In class I’ve been asked why people say white people have privilege. So, let’s talk about it. Here’s my TikTok video and the script below: @racialliteracysolidarity ♬ original sound – RacialLiteracySolidarity The concept seems to have come from Peggy McIntosh’s 1989 essay, ‘White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible…
Introducing Decolonization and Social Worlds
I am proud to announce a new book series just launched last Bristol University Press co-edited by Ali Meghji (Cambridge), Syed Farid Alatas (NUS Singapore) and me, Decolonization and Social Worlds. Read more about the series and get in touch to discuss a proposal with one…
Challenging Migration Studies
This provocative series challenges the established field of migration studies to think beyond its policy-oriented frameworks and to engage with the complex and myriad forms in which the global migration regime is changing in the twenty-first century. It proposes to draw together studies that engage with…
Understanding Race Week 1: Working with and against race. Some words on Du Bois and Chun
In preparing for this new year of Understanding Race, the Masters of Research class I teach at Western Sydney University, I have been thinking about the call to speak more about race in settler colonial ‘Australia’. As I have written, there is an elision of race…
Coded Bias
For the final week of The Racial State, we are going to engage in the relationship between race, digital technology and social media. We shall focus our classroom activity around Joy Buolamwini’s research project Coded Bias which has also been made into a Netflix documentary. We…
The Anti-Islamophobia Bubble Map
In Week 12, we will have a guest lecture from author of Radical Skin, Moderate Masks, Dr Yassir Morsi. Watch Yassir discuss his book together with author of The Muslims Are Coming!, Arun Kundnani here:
Imagining Abolition
Week 11 of The Racial State all involve a discussion of police, prison and detention abolition. I have adapted some tests produced by abolitionist activists and intellectuals Mariame Kaba, Debbie Kilroy (from Sisters Inside) and Tabitha Lean. In preparation for this week’s theme, we will be…
Reflecting on Why Race Still Matters 1 year on with Surviving Society
Everyone knows how much I love the Surviving Society podcast with Chantelle Lewis and Tissot Regis, produced by George Ofori-Addo. So I was absolutely delighted to be invited back to talk about my feelings about my book more or less 1 year after its publication, a…
Thinking about Police Violence
Mariame Kaba has some amazing resources on her blog, Prison Culture including the #FergusonSyllabus: Talking and Teaching about police violence. I have adapted one of her techniques, the ‘6 word story’ exercise for us on Week 10 of The Racial State during which we will be…
Institutional Racism Scenarios
I first developed this exercise when I was invited by Professor Lilon Bandler to speak to er medical students at Sydney University! Here I have re-adapted it for use in our The Racial State Week 8 on institutional and systemic racism, as a ‘menu’.