Why does this The Age article about a brawl in St Kilda have to keep mentioning that the brawlers were of “African appearance”? Is it supposed to help us by highlighting that people of “African appearance” are more likely to brawl so we can avoid them? Or is it supposed to help us identify the brawlers to police, because their “African appearance” is a unique identifying feature?

I note that the Age published an article about a different brawl in Melbourne Central a few weeks ago which doesn’t mention anybody’s appearance at all. The people in that brawl did not look like they were “African appearance”; surely that is just as newsworthy as the “appearance” of the St Kilda brawlers.

And just what the heck is “African appearance” anyway? When I did an image search for “Moroccan people” they looked very different to when I did an image search for “Malian people“, and that’s only two countries over! What about a person from, say, Andaman islands? What “appearance” would they be?