VOCAL MINORITY Beź

"With free speech, comes a lot of responsibility, and a lot of media outlets and journsalists need to understand that" - Erin Chew

This past week, News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt wrote an opinion piece arguing why he thinks there’s a strong link between multiculturalism and Victoria’s second wave of COVID-19 infections - again. This was after the news of a new covid case at an Islamic school in Melbourne’s north. This rhetoric is nothing new, but the pandemic has definitely brought it to the forefront, particularly when it comes the Asian-Australian community, who’ve beared the brunt of COVID-19 racism.

Joining Bez Zewdie and Jim Malo is co-founder of the Asian Australian Alliance, Erin Chew, to chat about their newly published study called ‘Social commentary, racism & covid’. Conducted in partnership with All Together Now, the report looks at anti-Asian racism during COVID-19, and the different ways racism operates within Australian news media.

"There are other ways...of achieving [social cohesion], without it effectively becoming a tool for excluding certain groups." - Nyadol Nyuon

This past week saw the announcement of new English language requirements for Australian partner visas, that will take effect from mid-2021. They'll require applicants to learn English to a “functional level” before being considered for a visa - all in the interests of social cohesion.

If these new rules sound familiar, it’s because Australia adopted similar language requirements with its infamous White Australia policy, which looked to prevent non-European immigration to the country. A few years ago, Peter Dutton attempted to try and establish similar language requirements as well.

So what message does this send to those in Australia who do not fit within the Anglo-Australian identity? Human rights advocate Nyadol Nyuon joins Bez Zewdie and Jim Malo to chat about what these changes really mean for Australia.

"We're seeing now an extraordinarily, politically conservative approach to people who are not seen to be acceptable in Australia's racial heirarchy - which still exists. People like asylum seekers and Aboriginal people are treated with contempt for their needs. There needs to be a clear understanding of how this has grown out of Australian history." - Jacqui Katona

Activist and advocate Jacqui Katona doesn't just teach Indigenous history, but has played a key role in it, too. From the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Stolen Generations in the Northern Territory, helping prevent uranium mining at Jabiluka at Kakadu National Park, and winning the 1999 Goldman Environmental Prize for Island Nations alongside Yvonne Margarula, she brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to her role as lecturer of Indigenous history and politics at Victoria University.

She joins Vocal Minority's Jim Malo and Bez Zewdie to discuss the role comprehensive Indigenous education can play in breaking the cycle of systemic racism.

"The perpetrator [...] performs it as a 'joke' or 'compliment' [...] then the burden of interpretation is on the recipient. Because of the constant patterns of gaslighting, you end up doubting your experiences" – Dr Kathomi Gatwiri

Dr Kathomi Gatwiri is an award-winning trauma and race researcher, senior academic at Southern Cross University and founder of Healing Together, whose work centres around the politics of race in this country, including her current survey exploring the impacts of the Black Lives Matter movement on Bla(c)k people (which you can fill out here) and her research exploring the ways race informs how Black parents raise their children in Australia.

Dr Gatwiri joins Bez Zewdie and Jim Malo to chat about her recent study Racial Microaggressions at Work: Reflections from Black African Professionals in Australia, which provides much needed insight into racial microaggressions (such as hair and accent discrimination) and the experiences of African professionals in Australian workplaces.

"A lot of people – especially non-Indigenous people – feel this guilt, but they should question why they feel this guilt. And if they do feel these negative emotions, they should channel it into something positive to create change. That's what history and memory work should be about, creating change." – Nathan 'Mudyi' Sentance

GENOCIDE: Episode 3 of Vocal Minority features Nathan 'Mudyi' Sentance – aka the ‘Archival Decolonist’ – a Wiradjuri man, project officer in First Nations programming at the Australian Museum, and a member of the Indigenous Archive Collective. He chats with Bez and Jim about the importance of centring Blak voices and perspectives within cultural and memory institutions (i.e. museums, libraries and galleries) and Australia's history of genocide and slavery.

"Your name is a vibration. Every time you repeat it, it's an affirmation. If a picture tells a thousand words, than a symbol tells a thousand pictures and your name is a symbol. So if you can arrange symbols around your life, of who you are, with things of strength - even your own name – then that has the ability to raise your conscious immediately." – Héritier Lumumba

Activist and former AFL footballer Héritier Lumumba joins Vocal Minority's Jim Malo and Bez Zewdie to chat about his experiences of racism within the AFL, the media fallout that followed, and finding strength in his Black identity and birth name.