Being of South-East Asian background growing up in Australia, these types of comments are not something unfamiliar to me. I have grappled with race and culture many times and I expect that battle to continue long into the future. It’s not the comparisons that bother me. It’s not about the person I’m being compared to. It’s the fact that I’m even being compared. That I’m not me, but rather I am reduced to how I look or who I resemble. I don’t get to define myself anymore. That’s the part that bothers me. After all, it happens to everyone, right? It is the casual nature of these comments which makes it so problematic. It has become so normalised and so easy to dismiss that I don’t feel like I have a choice to even bring it up.
racism
Ep #49: Intolerable Ads, Introvert Anthros, Irrevocable Ties & Indigenous Symbols: This Month on TFS
This month, Kylie [0:50] kicks off our conversation by reflecting on our blog about racism in sport and asks us about the ethics of ad targeting on social media. This comes after we decided to try boosting the blog post through a paid Facebook advertisement, since we felt this was a topic that needed to … Continue reading Ep #49: Intolerable Ads, Introvert Anthros, Irrevocable Ties & Indigenous Symbols: This Month on TFS
“It’s a lot of sand”: An anthropological take on Trump’s Syrian withdrawal
That Syria has “a lot of sand” is meant to stand in for its lack of value. As a place that is sandy, it is not worth US lives; good enough for less valued Syrians and Russians but not good enough for Americans ... But it also got me thinking about a more fundamental question. Why is it that we, in the Anglo-American world, devalue ‘sand’?
Calling it out: Our Australian rules?
The documentaries about Adam Goodes capture and abbreviate an array of events on and off the ground that might make recognising and responding to racism seem straightforward. The release of the films and the ensuing national reflection they appeared to invoke might also give the impression that this chapter in our story is now closed, but I think this is far from true.