ourcatastrophe:

for part of the time when John Howard was Prime Minister my sister happened to be working for the Japanese government, and once she met the Japanese Minister for Agriculture at an official function where people had gotten a bit shitfaced

and he said “so… I met your Prime Minister…”

and she was like “yeah, he’s a nong, we’re really embarassed, sorry”

and he laughed and said “ok man one time he was busting our balls trying to get us to buy more Australian rice, which, whatever, we don’t need more Australian rice”

“so I pretended to speak English really badly”

“and patted my stomach and said ‘very sorry, Japanese have only small stomachs! we cannot eat so much rice!’”

“and he totally fell for it!  man, what an idiot”

cryyyying

caseychinaski:

If everyone could just direct their attention to this for a second

ardhra:

redlightpolitics:

I live in cracks and nooks. I exist nowhere and everywhere. My feminism is a territory cast aside from the big island that is Feminism, at least, the feminism that everyone has been discussing regarding #femfuture.

There is this US territory, not coded as such but as “online feminism” (presented as neutral, deterritorialized, homogenous) but this construction is not online feminism, it is American or perhaps North American, or should I go all Latina and just call it what it is: Anglo feminism and then there is me in the sidelines. So, when Jessica Luther wondered out loud what I thought (there have been a lot of polemics about the report), I sincerely have no thoughts because I don’t belong in this.

To call what is going on in an Anglo centric environment “online feminism” is to cast me (and millions like me) away from the umbrella. We live elsewhere. We communicate in English but we are not part of the culture that is being discussed. We are the outsiders that have issues that are alien to this “online feminism”. I highlight the attack on reproductive rights going on in the US as much as I can, but this is not my personal fight; I point to the need of US immigration reform as much as I come across topics that cover it, but my reason of existence is EU immigration reform and its intersections with gender; when something that happened in the US needs denouncing to harness the collective attention, I gladly lend myself to it because I believe feminism is not a zero sum game (i.e. if I spend a few minutes or hours talking about an issue in North America, it doesn’t detract from my long term goals about policies, racism and gender in Europe). However, that’s not my “online feminism”. I might get lumped into the term because I communicate in English but my reality is rather different: I live in Amsterdam.

And here’s what happens when you inhabit these cracks: you pretty much don’t exist. Years ago when I started writing publicly, I made the decision to write in English (instead of Spanish or Dutch) because a) it’s the language most spoken in my surrounding and b) my written Dutch is appalling. I lack nuance, I lack depth, I have the vocabulary of a child and quite frankly, it’s a language that limits my ability to communicate on the level I wanted to. Besides, when in 2002, the Euro came in, I quickly threw myself into the political consequences of this Union and I thought I’d be more effective writing in a language that is widely spoken within the area. However, because I am simultaneously in (i.e. part of this online feminism by virtue of writing, blogging, creating media, etc in the English language) and outside (i.e. I live in Europe and the bulk of what I write and communicate is about WoC living in Europe), I get pretty much ignored. When feminist organizations in The Netherlands organize events, they do not know I exist. Sure, I know for a fact I am read by some (in fact, the biggest feminist NGO in the country has me listed in their blogroll), but I do not speak the “local language”. Oh I do speak Dutch all right. But I speak of a feminism that is practically alien to them. I shout about immigration reform and death of WoC, I yell about State violence directed at WoC, I insist on the hierarchical nature of a White Supremacist Patriarchal State… all the topics that local feminist organizations won’t touch with a ten foot pole. So, I simply do not get invited. They will happily bring Caitlin Moran over from the UK to give a talk (they did last year) but those like me simply do not exist locally.

Then there is the American version of online feminism, which has other realities and other goals and other culturally relevant issues, to which I do not get invited either because frankly, I have nothing of meaning to contribute (thousands of WoC are doing that locally and passionately, so why would anyone bring me over to talk about what people with better local knowledge and ideas are already doing?). In the UK, the online feminist discourses seem to be dangerously US centric as well. The exception being Black feminists who are contributing a wealth of knowledge and creating their own epistemic histories but that is not (yet) mainstream UK feminism. Mainstream is, once again, Caitlin Moran. Online, British feminism looks either inward (rightfully so, because they are focused in their local issues) or towards the US (as if the US was the feminist Mother Ship one should aspire to) but there isn’t much in terms of a European focus. “Things” happen either in the UK or in the US and once again… I inhabit another space.

So, all these talks about #femfuture are certainly not about me. If anything, I try to firmly stand my ground so as not to be colonized by this increasingly US centric version of online feminism. My resistance ends up being a double bind: I need to resist the policies, racism, discrimination, etc of a State that considers those like me disposable and I need to resist the absorption of the “Mother Ship” that owns the discourses around which feminist issues matter the most. In the meantime, I can tell you this much: my #femfuture is about yelling louder. Because really, there isn’t much else I can do, further than assimilating (which, no) in order to create the awareness I believe is needed.

God, do I know this feeling. It’s mostly why I stopped capital-b blogging.

What rankles as well is that here there are some pretty vocal & strong voices from women of colour. But often white feminists in Australia will ignore them in favour of an analysis of racial justice coming from the USA. Sometimes in favour of people coming from the USA.

Also, Flavia is more generous than I am, I suppose. After trying to be heard by US-centric bloggers, only to be told I was “doing nothing” and “build it yourself”, I pretty much gave up on showing solidarity when none was being shown my way.

ourcatastrophe:

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre comments: AUSTRALIA is the ONLY country which sees fit to lock up Tamil refugees as a security threat. UK , Europe and Canada have hundreds of thousands of Tamil people living and contributing to their communities.

Here are some of the banners they have painted to communicate with the Australian community as they sit on the Soccer pitch at the MITA in Broadmeadows on hunger strike.

there are actually quite a few countries that regularly reject Tamil asylum seekers (most recently, the UAE) but it’s certainly the case that Australia’s immigration detention regime is incredibly harsh; also that Tamil refugees face extra barriers to security clearance. 

thefemaletyrant:

Okay just for you. Here are the posts I wrote on it on Beyond Victoriana,

Africans in Ancient China & Vice Versa, Part 1: Chinese Explorations

Africans in Ancient China & Vice Versa, Part 2: The Kunlun Servants & African Merchants

Africans in Ancient China & Vice Versa, Part 3: Zheng He’s Star Fleet

Africans in Ancient China & Vice Versa, Part 4: A Final Word about Zheng He

Here are the books, articles and things I read when I wrote the posts;

Snow Philip (1988), The Star Raft: China’s Encounter with Africa

Liu Gang (2007), The Chinese Inventor of Bi-Hemispherical World Map, e-Perimetron, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 185-193

Shen John (1995), ‘New Thoughts on the use of Chinese document in the Reconstruction of Early Swahili History’, History in Africa, Vol. 22, pp. 349-358

Smidt Wolbert, ‘A Chinese in the Nubian and Abyssinian Kingdoms (8th Century): The visit of Du Huan to Molin-guo and Laobosa’

Wilensky Julie (2002), ‘The Magical Kunlun and ‘Devil Slaves’ Chinese Perception of Dark People and Africa before 1500′, Sino-Platonic Papers, Number 122 

Here is the early Chinese map of Africa,

I got this from Cape Slavery Heritage, an amazing blog on South Africa’s diverse histories that seems to be down or deleted now. It is a “large silk copy of the old Chinese map which accurately depicts South Africa” and suggests that Chinese explorers not only round the cape but also travelled in the interior.

Here are links on the search for Zheng He’s shipwrecked ship;

Sea hunt for ancient Chinese ship off African coast

Chinese archaeologists’ African quest for sunken ship of Ming admiral

And finally, something about the Kenyans with Chinese ancestry and miscellaneous stuff;

Ancient Chinese explorers

Famao: African-Chinese clan (this is a forum but the discussion is good)

Is this  young Kenyan Chinese descendant?

Kenyan girl’s blood ties with China

Kenyan girl with Chinese blood steals limelight

Finally finally, I recommend reading ibn Battuta’s compilation of his travels! He doesn’t go to China but he mentions meeting a Somali man in, I think, Maldives who had been to China IIRC. So read ibn Battuta just for this.

Made rebloggable by request!

thesavagesalad:

shespeaksoflove:

I also don’t trust white people in this country because of the Pacific Islander slave trade that was going on in Australia from 1842-1904, which til this day is either ignored or in describing it, words like recruited, encouraged and employed are used. When in reality South Sea Islanders were coerced, kidnapped, forced, and sold. Slavery by any other name, is still slavery. 

And the only reason this stopped is because of the ‘white Australia’ policy that was brought into place to try and keep Australia for white people. When thousands of the men and women who were stolen from their homes, were returned, some being returned to the wrong Island (because brown and black people are all the same to white people) and others dying on the journey home. 

Also, to add on to this is that during the period of labour that was forced onto Pacific Islanders, many of those people did settle down and have families with Indigenous communities in the places that they were made to work.
 They had already built new lives for themselves, with the means that were given to them- they had families and new identities, so when the white supremacist policy took place, not  only were these people displaced AGAIN but they were FORCED to leave their families AGAIN there for harming their own community but also the Indigenous communities in those areas.

Australian history is a load of fuckery and so is the federation that this nation is founded upon and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise

squiddishly:

sombreaclair:

When Julia Gillard tripped in India last October it was national news. Tony Abbott falls down a hill and we hear nothing? For the pure enjoyment of the Australian public this is simply unacceptable. I’m sure we would all get an equal amount of joy out of watching Tony stack it.

I feel bad for that poor guy who had to catch him. You just know he’ll be put to death if Abbott wins the election.

amodernmanifesto:

Organic, fair trade, locally-produced, all natural, cage free, cruelty free, eco-friendly. An elaborate array of labels and certifications yanks at the conscience of the American consumer at the grocery store, attempting to convince them that by buying certain products over others, they can do their part to create a more equitable food system.

The idea of the “Green Economy” is to address the environmental and social problems within the food system by creating a more “ethical” economic market alternative to the mainstream corporate market.

While the Green Economy has made some important gains in enlightening consumers to many issues, the creed of “voting with your fork” – of buying change – is inherently undemocratic, distracting the consumer from taking aim at the deeper issues at the root of our broken food system and reinforcing divisions of race and class.

Participation in the Green Economy “is about how much you have to buy or sell,” sociologist Alison Hope Alkon points out in her spot on the political radio program Against the Grain. “Voting with your fork” is only an effective means for hearing the voices of those who can afford the most forks. “The need in a farmers’ market, or in any kind of alternative [Green Economy] food project, is for the producers to be able to make money. So that’s certainly at odds with making the food cheap enough to increase access,” Alkon explains.

As consumers remain convinced that by shopping in a certain way they are doing their part, they are blind to the need to fight the corporatization of our resources in order for good, healthy, “ethically” produced food to be available to everyone.

ourcatastrophe:

because yarn-bombing is the state, that’s why

I get that yarn bombing is pretty etc etc etc, but I have so many feels about it, especially re: the politics of what graffiti is accepted and what isn’t and why and class and gentrification and politics. 

collapsingonbridges:

YES

textaqueen:

I recently left my Melbourne representation, Gallerysmith, when I realised the gallery had begun representing Lucas Grogan, a white artist whose work has appropriated Indigenous Australian art, depicted black figures often in misogynistic scenes involving alcohol and sex, and otherwise traded on the exotification of ‘the other’. I don’t believe his work ‘raises an interesting debate’ and am offended by justifications of it ‘expressing a universal humanity’ and ‘creating dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous art’ (quotes from his supporters) as I don’t believe that is a role for a non-Indigenous artist to undertake. 

As a non-Indigenous person myself, it isn’t my voice in this ‘interesting debate’ that should be prioritised either. Paola Balla has written succinctly on the subject in her correspondence with Gallerysmith. If people want to contemplate artists who discuss contemporary Aboriginality, which I feel is what Grogan’s work falsely alludes to via appropriation (regardless of his supposed intentions), then they could look to Balla’s work, or that of proppanow’s Tony Albert, Richard Bell, Vernon Ah Kee, Gordon Hookey, Laurie Nilsen, Megan Cope and that of many other Indigenous artists speaking from their own experiences.

Cultural appropriation is not a new or personally ‘interesting’ phenomenon. White artists adopting the expressions of people of colour have historically held greater cultural currency than those made my people from the cultures the white artists appropriated. It should be obvious how colonialism, racism and other dynamics of privilege have informed that history. Yet artists such as Grogan (and he is definitely not alone in appropriation and exotification) feel entitled to pillage the forms and aesthetics of as many ‘other’ cultures as they please and are then celebrated by many for their ‘edginess’.

If you are a non-Indigenous person and consider the work of Lucas Grogan to ‘raise an interesting debate’ or to be ‘bravely’ ‘pushing the limits of what is socially acceptable’ (Grogan’s words) then perhaps you could consider what privileges you may have to find it interesting rather than offensive. Perhaps, if you consider yourself anti-racist, you could try de-prioritising your voice and Grogan’s intentions in what should be a discussion centred on Indigenous opinions and experiences.

I am a non-Indigenous person of colour, I am not culturally connected to the various forms he has appropriated (though as he continues to adopt the forms of additional cultures, he might get around to my own heritage soon) yet his work reminds me of my own position as exotic ‘other’ and how, in the art world and beyond, otherness is commodified and otherwise exploited by those with privilege and power. Though I am grateful for my ongoing presence in the art world, that reminder is a depressing and depleting one. I could not continue to show my work, which often discusses race and cultural identity from my position of lived racialised experience, at a gallery that has chosen to represent an artist who, already benefiting from systems of colonialism, racism and patriarchy as a white man, further exploits his position through his art.

Regardless of whether or not Grogan’s work of the moment claims to directly appropriate specific Indigenous art styles, he has tried to build a career trading on controversy over this appropriation. His work is built on this association with (false) Aboriginality and it would be refreshing if galleries, artists, and others in the art industry and beyond would recognise the racist implications of supporting him. Perhaps you could show that you do not support him nor those in the industry that support him via correspondence to the various galleries that have chosen to represent him.

Jan Manton Art, Brisbane

jan@janmantonart.com

Gallerysmith, Melbourne

marita@gallerysmith.com.au

Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide

mail@hugomichellgallery.com

Rather than further investigate Grogan’s art, why not pay (more) attention to those culturally connected to the styles he has appropriated, and to proppanow; Tony Albert, Vernon Ah Kee, Richard Bell, and many other Indigenous artists speaking from their own experiences. And read Paola Balla’s correspondence with Gallerysmith.

Please do not contact me personally via email nor via fan page to defensively discuss Grogan’s work. Instead I recommend reading through this online resource of links discussing racism and how it links to cultural appropriation.

Sincerely,

Texta Queen

 

Feel free to forward or copy this post on FB, email or otherwise 

 

Prime Minister Gillard addresses the end of the world. And the youtube comments are a soul-sucking hole of something something. 

I am a teeny tiny bit obsessed with Peng Liyuan ( 彭丽媛), the wife of Xi Jinping (the new leader of the CPC). She is totally a famous Chinese folk singer and there has been some talk about her maybe having an opportunity to bring awesomeness to the role of ‘first lady’. 

Also she and I have one of the same characters in our names. 

mideastcuts:

Ghada Karmi and Ellen Siegel, in 1973, 1992 and 2011. Photos by Francis Khoo (1, 2) and Jean-Pascal Deillon (3)