I recently noticed something troubling while watching a British drama on SBS On Demand. Between episodes — over two full seasons — I kept seeing advertisements about Victoria’s new bail laws.

But the translations accompanying those ads were only in one language: Arabic.

Not Vietnamese. Not Mandarin. Not Dinka. Not Hindi. Only Arabic.

At first, I assumed this might be an oversight – perhaps a rotation of multilingual versions yet to appear. I waited. Weeks passed. Seasons ended. But no other language appeared. And that is precisely the problem.

When multiculturalism becomes racial messaging

The Special Broadcasting Service was founded on a noble principle – to give voice to Australia’s multicultural communities and reflect the diversity of the nation. Yet, this instance reveals a deep and insidious contradiction: the same broadcaster now appears to participate in the racialisation of legal communication.

To translate and repeatedly show only bail law advertisements into Arabic is not a gesture of inclusion. It is racial profiling by design or, at best, by negligence. It sends a message that is loud, clear and unmissable – Arabic-speaking communities are those most in need of being warned, cautioned, or “informed” about criminal law reform.

This is how racism operates in its contemporary, bureaucratic form: through the language of “public communication.” Through administrative decisions cloaked in multicultural legitimacy. Through institutions that claim neutrality but reproduce deep structural bias.

Arabs are citizens, not subjects

Arabic-speaking communities in Victoria are part of the fabric of this state. They are taxpayers, professionals, small business owners, parents, siblings and students. They contribute to every sector, from healthcare and education to law and the arts. And yet, the very systems funded by their taxes continue to mark them as suspect.

When the state’s “multicultural” broadcaster singles out Arabs as the audience for bail law information, it quietly reinforces the most damaging of stereotypes that criminality is culturally coded.

This is not new. We have seen it in political discourse, in counter-terrorism rhetoric, in media reporting of crime. Arabs and Muslims have long been used as symbols of social risk, as the “other” against which the rest of society defines its moral order.

But for SBS as a publicly funded multicultural service to participate in this perpetuation is especially shameful.

The quiet violence of representation

Representation is not neutral. Who gets translated and for what purpose tells us everything about how belonging is managed in Australia.

To translate bail law ads primarily and, if not only, into Arabic is to suggest that Arabs uniquely need to understand the consequences of criminal behaviour, that they, unlike other groups, must be taught the rules of civic order. This is not just patronising; it is racialised governance dressed as inclusion.

It reflects what critical scholars call managed diversity – the selective performance of multiculturalism that celebrates cuisine and costume while quietly disciplining those deemed problematic. In this model, “multiculturalism” becomes a policy of containment, not liberation coupled with social cohesion and continues as a tool of conditional belonging

Racism by design, not by accident

There is nothing accidental about which languages are chosen for public campaigns. Each decision is informed by assumptions about who is most likely to offend, who is most at risk, and who deserves reassurance versus regulation.

When such decisions go unexamined, they entrench the idea that Arabic-speaking Victorians are the population to be managed, corrected, or warned, not trusted, empowered, or respected.

This is how structural racism sustains itself: through the administrative, the ordinary, the insipid. It doesn’t shout; it quietly categorises. It doesn’t exclude overtly; it communicates inclusion on unequal terms.

The responsibility of public institutions

SBS has an ethical and civic obligation to examine the racial implications of its editorial and translation choices. It must answer for how such a decision came to pass – and what safeguards exist to prevent the reinforcement of racial hierarchies under the banner of “multicultural communication".

If the goal was to ensure that Arabic-speaking communities understood new laws, then why stop there? Why not also translate into Somali, Pashto, Mandarin, Vietnamese, and Greek and the many more communities equally represented in Victoria’s diverse social landscape?

The answer, of course, lies not in logic but in stereotype.

Multiculturalism at a crossroads

This incident is not about one advertisement. It is about the soul of multiculturalism itself.

Are we building a society that truly respects and reflects diversity or one that selectively engages with it when convenient, weaponising language and culture to police the very communities it claims to represent?

When a multicultural broadcaster uses its platform to perpetuate racialised assumptions, it betrays its founding mission and corrodes public trust.

Racism is real – even when it’s subtitled

This may seem like a small thing, a translation choice in a 30-second ad. But racism rarely announces itself grandly. It reveals itself in patterns: who is represented, who is warned, who is seen as a citizen and who remains perpetually suspect.

As I watched those ads over two seasons, the silence of other languages spoke volumes.

Racism is racism even if it is polite, procedural and subtitled.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.