A great article, from Vox, that investigates the issues of gun control on America’s easy access to guns is enabling all these mass shootings.
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Category Archives: Violence
Red Dead Suffragettes: When violence against women is reflected in our culture
As a parent to a child who plays video games, I’m concerned by the content of the games. So far we’ve had a great deal of control over the content our child is exposed to. We have an open dialogue about what games are suitable for them, how often they should play it, and setting limits to how much screen time is suitable.
I came across the Red Dead Suffragettes story and wanted to share it with you. Again it calls out the violence against women, that is endemic in my society. The politics of power and privilege play out each and everyday, and it is our responsibility to call it out for what it is. We need to change how we view violence at every level, if we are to enact the social change this world needs.
SOAR – speak out against racism
The SOAR project is a collaborative study on racism and racial bullying in Australian schools. We are interested in finding out what Year 5-9 students in NSW and Victorian schools and their teachers think about racism, racial bullying, standing up for others, health and wellbeing and school connectedness. A random selection of state primary and secondary schools have been invited to participate.
The main focus of the project is to find out what makes bystanders speak out when they see racism and racial bullying occur in the classroom or playground, or even on the way to and from school. We will engage students, teachers and school executive in the study to gain a holistic understanding of racism in Australian schools. SOAR researchers are developing a program to encourage students and teachers to act when they witness racism, which will be piloted with Year 5 students in a small number of schools in NSW and Victoria. By surveying students and their teachers before and after and evaluating the pilot program, SOAR Project aims to improve our knowledge of bystander responses to racism and racial bullying in school settings.
For more information on this project please click here.
Ta-Nehisi Coates – Black Panther And The Crew #1
Black Panther, Storm, Luke Cage, Misty Knight and Manifold band together to take on a dangerous wave of street-level threats in this new ongoing series by co-writers Ta-Nehisi Coates (New York Times best-selling author of Between the World and Me and Marvel’s Black Panther) and Yona Harvey (Black Panther: World of Wakanda) and legendary artist Butch Guice! The death of a Harlem activist kicks off a mystery that will reveal surprising new secrets about the Marvel Universe’s past and set the stage for a big story in the Marvel Universe’s near future. Fear, hate and violence loom, but don’t worry, The Crew’s got this: “We are the streets.”
Read it because:
You need a new comic book title, that embraces diversity and also the lessons of history. A powerful book that helps the non-American understand what is happening in America. I found it incredibly powerful and have started book clubbing with my child…..Best comic of this year – 2018.
WIRE e-bulletin #245 – Facing down Racism
Julie Kun, WIRE CEO wrote the following in an email bulletin. I needed to share with you her concerns as they are a reflection of my own, as I listen incredulously to the casual racist rhetoric pouring out.
I’m back from leave in Europe, only to discover the country has become distressingly more racist since I departed.
Yesterday I listened to part of Queensland Senator Fraser Anning’s maiden speech in which he praised the White Australia Policy and called for a plebiscite as “the final solution to the immigration problem”.
Last week I listened to Barnaby Joyce being interviewed by Charles Pickering stating how we have to look after people in regional areas because “they’re poor, in many instances white.”
The week before I was reading Andrew Bolt’s racist and divisive article in which he attacks immigrants, alongside the Jews of Caulfield, and talks about Australia being colonised and taken over.
I have had enough. Just four weeks ago, I was standing in Terezin in the Czech Republic, a former concentration camp during WWII. A camp in which 7,500 children were murdered because of their religion; my father was only one of 264 children to survive it. This is not the distant past — this is my immediate family’s direct experience.
When I hear and read these racist opinions, my values feel attacked. I feel threatened and this is as a white, privileged Australian. Talk of a final solution and a Jewish ghetto existing in North Caulfield not only stings but causes stress and disquiet. I still function — most will not see or hear the unrest within me but it is there.
One person recently called this constant background stress of casual racism dealing with ‘white noise’.
But I wonder how much more attacked and threatened I would feel if I was a woman of colour, a First Nations person, an immigrant or a Muslim. A person who could not hide their skin colour, accent or religion from the community. How much more intense would the disquiet be? How much more energy would I have to expend to protect myself from the attacks on who I am?
There are WIRE staff, volunteers, board members and service users who are not left wondering because it is their daily experience. To you, I want to acknowledge your strength and the additional baggage white Australia forces you to carry each day.
Let us all ensure that we are taking care of one another. That we make WIRE a safe place and that our work is an active tool to dampen the destructive racist forces that too often feel emboldened to speak out. If you are reading this and you have the privilege of not being the target of these racist and ignorant attacks then your job right now is to listen, find out what people tell you they need, support and react appropriately.
Dr Nilmini Fernando, a WIRE staff member, has just reminded me of this fantastic quote from Audre Lorde who self-described herself as a black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet: ‘I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.’ Too true.
In solidarity,
Julie Kun, WIRE CEO
Help prevent Gender violence
Dr Gemma Hamilton, Anastasia Powell and Dr Naomi Pfitzner, academics from RMIT University have written that it’s only a little over halfway through the year and already 37 Australian women have been killed by violence.
On average, at least one Australian woman is killed by a current or former partner a week, and about one in six women have experienced sexual or physical violence since the age of 15.
They have compiled a guide to promote gender equality and help prevent violence against women it can be found here at The Conversation website.
