Mahalia Barnes reveals racism battle

After taking to the stage on Wednesday night at the Premier's Harmony Dinner in Sydney, Mahalia Barnes and Prinnie Stevens reiterated just how important it is for multicultural communities to unite and educate the wider Australia, as racism continues to thrive.

Speaking to Be at the event organised by Multicultural NSW, singer Mahalia admitted she and her family have been targeted by bigoted comments.

"I’m Thai, Scottish, Australian and part Chinese, and I’ve been told that because I’m married to a white Australian, I'm participating in white genocide," the daughter of famous Australian country musician Jimmy Barnes said.

"It's a long game really but I’m here to slowly breed out all white people apparently," she elaborated on the insinuations made by online trolls.

The 35-year-old, who shares two young daughters with husband Ben Rodgers, says it's easier for racist comments to slip through the cracks due to social media.

"Social media can be a really ugly thing as well as an amazing tool," she told Be.

"There’s fantastic stuff that has come from the accessibility of social media such as being able to see people from all walks of life. It also means that people control and have a voice.

"We’re both pretty thick skinned, but we’ve certainly faced a fair bit of trolling online with some pretty horrible things that can be said," she continued.

"But you know what, at the same time, these people having a voice, I think they are getting fewer and fewer as time goes on and I hope that more open-minded and kind-hearted people are also going to learn to actually speak up and see things that are out of line."

Mahalia says an area in which representation is gradually increasing is Australian television.

"It is very important for me to see more and more as time goes on, more and more different types of faces, skin colors and genders on TV," she said.

"It’s really important and I think it’s really important for my children. I’ve got two beautiful girls. They’re completely different. One’s blonde and fair, and one’s brown skin and dark hair and you know, I want them to be able to identify with the people they look up to. I think that’s really important."

Meanwhile fellow musician Prinnie Stevens, who starred on The Voice in 2012 alongside Mahalia, shares a similar sentiment.

"I was just saying the other day, for us growing up it was really rare to find anybody of colour or multicultural people on television or the newspaper, and now we’ve come so far," she told Be.

"But we have to remember there’s so much further to go and we just need to keep educating people and keeping panels multicultural and just keep the conversation alive, continue to grow our country and have a fair representation of all the cultures.

"Cultures are changing so much even now, so we’ve come a long way but there’s still a long way to go."

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