Tag: Racism

Read The Boy from Boomerang Crescent

How does a self-described ‘skinny Aboriginal kid’ overcome a legacy of family tragedy to become an AFL legend? One thing’s for sure: it’s not easy. But then, there’s always been something special about Eddie Betts.

Betts grew up in Port Lincoln and Kalgoorlie, in environments where the destructive legacies of colonialism – racism, police targeting of Aboriginal people, drug and alcohol misuse, family violence – were sadly normalised. His childhood was defined by family closeness as well as family strife, plus a wonderful freedom that he and his cousins exploited to the full – for better and for worse.

When he made the decision to take his talents across the Nullarbor to Melbourne to chase his footballing dreams – homesickness be damned – everything changed. Over the ensuing years, Betts became a true giant of the sport: 350-plus games, 600-plus goals, multiple All-Australian nods and Goal of the Year awards, and a league-wide popularity rarely seen in the hyper-tribal AFL.

Along the way, he battled his demons before his turbulent youth settled into responsible maturity. Today, the man the Melbourne tabloids once dubbed ‘bad boy Betts’ is a dedicated husband and father, a respected community leader and an increasingly outspoken social activist.

Sometimes funny, sometimes tragic and always honest – often laceratingly so – The Boy from Boomerang Crescent is the inspirational life story of a champion, in his own words. Whether he’s narrating one of his trademark gravity-defying goals from the pocket, the discrimination he’s faced as an Aboriginal person or the birth of his first child, Betts’s voice – intelligent, soulful, unpretentious – rings through on every page.

The very human story behind the plaudits is one that will surprise, move and inspire.

Whether it be growing up under the eye of police, being away from family, living under the treat of racism and the challenges of educating others about culture, The Boy from Boomerang Crescent celebrates how Eddie Betts has managed to achieve greatness in the face of adversity.

Listening to Luke Carroll’s reading of the book, this was one of those books that you did not want to put down or pause. I think it was Betts’ humility, generousity and honesty. At no point is he selling tickets to the Betts show.  Although there are stories of racism in football or police, this only seems to fuel his perseverance and resiliance.

On finishing the book, I could not help but think how many chances and sacrifices have been involved for Betts to make it. He often comes back to the statement ‘It takes a village’. Even with all of his instinctual talent, it feels like there are so many points where he might have missed a training session, a game, a club expectation, that could of had him missing out.

Although I saw various headlines about this book when it was released, I was particularly drawn to it after listening to Betts’ discussion with Hamish Blake on How Other Dad’s Dad.

Bookmarked A Black Woman Invented Home Security. Why Did It Go So Wrong? by Chris Gilliard (WIRED)

A Black woman who feared for her safety creates a system. A white guy develops an iteration of this system later because he is annoyed that people are ringing his doorbell too often. This becomes a tool to manage Amazon’s loss prevention. Eventually, it leads to a boom not only in home security products like the Amazon suite and Google’s security cameras, along with a variety of others, but increasing measures to make the home, the neighborhood, and all public and private spaces a 24/7 watched fortress, complete with cameras, drones, security robots, and automated license plate readers. But amid this escalation, one urgent question arises: What are we defending ourselves against?

Chris Gilliard discusses the history of surveillance and its association with racism.
Liked Our New Postracial Myth by Ibram X. Kendi (theatlantic.com)

The postracial idea is the hardest racist idea to put down. Everyone is inclined to consume it. White people and people of color alike long for racism to end. When we yearn for something to end—and don’t know what the end looks like—it is easy to make ourselves believe the end is near.

Bookmarked Denial Is the Heartbeat of America by Ibram X. Kendi (theatlantic.com)

We must stop the heartbeat of denial and revive America to the thumping beat of truth. The carnage has no chance of stopping until the denial stops. This is not who we are must become, in the aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Capitol: This is precisely who we are. And we are ashamed. And we are aggrieved at what we’ve done, at how we let this happen. But we will change. We will hold the perpetrators accountable. We will change policy and practices. We will radically root out this problem. It will be painful. But without pain there is no healing.

And in the end, what will make America true is the willingness of the American people to stare at their national face for the first time, to open the book of their history for the first time, and see themselves for themselves—all the political viciousness, all the political beauty—and finally right the wrongs, or spend the rest of the life of America trying.

Ibram X. Kendi suggests that to consider what happened on the 6th January as the death of democracy is to deny all the other injustices that have been lived out through history. He lists a number of past events, as well as Child Gambino’s This is America, and argues that, “This is not who we are must become, in the aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Capitol: This is precisely who we are.”

This is something that Keith Knight captures in the form of a cartoon:

The K Chronicles: Not Who We Are?

Liked Jane Austen Was Not Fucking Around about Home School by Sarah Allison (Avidly)

Mansfield Park is both Exhibit A of white complicity with racist violence and a demand to recognize it. Fanny Price gets richly rewarded for being a person who kind of gets it. The victory of Fanny, who is introverted, unathletic, and often silent (except for occasional bursts of enthusiasm about nature), affords a different satisfaction from Elizabeth Bennet’s.

Liked

Bookmarked Ibram X. Kendi: How Racism Relies on Arbitrary Hierarchies (Literary Hub)

We pulled into the parking lot, looking for signs of life. But the daily life of the school had ended hours ago. It was pushing four o’clock on that warm April day in 1990, on Long Island, New York…

In an extract from How to Be An Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi traces a path through the construct of racism and the power that it still holds today. He discusses Alonso de Zuazo creation of Blacks in 1510 and Carl Linnaeus’ color-coding of races as White, Yellow, Red, and Black in 1735.
Liked

Don’t Be a Sucker is a short film produced by the United States Department of War released in 1943, and adapted as a slightly shorter version in 1947.[1][2] It has anti-racist and anti-fascist themes, and was made to educate viewers about prejudice and discrimination.[1] The film was also made to make the case for the desegregation of the United States armed forces. It is held for preservation by the U.S. National Archives.[3]

Wikipedia

Bookmarked Encountering harmful discourses in the classroom (W. Ian O'Byrne)

Howard C. Stevenson from Penn’s Graduate School of Education indicates three steps to address these harmful discourses as they enter your classroom.

  • Start with you – Process your own feelings, and address your own vulnerabilities before entering the classroom. Develop a support system with your colleagues.
    Practice – Classroom reactions usually happen in a split second. Prepare yourself for these instances by role-playing with colleagues in your building, or online with your PLN.
  • After an incident – Resist the urge to condemn the action or content. First try to understand the motivation if is disseminated through your classroom or building. Allow the school’s code of conduct to address instances where students actively spread this information. Strongly explain to students that these harmful discourses and the messages being spread about individuals and groups are not accepted. You will not accept the silencing of voices.
  • Keep talking – After these events, the best course of action is to keep talking. Difficult discussions will often ensue, but children and adults alike need to be able to process their feelings and reactions. This is an opportunity to shut down and be silent, or engage and promote change.
Ian O’Byrne discusses the challenges of engaging in harmful discourses. He provides some ways to responding, as well as a number of ways to be proactive. This touches on what danah boyd describes as the weaponisation of worldviews.
Bookmarked How well do we ‘face up to’ racism? by Anna Del Conte (Anne's Angle)

Multiculturalism is not an outcome but a process.  Racism may not be deliberate BUT anti-racism is always deliberate.

Anna Del Conte provides some take-aways from a course on racism. Some of the activities included what racism is, a timeline of diversity in Australia and listening to stories. Another resource I am reminded of is Dan Haesler’s interview with Stan Grant. In part this stemmed from Grant’s speech addressing racism.