I don’t know about you, but I am heartily sick of hearing the use of the term “crime family” when the police and especially the media are referring to certain, related middle eastern criminals.

While it’s been established that some members of some middle eastern families residing in Sydney have been ‘at war’ and that there has been a lot of carnage and chaos over recent years – including the loss of lives – does this give the police and especially the media a ‘free kick’ to indiscriminately point the finger at innocent people just because they share the same surname as the guilty parties?

Newsflash! Just because you share the same surname – or even the same blood – as a criminal, it doesn’t make you a criminal and it certainly does not make you a murderer!

If you are reading this article, even if you don’t personally know any members of the middle eastern “crime families” mentioned so regularly by the NSW media, the chances are that you probably know people with the same SURNAMES as them and who may or may not be closely related to them – not that this is any of your business.

Personally, I know hundreds of men and women with these same last names who are good, law-abiding citizens who certainly do not deserve to be cast in the same barrel and be looked down upon just because they share the same surname as a few ‘bad apples’

There is an old saying that if a gun fires randomly or accidentally in a room full of people, then the chances are that an innocent person will get hurt.

Bearing this in mind, why should the (likely) thousands of innocent middle eastern people living in Sydney with the same surnames as the “crime families” – whether related to them or not – be made to suffer or feel embarrassment or alienation, every time their surname is mentioned on the radio, on TV or on social media?

I am talking about school kids being bullied by their peers because of their surnames, workers starting rumours about their colleagues grandmothers being stared at in supermarkets…..it’s just not right.

This topic has been burning inside me for months but I thought that it was timely to raise it today given that not one but TWO blood brothers of current NSW deputy premier and POLICE minister Paul Toole have been arrested this week over serious offences.

I applaud Minister Toole’s response to these arrests, stating words to the effect that it shows that the system works and that nobody is above the law. He is obviously a good man.

But it begs the question: will this family now be known as the “Toole crime family” as multiple members of the family are criminals? We both know the answer to that one!

Another example. One of Australia’s most infamous criminals of the past 50 years was the late Arthur ‘Neddy’ Smith, whose myriad of crimes included murder and rape. Charming character, he was….NOT.

Dr Google tells me that there are currently over 200,000 people in Australia with the surname Smith and that Smith is Australia’s most popular surname as it’s probably been as far back as records go.

Imagine how many Australian Smiths over the years would have committed crimes – you’d have to think several thousand. Some of them may even be related to Neddy, who knows?

But I do know one thing: imagine the furore if the cops or the media ever came up with the term “the Smith crime family”.

Again, we know it won’t happen. Then again, these people don’t live in south western Sydney and their families didn’t migrate to Australia from the middle east.

Discrimination….much? Double standards….much?

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