Be careful who you’re calling racist

When Swinburne University academic Dr Stephane Shepherd co-authored a paper with fellow Swinburne scholar Dr Benjamin Spivak on the high prevalence of Sudanese crime in Victoria, he was no doubt mindful of how the narrative might be used. On March 25, Shepherd released an article for the ABC in which he discussed the higher rates of imprisonment for African Australian youth, and a significantly higher rate of “crimes against the person” by South Sudanese-born youth. These crimes are more likely to receive custodial sentences, as they include serious offences like assault and robbery.  

The article went on to explain that if racial profiling was as prevalent as activists would have us believe, then other subgroups of…