Friday Hoyden: Yvonne Brewster
Director Yvonne Brewster founded Britain’s most prominent Black theatre company, Talawa, in 1986, in order to produce work that showcased actors from a diversity of racial backgrounds, who were not getting the work they should have been in the large, subsidised theatres.
Quote of the Day: MLK on lukewarm acceptance vs outright rejection
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
Racebending and Cloud Atlas
Variety described the notion of white actors playing Asians as “exciting,” suggesting that the Wachowskis “put the lie to the notion that casting — an inherently discriminatory art — cannot be adapted to a more enlightened standard of performance over mere appearance.” The irony of this declaration is overwhelming — praising a film for “enlightened” casting choices that merely replay old discriminatory practices.
Utopia Girls: I’m disappointed
Guest Blogger Alex “Skud” Bayley reviews a documentary aired on the ABC about women’s suffrage in Australia, Utopia Girls: How Women Won the Vote.
“Pardon me for being born into a nation of racists”
An iconic image showing Aboriginal rights activist, Gary Foley with a placard reading, “Pardon me for being born into a nation of racists”. It was part of a protest against the South African Springboks rugby tour of Australia in 1971 during apartheid.
Quote OTD: Freedom, Rights and Accountability – the denialism of fools and knaves
It is depressing to have to point out, yet again, that there is a distinction between having the legal right to say something & having the moral right not to be held accountable for what you say.
The 44th Down Under Feminists Carnival
This is the 44th monthly Down Under Feminists Carnival. This edition of the carnival gathers together December 2011 feminist posts from writers living in Australia and New Zealand.
Hating Australia Day from afar
Today is the second Australia Day since I moved to the United States. One of the most surprising things for me to experience out of Australia was people saying–even in the American South!–Australia’s really racist, isn’t it? And personally, I hate that. I hate that there is such a strong implicit idea of who an Australian “is,” and how racist and dependent on assimilation that is. I hate the way that is enforced with violence and ugly rhetoric, and I hate the policies that our country mobilises against Aboriginal communities and refugees.
And yet. For all that I hate what Australia Day represents, I am more homesick than usual today.
Not a golden idea
A Queensland fly has been named after Beyonce’s “golden” rear. Who what where how why?
My favourite place in Australia
It’s a question with so many potential answers in such an amazing land, and it’s also a question of which place is the least painful.
Quickhit: a black man’s view on Schroedinger’s Rapist
…my objection to anti-black racism being used as a rhetorical device by those who will never face it, is that black people engage in tons of behaviours to make white people feel safer. We do this all the damn time. We make accommodations in speech, behaviour, dress, mannerism, conversation topic – a wide diversity of adjustments that we make in the presence of our white friends [...] I don’t appreciate being deputized into your anti-feminist screed in this way.
2012 Australian Women Writers Challenge Review: Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung
Jo Tamar’s fourth review for the 2012 Australian Women Writer’s Challenge – Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung.
2012 Australian Women Writers Challenge Review: We of the Never Never by Mrs Aeneas Gunn
Jo Tamar’s third review for the 2012 Australian Women Writer’s Challenge – We of the Never Never by Mrs Aeneas Gunn.
Homophobia and racism: the Australian media prove they can do two things at once
There was a bit of a controversy on Sunday when The Daily Telegraph, which is apparently still passing for a newspaper, put up a story called “PM Julia Gillard and Senator Pansy Wong – a reluctant embrace of an emotive issue; gay marriage”. Here’s the story in question. Let’s be very kind and move past [...]
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