An Indian woman has claimed Australia is an ‘extremely racist country’ after she was subjected to a raft of cruel remarks and acts because of the colour of her skin.
Alexis Dennis, who has over 20,000 social media followers, has posted two TikTok videos about her many experiences of racism in Australia since her family moved to Melbourne in 2008 when she was six years old.
This included having her family home’s back fence daubed with racist graffiti.
‘My family and I got this graffiti,’ Ms Dennis said.
A photo of the fence showed an offensive message scrawled across it: ‘I hate Indina’s [sic].’
Ms Dennis speculated someone had heard her Indian father on the phone and picked up his accent with the offensive message now covered by council.
She said her experience with racism in Australia started in her ‘predominantly white populated school’, when she was just six.
‘Someone in the class asked me why my skin was so dirty,’ she said.
TikTok influencer Alexis Dennis said she had been picked on for being Indian since moving to Australia 16 years ago
‘I went home and cried my eyes out. I thought people actually thought that I was dirty.’
She added: ‘The boy who was known to be the class clown made a song up about me singing it with a comedic Indian accent, singing with my name, singing about how I carry around a pot of curry, I worship cows, I this, I that.’
‘I realised that people didn’t like me because I’m Indian and I am different to them,’ Ms Dennis said.
‘This was a really hard realisation for me.’
She said that sub-consciously she became a ‘self-hating Indian’.
‘I liked to put myself down before other people could put me down,’ she said.
Ms Dennis said that she experienced a ‘lot more racism’ after she started dating.
‘Every time guys would ask me where I was from I would avoid the question like the plague,’ she said.
Ms Dennis said if she told potential suitors she was Indian there would be two replies: ‘Nah. you’re too hot to be Indian’ or ‘Oh yeah, I could tell you’re Indian’ but then they would insult her.
‘I’ve had guys tell me, “You are really pretty but I probably wouldn’t date you because I just can’t stand Indians”,’ she said.
‘The majority of men in my life I am talking even friends, not just guys that I’ve been with, bag on my country, bag on the food from my country, the clothes from my country, the traditions from my country.
Ms Dennis shared racist graffiti that had been daubed on the back fence of her family’s Melbourne home
‘They really like to stick to the stereotypes, so dating is pretty hard when you live in a western country as a race people tend not to like.’
In a second TikTok, Ms Dennis said she had received a lot of ‘vicious’ comments from her previous observations and gave a ‘disclaimer’.
‘I am extremely grateful to live in Australia but I am still allowed to talk about my negative experiences that I’ve had in this country,’ she said.
Ms Dennis said she often felt very ‘insecure’ and ‘very out of place’ in Australia.
‘I generally by default believe people will not like me just because I am Indian,’ she said.
Social media users were quick to share their own experiences – revealing they had similar encounters in their lives.
‘This is so true and most of us Indians growing up in Australia have faced this unfortunately,’ one wrote.
‘I’m Anglo Indian and live in Melbourne,’ another said.
‘Born and raised here, but I deffs have seen and felt what you have described in your videos. When I was younger especially, I know it’s hard to comprehend.’
‘I am Sri Lankan and I used to bullied by my own classmates when I was 6 all the way to year 6,’ a third said.
‘But then a new kid joined and he was Indian and since that do I I could never relate to someone more.’
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk