Targeted: Yassmin Abdel-Magied. Credit:Daniel Boud This week, Australia has seen more calls for "go back to where you came from" directed towards high profile identities, and we have to look at why. On Monday, a group called "Aussie Nationalists" posted signs around Sydney that called for Waleed Aly, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Chinese investors and Apex gang members to be deported. The signs read "Gotta catch and deport them all". And last weekend, commentator Rowan Dean, in response to the Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane​ literally doing his job and calling for more cultural diversity in Australian media and politics, suggested that if the commissioner didn't like things, he should follow Abdel-Magied's lead and leave the country. And there lies one of the biggest problems with freedom of speech: the underlying but glaring double standard. People are permitted to disagree with each other, and express opinions. But if you happen not to be white, and if you're an immigrant on top of that, express a contrary opinion and fully expect to be invited to cut short your time "visiting" this great country – even if you are a citizen. Even if you were born here.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied being targeted in a racist campaign. Credit:Aussie Nationalists When I write an article about race, I always preface it with "I'm an Aussie-born-and-bred girl", so that my perspective is more palatable. I'm not an outsider, I promise reassuringly. I was born here. I'm one of you. I love Jimmy Barnes. I know the second verse to the national anthem. My favourite drink is Bundy and Coke. (When I'm in polite company I make it a scotch and Coke.) And like most Aussies, I would probably only just barely pass the new stringent Australian Citizenship Test. Yep, I'm Aussie as. Tim Soutphommasane, race discrimination commissioner: literally doing his job and calling for more cultural diversity in Australian media and politics. Credit:Eddie Jim It's ridiculous. A white person doesn't have to prove that they deserve to be part of the conversation. A white person can write a piece in favour of immigration and diversity and they'll be accused of being a leftie, or a liberal, or a social justice warrior – but they won't be told, for simply expressing their opinion, that if they don't like it here, they should leave. They won't be told to go back to where they came from; their heritage won't even come into play.

The fact of the matter is that non-white Aussies are considered less Australian. In August 2015, I tweeted, "Dear Border Force Cops, I'm brown but I don't have a Visa, just a Platinum AMEX," in response to the Australian Border Force proposal to conduct "random visa checks" that weekend. You know, the joke being that I was born here and am an Australian citizen and Australian in every sense of the word, but could easily have been stopped on the basis of racial profiling for an "identity check". Due to enormous backlash, the operation didn't go ahead, but it made me feel unsafe and uncertain; less Australian. I wrote a piece called "Why I'm Glad My Son Is White, Not Brown Like Me", explaining my quiet relief that my son, whose pigmentation is like his Caucasian father's, would never have to explain or prove that he belonged. He would of course have other challenges in life, but he would never have to justify his identity, his presence, his rights, in the country in which he was born. I've written a lot about race. And I've published responses to the racist feedback I receive for daring to express an opinion on anything at all, even if it's not race or politically related. Why am I told to "go back to where I came from" when I'm talking about homelessness or gender equality? How is my cultural background, and the assumptions made by people seeing my tiny headshot at the top of the article, relevant? But perhaps we've all been conditioned to think like this to some extent – even me. If I showed you a photograph of my mother, and one of my son's English sports coach, you would probably assume the white male is the Australian citizen and the brown woman is the permanent resident; that my mother is the one who doesn't yet identify as Australian, and feels loyalty to her country of birth over Australia.

Actually, it's the other way around. But then, if I told you that the white person felt like that, would you think that's understandable, only natural? The heart always lies with one's homeland. But if you heard that a non-white, immigrant male felt loyalty to their homeland over Australia in the exact same way, would you see that as their failure to assimilate? And would you be alarmed about that? There's a strong possibility the answer is yes. And that's something we need to think about. There is one white person I know who already does this – my 10-year-old son. He's conscious of racial double standards, because he sees clearly how they apply to me. I know that one day he will join me in speaking openly to effect change.

Loading And as a white man, he'll probably have a better chance of succeeding. Nama Winston is a freelance writer.