race & racism

Seven’s slur on rugby international

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It was meant to be a feelgood story of celebrity generosity. George Smith has shaved off his trademark dreadlocks and is donating them to be auctioned by charity CanTeen. The Sunrise team on Channel 7 were having a nice time joking about how they might be bought by the South African rugby players, seeing as they are always grabbing them during the game.

Then someone blurted [paraphrasing] “but who’d want them really? Greasy things.” Another team member quickly said “No!” and then the hole was dug deeper “Yeah, you can’t wash them, can you?”

ACTUALLY, YES YOU CAN AND PEOPLE WITH LOCS WASH THEIR HAIR REGULARLY.

Courtesy and the Cultural Cringe

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Germaine Greer has done her shit-stirring act again with her piece about the death of Steve Irwin, and the usual furore has broken loose, wherein Greer is presented as standing in for all us feminist harridans who hate manly men.
UPDATE: Tracee Hutchison’s piece in today’s Age is an excellent analysis of the essential misogyny driving a lot of the reaction to Greer’s piece – would the outrage have been such a howling uproar if Clive James had written it instead?

Don’t get too paranoid, but …

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This is well worth reading for people who haven’t yet inculcated habits that mean they can’t easily be identified online: Death by Google Calendar: how I identified you to rob you.

I am not picking on this woman but I needed to show a real example. There are tons of public calendars far more revealing than this one. In literally 20 minutes, I now know the name, address, phone number and schedule of this woman. If I can do it, you can be damn sure the real bad guys can. Please be smarter about what you share online. If given a choice, choose the private setting. If you are not given a choice, either choose a new calendar or talk in some code that only you understand. I guess I just don’t understand why people set themselves up to become victims.

Conflict: Promoting Pride and Prejudice

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As my last two posts illustrate, there appears to be ever more promoting of xenophobia both domestically and abroad against opponents from all sides, whether ideological/political/territorial, particularly as what was meant to be a lightning military campaign to effect a… Read More ›

Shame

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I haven’t been able to marshal my thoughts especially coherently regarding the racially motivated riots in Cronulla. Without some beatup by the media and indiscriminate text message forwarding, this would have just been another gang-fight at Cronulla, not much different… Read More ›