I recently had a wonderful trip to Europe after not leaving ‘Australia’ for two and a half years. During the protracted covid-induced border closures I brought out my last book Why Race Still Matters. This gave me the opportunity to connect with a lot of wonderful people over zoom and so on. If Covid did one thing for us it was to make us realise that, even if we are far away from each other, we can schedule a zoom meeting or a chat over other platforms. So, I met many new people who I had never connected with face to face.
Having said that, there is nothing like being in the room with the people in your community. Chantelle, Tissot and George from the amazing Surviving Society podcast are people I consider to be in my academic family. I have listen to every single one of the episodes of the podcast and we have chatted 3 times now on the show. Being in the studio at Somerset House was a whole new experience though, and I must say the hugs were worth the trip alone!
I hope you enjoy this episode in which I think you can hear the relief and joy I felt at simply being there.