co-editor @overlandjournal 🇵🇸 tweets are my own 🇵🇸 I write poetry sometimes 🐨 *on sorry business, won’t be active for a bit*
Oct 8, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Actually, no - what leftists should be doing is advocating for models which don’t treat disabled and vulnerable communities as sacrifices or pawns in a broader game to satisfy corporate economic prosperity. Distribute means of production and protect our communities.
More than ever this rhetoric demonstrates that “progressives” refers only to centrist hacks. Fitting that this comes from USYD tbh. Hold space in the left for radical thinking on the possibility that disabled and vulnerable people don’t deserve to die for illusions of “freedom”.
Feb 11, 2021 • 18 tweets • 5 min read
Every BIPOC scholar I’ve ever encountered has extensively problematised the potentials and the limitations of decolonisation as a discourse and praxis. The only people I’ve ever seen endorse the lazy metaphoric rendering have been white and economically privileged.
I do not believe that academic can be decolonised, but I do seek knowledge and insight from great figures in decolonial discourse such as Frantz Fanon and Eve Tuck.
Nov 8, 2020 • 25 tweets • 5 min read
I have better things to do with my time than contend with with writers wilfully misinterpreting/projecting a range of assumptions on an innocuous, voluntary question aimed at discouraging black-facing in blind submission competitions. However, (thread) andrewhutchinson.com.au/2020/11/08/on-…
Our recent approach to the easily exploited structure of blind judging has clearly struck a nerve. I wanted dialogue and discussion. I did not want to be accused of cowardice. No one who as actually met me or is familiar with my work thinks I’m scared of unfounded accusations.
Nov 7, 2020 • 28 tweets • 5 min read
A thread on blind judging and why I don’t like it: An article was recently published criticising a new procedure around blind judging that we’ve begun developing at Overland. I was aware of the criticism as the author of the piece sent the bulk of their points to us earlier.
We decided not to individually respond, but worked with an AusLit elder to commission an essay on prizes and judging, which will be published in our summer edition. These tweets are not my response to the article, but rather my statement on why we’re working on a new procedure.
Aug 12, 2020 • 24 tweets • 5 min read
In the interest of transparency and community accountability I’d like to talk about some of the white passing privileges I’ve received in my career. This isn’t intended as a humble-brag: these are opportunities I received I’m convinced we’re derived from my perceived palatability
I bet you anything my narrative has been very different to the experiences of a dark-skinned Blak woman, or a Blak woman with high community visibility and association. And we all know why that is - the arts places a premium on palatable diversity.
Jan 14, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Today I visited an anthropology museum for the first time. I took some time to sit in silence with some of the artefacts. My reverie was disturbed by a group of white people laughing and mocking my culture that had been boxed and displayed for their consumption. I was horrified.
In observing a contemporary response to the colonial violence of an anthropological museum, one man commented - well you only need an eighth to be an Aborigine now.
So I’ve been in England one day and already shouted at an old white man, which is probably better than I expected.
Jan 31, 2019 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
My favourite Aboriginal history documentaries:
The First Australians series from SBS is a really fantastic entry point and we use it a lot in teaching. Includes interviews with mob and descendants, multiple episodes covering different themes/eras.
sbs.com.au/firstaustralia…
Servant or Slave - a history of indentured servitude in Australia and the enslavement of Aboriginal girls into domestic labour
STUFF PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT ABORIGINAL HISTORY A THREAD
No, we didn't kill any pygmy people. There were no pygmy people here. I feel like that's probably a very offensive term but I see this one doing the rounds quite a lot and it's completely false. We are not the "second Australians" who usurped the land from pygmies.
Sep 11, 2018 • 23 tweets • 5 min read
Facebook comments on reports on the drowning of two Aboriginal boys in Swan River.
We are not human to them.
Apr 7, 2018 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
I'm not sure if non-Indigenous academics working in Indigenous spaces realise the extent to which disagreements and challenges regarding identity and authority (cultural and scholarly) occupy the time and emotional energy of Indigenous scholars. You have to be very resilient.
When localised community specifications of identity, membership, status etc. enter global transIndigenous networks they bring with them challenges and expectations. Our histories of colonisation and our struggles towards self-determination are distinct and cannot be generalised.
