Today I took a train out to Liverpool.
Let me guess, you think Liverpool, you think Western suburbs. You think western suburbs, you think a dodegy place in the middle of nowhere, crawling with gang rapists dressed in trackies and sneakers hiding drugs in the bum bags they sling around their shoulder.
You think western suburbs, you think muslim land. Chinatown. Whatever.
No place for a fifteen year old girl.
But hey, I've been there, and made it out alive.
Changed slightly, but alive.
And no, I did not get raped.
On the train, I discovered that it's slightly disconcerting being the only "australian" on the train. All this got me thinking, because well there's nothing much you can do on an hour train trip through the middle of nowhere besides stare out, into no where. Or count trees, if you're the mathematical type.
Why are ethnic groups, such as the Lebanese all to be found in just the one place? And in other places, like the shire there are hardly none.
A geographer would say it has something to do with the cost of living. A religious figure would say it was just the calling of a religious being.
The geographer is being stereotypical, I mean surely not all Lebanese/ muslim/ asian people are struggling financially.
So what is it?
Is it just us "Australian's" being racist, and basically squishing all the different people in our cities into one small, deserted corner?
And why, are these places stereotyped as being the bad side of town?
