I am not pretending I can pronounce it. I have heard Robby Buck on ABC local say it - but he appears to be the only one on either station that is willing to give it a go, or get in the ballpark. It just brings back memories and makes me appreciate that we don't really use generic terms anymore - we,a s a country, have grown up a bit in my lifetime.