Why gender essentialism is a white supremacist ideology Alana Lentin 2023-03-27 | For Week 4 of The Racial State on race, gender and sexuality, I interviewed Maddison Stoff on her recent Overland Journal article. Stoff wrote the article to set in context the political transphobic events that took place in Australia in mid-March 2023 when neo-nazis joined transphobes to attack the existence of transgender people. This article helps us to understand why it is important to understand the links between political transphobia and white supremacist visions of a society ordered around a heterosexist white patriarchal vision of the normative family unit, a vision which violently excludes anyone not conforming to this mould and dehumanised on this basis. https://overland.org.au/2023/03/why-gender-essentialism-is-a-white-supremacist-ideology/
Kieron Turner presents The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins Alana Lentin 2024-05-21 | Kieron Turner (@decolonialcommi) gave us a bespoke presentation on the book 'The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World ' by Vincent Bevins.About the book:The hidden story of the wanton slaughter - in Indonesia, Latin America, and around the world - backed by the United States.In 1965, the U.S. government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians. This was one of the most important turning points of the twentieth century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile. But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA's secret interventions were so successful.In this bold and comprehensive new history, Vincent Bevins builds on his incisive reporting for the Washington Post, using recently declassified documents, archival research and eye-witness testimony collected across twelve countries to reveal a shocking legacy that spans the globe. For decades, it's been believed that parts of the developing world passed peacefully into the U.S.-led capitalist system. The Jakarta Method demonstrates that the brutal extermination of unarmed leftists was a fundamental part of Washington's final triumph in the Cold War.About the author:Vincent Bevins is an award-winning journalist. He reported for the Financial Times in London, then served as the Brazil correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, before covering Southeast Asia for the Washington Post. His first book, The Jakarta Method, came out in 2020.
Politics, Power and Resistance 2024. Ryan Al Natour on Deaf Palestinians in Gaza. Alana Lentin 2024-03-25 | This week Politics, Power and Resistance is joined by Dr Ryan Al-Natour. Dr Al-Natour is a Palestinian-Australian scholar who is a lecturer in the School of Education at Charles Sturt University. Ryan has qualifications in Auslan (Australian Sign Language) and is very active as an interpreter (in training) for the deaf community within the global Palestine liberation movement.
Jairo Fúnez: I was suspended by my university for standing with Palestine Alana Lentin 2024-03-15 | I am helping rase money to cover legal costs for Professor Jairo Fúnez-Flores. gofundme.com/f/help-fund-prof-jairo-funezfloress-legal-defenceProfessor Jairo Fúnez-Flores is an Assistant Professor of Curriculum Studies in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Texas Tech University. His contribution to public pedagogy is well-known to many across the world who follow his X account for his insights into decolonial research and practice.As detailed in this open letter, Professor Fúnez-Flores has used his platform to speak out in steadfast solidarity with the Palestinian people in light of the genocide currently being perpetrated against them. For this he has been targeted, doxxed, and slandered and now suspended by his university. Shockingly, Texas Tech University has ceded to the demands of a right-wing pressure group, Texas Scorecard , and suspended Professor Fúnez pending an investigation by the Office of Equal Opportunity into whether his ‘learning or working environments’ involve ‘discriminatory harassment.’Professor Fúnez-Flores’s public pronouncements drawing attention to the horrific genocide in which over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed to date and where a preventable famine is causing the slow death of countless more, are being wilfully interpreted as potentially constituting discrimination and harassment.Regardless of their own political positions, everyone should be deeply concerned about this harassment of Professor Fúnez-Flores and the attack on his livelihood. The blatant persecution and intimidation against Professor Funez-Flores is sad evidence of the insidious erosion of academic freedom and the return of political persecution of intellectual dissent.I believe that all those who stand against racism, colonialism and genocide and on the side of freedom for the Palestinian people, are open to similar attacks to those on my friend, Jairo Fúnez-Flores. We must show our solidarity with him, knowing from his actions that he would do the same for us!Therefore, I am requesting your help today to fund Professor Fúnez-Flores’s legal defence. gofundme.com/f/help-fund-prof-jairo-funezfloress-legal-defence
Working with and against race (Berlin) Alana Lentin 2023-09-04 | Alana Lentin and Anna-Esther Younes in conversation at Hopscotch Reading Room
The Campaign to Free The Pendleton 2 with Too Black Alana Lentin 2023-05-12 | Podcaster, poet, author and organiser, Too Black, joined The Racial State to talk about the documentary, ‘The Pendleton 2: They Stood Up’ and the Defence Committee to Free the Pendleton 2. The Pendleton 2 are John "Balagoon" Cole & Christopher "Naeem" Trotter. They saved a man's life from a KKK-affiliated prison guard gang and were sentenced to 84 & 142 years in prison for it.To find out more: https://linktr.ee/freedomcampaign
Guest Lecture: Black Peoples Union President, Keiran Stewart-Assheton Alana Lentin 2023-04-11 | Black Peoples Union National President Keiran Stewart-Assheton speaks to The Racial State.In a short but encompassing talk, he addresses the history of Indigenous peoples, the impact of colonisation, Australia’s position as a sub-imperial capitalist nation-state, the history of Indigenous political mobilisation, and the stance of the BPU on Indigenous self-determination and land back.
On the Limitations of White Privilege with Khadijah Diskin: The Racial State Week 3 Alana Lentin 2023-03-17 | In this interview PhD researcher and academic, Khadijah Diskin, of Manchester Metropolitan University, speaks to Alana Lentin on the limitations of the concept of white privilege for making sense of whiteness as s structure of power.
Race and Power Alana Lentin 2023-03-06 | I introduce the notion that race is an action word; it is a technology of power, and neither an identity nor a biological category.
Politics, Power and Resistance: Gender & Power Alana Lentin 2022-05-02 | What is the relationship between gender and power? What is the relationship between capitalism and gender relations, something feminists refer to as 'social reproduction' - or the unseen and unpaid labour often performed by women but which is not acknowledged as being fundamental for keeping the economy afloat? How have Black, majority world, and Indigenous feminists helped us to make sense of gendered power, especially when white women have participated in upholding white male supremacy and so troubling the idea that there is a universal 'sisterhood' among women? In what ways have men too been oppressed by dominant ideas about gender that force us to conform to the idea of a 'gender binary'? Despite what we tend to believe, the idea of the link between gender and sex is introduced around the world via colonial power. How are sexual minorities subjugated under hetero-patriarchy? How have queer and trans people helped unsettle this binary and what form does the political backlash against this take? These questions and more will help us make sense of why and how gender is socially constructed. Paying attention to Black, socialist and Indigenous feminist texts, we will begin to explore the gendered nature of power.
Alison Phipps Part 4 Alana Lentin 2022-04-30 | Alison Phipps, Professor of Sociology at Newcastle University in the UK joined Alana Lentin and Arunima Das, from the Western Sydney University, Culture and Society course, Politics, Power and resistance to talk about her work on gender and power.In Part 4, Also talks about some ways in which people are resisting gender violence and mobilising around feminist politics.
Alison Phipps Part 3 Alana Lentin 2022-04-30 | Alison Phipps, Professor of Sociology at Newcastle University in the UK joined Alana Lentin and Arunima Das, from the Western Sydney University, Culture and Society course, Politics, Power and resistance to talk about her work on gender and power.In Part 3, Alison talks about how best to understand the political role of sexual and gender violence.
Alison Phipps Part 2 Alana Lentin 2022-04-30 | Alison Phipps, Professor of Sociology at Newcastle University in the UK joined Alana Lentin and Arunima Das, from the Western Sydney University, Culture and Society course, Politics, Power and resistance to talk about her work on gender and power.In Part, Alison continues in her introduction of different approaches to studying gender. As she's reminds us, studying gender requires us to hold more than one idea in our heads at once!
Alison Phipps Part 1 Alana Lentin 2022-04-30 | Alison Phipps, Professor of Sociology at Newcastle University in the UK joined Alana Lentin and Arunima Das, from the Western Sydney University, Culture and Society course, Politics, Power and resistance to talk about her work on gender and power.In Part 1 Alison introduces various approaches to studying gender with a focus on the gender binary. She introduces the idea of social reproduction and the coloniality of gender.
Anti-Poverty Activism with Kristin OConnell Alana Lentin 2022-04-20 | Kristin O'Connell from the Antipoverty Centre joined Politics, Power and Resistance to talk about mutual obligations, work for the dole and the complicity of the big Australian charities in keeping poor people in poverty and reinforcing stigma.
Professor Imogen Tyler on Stigma: The Machinery of Inequality Part II Alana Lentin 2022-04-08 | Professor Imogen Tyler came to Politics, Power and Resistance to talk about her book, Stigma: The Machinery of Inequality. In Part II she talks about the process of stigmatisation and the relationship power.
Professor Imogen on Stigma: The Machinery of Inequality Part III Alana Lentin 2022-04-08 | Professor Imogen Tyler came to Politics, Power and Resistance to talk about her book, Stigma: The Machinery of Inequality. In Part III she spoke about the Poverty Truth Commission and the importance of 'experience experts'.
Professor Imogen Tyler on Stigma: The Machinery of Inequality Part IV Alana Lentin 2022-04-08 | Professor Imogen Tyler came to Politics, Power and Resistance to discuss her book, Stigma: The Machinery of Inequality. In Part IV she spoke about how students can get involved in activism.
Professor Imogen Tyler on Stigma: The Machinery of Inequality Part I Alana Lentin 2022-04-08 | Professor Imogen Tyler came to Politics, Power and Resistance to talk about her book, Stigma: The Machinery of Inequality. In Part 1 she introduces herself and explains what led her tor search stigma.
The Coloniality of Power with Jairo Fúnez Part II Alana Lentin 2022-03-11 | This is Part II of a 4 part interview with Professor Jairo Funez on the concept of the coloniality of power for Politics, Power and Resistance, a course led by Alana Lentin at Western Sydney University.
The Coloniality of Power with Jairo Fúnez Part IV Alana Lentin 2022-03-11 | This is Part IV of a 4 part interview with Professor Jairo Funez on the concept of the coloniality of power for Politics, Power and Resistance, a course led by Alana Lentin at Western Sydney University.
The Coloniality of Power with Jairo Fúnez Part I Alana Lentin 2022-03-11 | This is Part I of a 4 part interview with Professor Jairo Funez on the concept of the coloniality of power for Politics, Power and Resistance, a course led by Alana Lentin at Western Sydney University.
The Coloniality of Power Part III with Jairo Fúnez Alana Lentin 2022-03-10 | This is Part III of a 4 part interview with Professor Jairo Fúnez on the concept of coloniality of power for Politics, Power and Resistance, a course led by Alana Lentin at Western Sydney University
Tabitha Lean: Imagining Abolition Alana Lentin 2021-09-29 | Abolition activist, Gunditjmara woman Tabitha Lean, came to speak to The Racial State, a course led by Alana Lentin at the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University.
Race, Gender and sexuality lecture slides Alana Lentin 2021-08-05 | The Racial State, my undergraduate course at Western Sydney University: lecture slides for week 5 on race, gender and sexuality
Tne Moral Panic about CRT in Australia Alana Lentin 2021-06-24 | I spoke to Priya Kunjan of Radio 3CR about critical race theory
Why Race Still Matters, Chapter 2: Not Racism™️ Alana Lentin 2020-06-06 | This short reading recalls Irish actor, Liam Neeson's description of the time he wanted to kill any Black man in revenge for the rape of a friend. I ask why there is a rush to deny that events such as these are about racism. Why do we constantly seek to deny racism and redefine it as 'not racism' - a form of discursive racist violence.'Why are you making this about race?' This question is repeated daily in public and in the media. Calling someone racist in these times of mounting white supremacy seems to be a worse insult than racism itself. In our supposedly post-racial society, surely it’s time to stop talking about race?This powerful refutation is a call to notice not just when and how race still matters but when, how and why it is said not to matter. Race critical scholar Alana Lentin argues that society is in urgent need of developing the skills of racial literacy, by jettisoning the idea that race is something and unveiling what race does as a key technology of modern rule, hidden in plain sight. Weaving together international examples, she eviscerates misconceptions such as reverse racism and the newfound acceptability of 'race realism', bursts the 'I’m not racist, but' justification, complicates the common criticisms of identity politics and warns against using concerns about antisemitism as a proxy for antiracism. Dominant voices in society suggest we are talking too much about race. Lentin shows why we actually need to talk about it more and how in doing so we can act to make it matter less.
Chapter 3 - Making it About Race Alana Lentin 2020-05-05 | This reading from Chapter 3 of 'Why Race Still Matters' recalls the 2018 'Lefty Boot Camp' sketch from Australian satirical news show, Tonightly, in which antiracists are admonished for the failures of 'the left'. I argue that a lack of interest in the actual history of the antiracist movement in all its complexity is to blame for these simplistic associations made between speaking about race and the failures of the left.
The Dangers of Refusing to See Race: Not Racism in the times of Covid-19 Alana Lentin 2020-04-24 | In this video, I discuss how decades of refusing to have a serious public discussion about race, grounded in the lived-experience of people targeted by the operations of racial rule, and instead turning racism into a matter of debate, has dangerous implications for racism in the times of the Coronavirus pandemic.I link this to some of the issues I discuss in my new book, Why Race Still Matters, out in the UK with Polity Books in April 2020 and in the US and Australia in June. politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509535705
AUDIO: Gavan Titley - The Debatability of Racism: Postracialism, digital media and public culture Alana Lentin 2019-12-18 | A public lecture organised by the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University by media scholar Gavan Titley. The event is chaired by Alana Lentin, introduced by Jack Gibson (Institute for Culture and Society) and responded to by Luke Pearson (Indigenous X) and Sukhmani Khorana (University of Wollongong)Racism, in public culture, is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. In the contemporary political context, to speak publicly about racism is to be immediately integrated into an intensive process of delineation, deflection and denial, a contest over who gets to define racism, when ‘everyone’ gets to speak about it. In the postcolonial, migration nations of western Europe and North America, this contestation centres on the dominant imaginary of these societies as ‘post-racial’, socio-political spaces in which, the story goes, the divisive ‘idea of race’ no longer matters, and the violence of racism has been largely transcended. The public cultures of these societies are also shaped by dense transnational networks of media flow and communicative connectivity that provide unprecedented possibilities to both extend and challenge racializing discourses, images, frameworks and information. The overlap between the two produces what this talk terms the debatability of racism. It argues that in contexts where official narratives and dominant public discourses assume the ‘end of racism’ even as people who experience racism attest to its renewed formations and exclusionary and humiliating force, these everyday communicative concentrations on the status, nature and extent of racism are politically consequential – postracialism functions not only through ‘muting’ and silencing, but through noise. The talk suggests that this debatability, this incessant, recursive attention as to what counts as racism and who gets to define it, has political consequences for practices of antiracism – practices that want to name racism publicly, the better to mobilize to confront it.
Racial Capitalism, Possession and Reproduction Alana Lentin 2019-10-24 | Focusing on Gargi Bhattacharyya's work on 'Rethinking Racial Capitalism' with a stress on social reproduction theory from the standpoint of race. The class also considers Francoise Verges' work on the 'capitalocene'The Francoise Verges lecture referenced in the final slide is here youtube.com/watch?v=0cw0s0AyQiI&list=PLqMH88ilC6LXYU3ms2YShYojmbI5TfBK3&index=2
Decolonial Thought - Alana Lentin Alana Lentin 2019-10-16 | Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University Key Thinkers Lecture Series
Race/class (in analyses of racial capitalism) Alana Lentin 2019-10-03 | This presentation looks at some key ideas from Du Bois, Cedric Robinson, Nikhil Pal Singh, Stuart Hall, Robbie Shilliam, Charisse Burden-Stelly.Please watch Robbie Shilliam's lecture accompanying this: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqMH88ilC6LUGFOi4U2lpOnAtzPo7auPW
Understanding Race Lecture on Cedric Robinsons Black Marxism (Part I & II) Alana Lentin 2019-09-12 | ...
Race and the Colonial Experience movie - The Racial State Week 6 Alana Lentin 2019-09-03 | This week we shall examine the relationship between racism and colonialism and look at the construction of colonial rule in Australia, paying attention to how it is dually built upon the dispossession of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the land and on the experience of immigrant loss. We shall pay attention to how ideas of race and nation are closely intertwined and how race is used to legitimise colonial appropriation. We shall pay particular attention to the notion of terra nullius and examine debates about the teaching of the so-called ‘black armband’ approach to teaching about Australia’s colonial past.
Whiteness, White Possession and White supremacy - The Racial State Week 3 Alana Lentin 2019-09-03 | This week will examine the role of race in upholding white supremacy on both a national and a global scale. We will look at whiteness as a form of possession and/or property. We will think about how whiteness works as an institution of power even if it associates itself with white-skinned people. We will ask how white advantage works in everyday situations. We will examine the concepts of ‘White Ignorance’, ‘White Innocence’ and ‘White Fragility’. We will examine the recent re-emergence of white supremacist movements in Australia and elsewhere and consider how they are attached to more everyday forms of whiteness. Finally, we will ask whether or not it is possible or desirable to dismantle and/or leave whiteness. What would refusing the benefits accrued through whiteness mean in a practical sense?
Institutional and systemic racism - The Racial State Week 8 Alana Lentin 2019-09-03 | Racism is perpetuated in institutions. Often it is difficult to discern racism because it is not overt, and may not be immediately obvious in individual behaviour. Nevertheless, outcomes for school students, patients, employees and those who have dealing with the police and the judiciary are often affected by cultures of racism within institutions. ‘Racial neoliberalism’ establishes standards according to which racialised people are judged against white middle class people who have not experienced the same challenges. Efforts to oppose institutional racism have often focused on ‘equity and diversity’ measures but have not tackles the underlying systemic racism that may determine outcomes. This week sets up the framework for the discussion of specific systems in the following weeks.
Politics, Power and Resistance Week 10: Citizenship, Inequality & Austerity Alana Lentin 2018-10-03 | ...
Anning and Murray Alana Lentin 2018-08-15 | On August 14, Fraser Anning made his maiden speech in the Australian senateHe evoked the 'Final Solution' when he spoke against immigration\NOn August 14, Fraser Anning made his maiden speech in the Australian senateproposing that immigration should not be offeredto 'anyone from the Third World who demands it.Mass outrage ensuedBy using the words 'Final Solution' and evoking the Holocausteven the far right Pauline Hanson condemned Anningby likening him to GoebbelsSome days earlier, the ABC 'Tonightly' showinterviewed Islamophobic ideologue, Douglas MurrayMurray blamed Somali migrantswho have fled violence for London's 'gang violence'He also states that 'ugly' views need to be airedUgly views like those of Fraser Anning.Tonightly's Tom Ballard fails to respondFaux outrage about Anning's speech is meaninglesswhile the 'liberal' media continues to treat all views as equalwhen they come from the well-spoken.Murray and Anning may look and speak differentlyBut each upholds white supremacyKeep watching to view the Tonightly clip.
The Racial State: Race, social media and digital technology Part 1 Alana Lentin 2017-10-03 | Increasingly, digital technology and social media are becoming important for changing understandings of race and racism. Algorithms, interfaces, and the design of platforms and websites, such as dating apps or face recognition software generate racial information of various kinds. Cyber-racism is becoming more and more of a danger with the far right using the internet to target people of colour and antiracist activists. Social media and technology are also becoming important sites for antiracist resistance. We will examine these developments and consider what impact digital technology and social media have on our daily lives as the divide between the ‘virtual’ and the ‘real’ is all but non-existent.
Everyday Health and Ableism Alana Lentin 2017-05-05 | A lecture for the Western Sydney University Everyday Life Unit on 'Everyday Health and Ableism'
Week 13 Everyday racism Alana Lentin 2017-04-20 | Everyday Racism, lecture for Everyday Life Unit, Western Sydney University by Alana Lentin.
