In this important and beautifully written book, Aileen Moreton-Robinson gives us a compelling analysis of white Australian feminism seen through Indigenous Australian women's eyes. She unpacks the unspoken normative subject of feminism as white middle-class woman, where whitemess marks their position of power and privilege vis-a-vis Indigenous women, and where silence about whitemess sustains the exercise of that power. And she examines the consequences of practices for Indigenous women and White women.' (Source: Preface, Talkin' Up to the White Women, 2000)
Dedication:
For the warrior women of Quandamooka
especially my nan Lavinia Moreton (1905-1989)
my mum Joan Moreton and my daughter
Rhiannon Moreton-Robinson
'Archives are an integral component in the formation of a nation’s historical narratives. They are both repositories and sources of a nation’s evidence of events. Institutional archives have been striving to incorporate equity and social justice for Indigenous peoples but their practice is still heavily skewed to colonists’ perspectives. In this article, the author uses critical race theory to examine the social media narratives of Australia’s institutional archives during National Reconciliation Week, coinciding with the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprising. She uses the concept of counter-narrative to demonstrate the gaps between narratives about Indigenous peoples and those by Indigenous peoples in contemporary archival narratives as portrayed in social media. She argues that to truly achieve equity and social justice for Indigenous peoples, archives must engage with Indigenous counter-narratives in their collecting and exhibiting practices and bring the institutional and Indigenous narratives closer together.' (Publication abstract)
'The COVID-19 pandemic and the resurgence and spread of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and protests within the US and beyond have drawn fresh attention to the usefulness of intersectionality as an analytic and political lens through which to comprehend the world. Intersectionality demands we notice and address structural inequality and its effects on particular groups and individuals and eschews a universalist approach that glosses over—for example—the fact that some people are much more likely to die of disease or at the hands of police or in prison than others, or indeed to protest about it. Its champions argue an intersectional approach should inform everything from humanitarianism to health policy to protest movements to arts funding to domestic violence services, all of which have been recalibrated in 2020 as COVID-19 exacerbates and creates social inequalities. These advocates include intersectionality’s central theorist Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, a Professor of Law at Columbia University and UCLA, who through her Intersectionality Matters! podcast and #SayHerName campaign has provided cogent analysis and activism around both the pandemic and #Black Lives Matter.'
'When yarning with distinguished professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson, the Goenpul author of Talkin’ Up to the White Woman, your first priority is to keep up. Moreton-Robinson has a famously-sharp intellect, and is never not observing and evaluating social systems.'