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He leads Australia's national fight against racism and he's not afraid to say the system was built to exclude people like him.

Giridharan Sivaraman became Race Discrimination Commissioner months after the Voice referendum failed. In this conversation he tells the true story of Fatima, a qualified engineer who never once heard a slur but was pushed out of the workforce by racism so structural she didn't even recognise it as racism. He explains why he opens every public appearance with an Acknowledgement of Country even though he isn't Aboriginal, why anti-Indian hate is now one of the fastest growing forms of racism in this country, and why he believes freedom from humiliation matters more than freedom of speech.

This is a conversation about power, about who gets to belong, and about what it actually takes to dismantle a system built to keep some people out.

Resources and Links
National Anti-Racism Framework — humanrights.gov.au
Racism at Universities report — Australian Human Rights Commission
Stan Grant, "The Australian Dream" speech
Racial Justice Centre — racialjusticecentre.au

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Co-host Prabha Nandagopal is the founder of Elevate Consulting Partners, providing expert consulting on workplace culture, positive duty compliance, and human rights. Learn more at elevateconsultingpartners.com.au

Prabha also founded SafeSpace@Elevate, Australia's first trauma informed workplace reporting platform. Learn more at safespaceelevate.com.au

This episode of Culture Capital is brought to you by BlackCard, Australia's leading Aboriginal owned cultural capability training organisation. Learn more at theblackcard.com.au

Culture Capital is produced by the BlakCast Network