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Slides for a talk given by Dr Odette Kelada, which discusses whiteness, racialisation, and representation in the context of contemporary art. The audio for this talk is available here: http://soundcloud.com/art-broken Part 1 of a 3-part panel discussion on the topic of cultural appropriation in contemporary art, held at Gertrude Contemporary gallery in Melbourne on the 25th of February, 2014. This forum was held in response to pervasive practices of cultural appropriation amongst Australian artists, and particularly in response to debates on these issues arising around a video by art:broken: http://vimeo.com/83829093
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'There's a way in which white culture is perceived as too Wonder Bread right now, not edgy enough, not dangerous enough. Let's get some of those endangered species people to be exotic for us and it's really simply, I think, a more upscale version of primitivism, resurging. When blackness is the sign of transgression that is most desiredit allow whiteness to remain static, to remain conservative, and it's conservative thrust to go unnoticed. ‘ bell hooks
+W.E Dubois –Souls of white folks
‘The interdisciplinary field known as ‘Whiteness Studies’ …origins can be located in the early scholarship of the US black scholar W.E.B. DuBois.’ (DuBois, 1976[1935]; Twine and
Gallagher, 2008). ‘White like Who? - Twine)
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I do not laugh. I am quite straight-faced as I ask soberly: "But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?" Then always, somehow, some way, silently but clearly, I am given to understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and ever, Amen!
+Historicising Whiteness
‘Whiteness’ emerges circa 1680
When the terms ‘White’ appears in colonial laws
1776 - The term "Caucasian”: when Johann Blumenbach, one of many 18th-century naturalists, laid out the scientific template for race in ‘On the Natural Varieties of Mankind’.
+Defining Whiteness
‘As long as Race is something only applied to non-white people, … they/we function as a human norm.
Other people are raced, we are just white. There is no more powerful position than that of being ‘just’ human. The claim to power is the claim to speak for the commonality of humanity.
Raced people can’t do that – they can only speak for their race. But non-raced people can, for they do not represent the interests of a race.’(Richard Dyer)
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Billy Hughes speaking to Parliament on his victory in keeping out the Racial Equality clause out of the League of Nations Convenant :
“White Australia is yours. You may do with it what you please…I have brought that great principle back to you from the conference, as safe as the day when it was first adopted”.
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+Race: Power of illusion:Episode 3
‘Claiming we don't see race won't end racial inequality. As Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun said, "To get beyond racism we must first take account of race. There is no other way.”
TATUM: I think we all have to think about what can I influence? I don't influence everything, but the things I do influence, I can think about how am I making this a more equitable environment? I can ask myself who's included in this picture and who isn't, who's had opportunities in my environment and who hasn't? What can I do about that?
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