EXCHANGE INTERFACE

A nice white lady wanted to make an 'African quilt'. Her son said it was racist and culturally appropriative. She posts to an FB Quilting Group asking for opinions on the matter.

The opinions are pretty much what you'd expect.

( and then there I was being all fly-y in her ointment )

Now I have to find a way to post about this in my quilting blog, such that a few people might actually think about these things.

Brief thoughts on The Social Contract by bladespark

What White People Can Do Towards Racial Justice. And it's more than just donations: things that individuals can do. The list of civic actions is American, but some of the things are universal (pushing libraries to have a variety of stories, also giving books with black protags as a gift).
(With thanks to thisfinecrew for the headsup.)

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From the Australian side, our history of treatment of indigenous people is rather worse in percentages. Additionally, not a single officer has ever been charged with an offence in a situation where an indigenous person died while in police custody.

If you have any spare: Pay The Rent.

Actually, making sure that reading lists include things like Dark Emu and other authors of colour - books by news presenter Stan Grant are said to be good at explaining things - would work for us, too.

Yes, we had a seminal moment on Masterchef last week (all top five finalists were of Asian background) but that's not the end of it.

I'm probably going to use this as a resource centre for answering other people, particularly the "well, they shouldn't loot and pillage then" crowd.

Last week, my mother - an Australian citizen for over 50 years and an Australian resident for over 60 years - tried to change her address with an official government organisation.

They told her that neither her electoral enrolment, nor her Australian passport were sufficient evidence that she was an Australian citizen, and she needed her citizenship papers.

AND THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS.

After fifty years, do you think she still has her citizenship papers? And if they still have the records somewhere, do you think that she can get them cheaply and easily? Do you think the process would be simple to go through for someone who, perhaps, doesn't speak good English - ftr, my mother speaks excellent English although she's going a little deaf. My mother may be up to jumping through whatever hoops are put forward - how many others aren't?

And it raises questions, doesn't it?

Am I safe anymore? Is my citizenship truly unassailable if I'm not white? I was born to non-white Australians - one born here, one immigrated and naturalised here - will I get the benefit of the doubt, or will I spend the rest of my life proving my Australian bona fides? The far end of that question is: will I spend part of my life in a camp like George Takei and other Americans like him did - my goods and property and rights forfeit, my citizenship and loyalty in doubt - simply for being born non-white in a time of conflict?

I said a couple of weeks ago that Australians of Chinese descent were far too successful - individually and collectively - for White Australians to let us pass by without them taking a stab at us. I sincerely didn't think it would be this prophetic (or this personal) this soon.

...called "Beards Of {company}" on the workplace 'FB' equivalent.

Rightythen.

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I wonder if one of the disconnects (just one) between people making light of the "go back to where you came from" is that to such people, it's the equivalent of "you're stupid" playground insult, rather than a threat to someone that any rights they have as an individual are dependent on not being seen as different, or a reminder that someone may have been born here but they will never belong.

There was an SBS/ABC news story about how a bunch of Australian Uighur Muslims have been detained in China and the Australian government is doing nothing to bring them back. If they're not born white, then they're not Australian enough to do anything for.

And watching all this unfold in the world, I wonder, if I were detained overseas, would the Australian government lift a finger since I'm not white?

The cancer eating the heart of Australian democracy
Hint: it begins with R, and ends with ‘upert Murdoch’.

In Texas Senate Vote, Cruz Barely leads O’Rourke
They say that Texas may no longer be as red as red can be. Wouldn’t it be nice?

America soured on my multiracial family
The abuse started off with well-meaning leftists, and over time, switched to racial purity right-wingers.

The end of citrus season
A chinotto recipe.

Apparently I am more Australian than our Deputy Prime Minister, who has automatic NZ citizenship thanks to his parentage and some very flexible NZ citizenship laws.

In breathtaking irony, he's the kind of person who thinks people like me are "the problem with racism in Australia".

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

A clip by SBS Viceland played on this so hard, it was wonderful: A Message From Australians Who Look A Bit Foreign.

I have decided no more Ms. Nice Lady. I am an Australian born Australian, and if someone wants to know “where did you really come from?” I am going to ask them if they’re prepared to unload their history as an Australian-born child of immigrants, or else tell me about their Indigenous Australian ancestry.

I am done with microaggressions, even the unintentional ones.

No, you don’t get to ask me what’s my background and then say that yours is “Australian”. Mine is Australian. My mother is an Australian immigrant. My father is an Australian born. I am an Australian born.

I am an Australian-born Australian.

I am no more an immigrant than any white person in this damn country and I am going to FIGHT this definition all the way, calling people racist outright if necessary.

So I finally listened to this all the way through. DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN ABOVE.

asfka;sjflasjfaslkfjasldkfjashfahfshjkgh;hdk

There are so many brilliant nuances to this that I have internal flappy hands.

From King George channelling an abusive vibe, to the musical themes, to Angelica understanding her responsibilities and desires and knowing where her duty lies, to Eliza erasing herself from the narrative, to Burr's frustration with being bested again and again and again, to, oh, ALL OF IT.

The thing about this - as an Australian who hadn't the foggiest idea about who the hell Alexander Hamilton is or was and couldn't really care less - is that the musical is no more about American politics than Hamlet is about Danish royalty.

It's about humanity - about people - about individuals, personalities, their flaws, the pressures that comes upon them, their strengths and how they use those - or don't. It's about everyone having their own story, their own reasons for what they do. And it's about life and death and all the messy stuff that happens in between.

Which is why it will do well translated to other countries in the same way that Les Mis will - because what audiences understand is not the circumstances of history, but the circumstances of humanity.

And yes, it will be better if the cast remains primarily non-white in the lead roles in places like Australia and the UK. Not because of novelty, but because this story is about people rather than about dead white people - and I think that needs to be recognised. They've already given musical theatre a kick in that direction with Hamilton, now it would be good if they continued it.

Incidentally, I remember watching Wicked for the first time - in San Francisco with my friend Abby - and Fiyero was black and had the most amazing voice. When it came to Sydney and Fiyero was cast white, I was distinctly nonplussed. I mean, white!Fiyero was great, but somehow it warmed something in me to see this guy as the good hero, loved by two women, who was kind enough to agree to marry one who really wanted to marry him when he was quietly in love with the other who wasn't attainable.

Or maybe it's just that the 'agreeing to marry someone they don't love' is a storyline that's usually handed to the woman and - me being me - the reversal of the trope just appeals. This is me, after all.

Plus: Indian-Pakistani Hobbits. Go look it up if you have questions.

Okay, so, I wasn't going to say Happy Chinese New Year to my f-lists.

Then I went around to my parents' house for dinner and discovered my mother in the middle of a storm of cooking.

THEY'RE MAKING CHA SIU BAU, PEOPLE! BBQ PORK BUNS! THOSE SOFT WHITE FLUFFY BUNS WITH THE RED PORK INSIDE THAT YOU GET IN THE BAMBOO STEAMERS AT YUM CHA. MAKING. FROM SCRATCH. OMG.

A day ago, if you had asked me if my family was traditional, I would have said, "Um, no. Not really." I may have to rethink that. CHA SIU BAU OMG.

There's also tsai (I don't know what else it's called - it's an entirely vegetarian dish: mushrooms, thin rice noodles, assorted black funguses, this...tofu sheet stuff) and tzin dui (deep fried dough balls with red bean past centres, rolled in sesame seeds). And roast pork belly. With the crackling. Which is sort-of Chinese BBQ.

It's kinda funny, I s'pose. I didn't participate in Potluck because I feel like a) no-one's interested in my Chinese identity posts, b) have nothing of any importance to add to the race + SJ thoughts required of such collections. And yet, come Chinese New Year, here's my mum and stepdad cooking up a very Chinese storm for a big family dinner tonight. Which makes me feel I should have something, and yet I don't, other than food porn and reminiscences about festal eating.

One day very soon, I'll have to pin my mum down and have her look over my shoulder while I cook these delicacies. I think that Easter may have to be it - we have a five-day public holiday during that time.

Anyway, KUNG HEI FAAT CHOI everyone!

on the politics of possession by glass_icarus: A crystal-sharp piece about Americanness, and how she, an American citizen of Chinese appearance and descent, will never be allowed to own the term 'American' - not unchallenged.

If my experience isn't anywhere near as painful as hers, it still has barbs.

I was born here. ( This *is* my country. )