Not Racist, But …: Racism, Identity and Labels
Who is ‘black’ in Australia today? Who is Asian-Australian? Who is ‘white’? And where do race and religion overlap when it comes to identity? And is it really possible, or desirable, to be colour-blind?
In this session – the third in a series of four talks curated by Santilla Chingaipe – Yassir Morsi, Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Luke Pearson and Chingaipe unpack the complexities of racial identities and ask if race is skin deep.
Who?
Santilla Chingaipe
‘Celebrities and corporations spew forth “smash the patriarchy” and benefit financially from that. You want to talk about boards? I want to talk about how some women can’t get a job.’
Santilla Chingaipe is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker. Chingaipe created and hosted the Africa Talks series in partnership with the Wheeler Centre, which explored perceptions about African-Australian identity, representation and politics. She also curated Australia’s first all-day, anti-racism festival, Not Racist, But.... Her work explores contemporary migration, cultural identities and politics. She reports regularly for the Saturday Paper and is a member of the federal government’s advisory group on Australia-Africa relations.
Luke Pearson
Luke Pearson is the founder of Indigenous media organisation IndigenousX. He is an editor, writer, consultant and public speaker.
Mridula Nath Chakraborty
Mridula Nath Chakraborty is the Deputy Director of the Monash Asia Institute.
Her projects include Australia-India Literatures International Forum (Finalist at the Federal Government’s Australian Arts in Asia Awards 2013) and Literary Commons!: Writing Australia-India in the Asian century with Dalit, Indigenous and Multilingual Tongues (2014–2016). In 2016, she co-edited, with Kent McCarter, a special issue of the Cordite Poetry Review on Dalit/Indigenous poetry.
Yassir Morsi
Yassir Morsi is a researcher at the International Centre for Muslim and Non-Muslim Understanding at the University of South Australia.
