In what’s been described as the first of its kind, 300 people are expected to attend a conference aimed at tackling racism head on in Australia.
The inaugural, National Symposium Unifying Anti-Racist Research and Action in Magandjin (Brisbane) will bring together academics, activists, practitioners, students to look at ways to eliminate racism.
Academic and author, Professor Chelsea Watego, is one of the people behind the symposium. As Executive Director of the Carumba Institute at QUT, she says while they want to build a sense of solidarity in the struggle against racism, it’s important to spotlight Indigenous knowledge.
“We have brought together this conference through a series of provocations, and so each session is a panel discussion in which we have a mixture of activists and academics, artists, Indigenous as well as settlers of colour, who are in conversation with each other around some of the pressing ethical and moral challenges around doing anti-racism work.
“We know that when you speak truth to power, you are subject even more violence, and so this is a safe space where we come together… we re-organise, re-mobilise and get re-energised for the year ahead in the ongoing fight against racial violence.”
The Munanjahli and South Sea Islander woman says that there are no experts, and what she is most excited for is the strategies that will emerge for what is a persistent fight against racism.
The timing is right
Her collaborator is Dr David Singh, Academic Director at Carumba Institute. He believes it’s come at the right time and location after recent decisions by the new LNP government in Queensland.
“It’s fitting that it’s taking place in Magandjin, against the backdrop of the abandoning of the truth and healing process, [and] the preoccupation of the current state government with juvenile justice… people are coming and heeding the call and trying to work out well where to from here, in terms of taking forward a struggle that has been fractured over the years.”
Dr Singh also says they’re looking to learn from others who have forged different struggles in other parts of the nation, and he hopes national action can be sparked from these discussions.
A stronger national stategy is needed
Professor Watego says oftentimes in public discourse the focus is on how racism works and that needs to change.
“We’re still in this default conversation about, well, is racism real? And people of colour and black fellas know it is. We know the material effects of racism.”
Professor Watego and Dr Singh also made submissions to the Australian Human Rights Commission regarding the National Anti-Racism Framework released in November last year.
They both said that a national strategy is desperately needed however they believe that it didn’t go far enough.
Professor Watego says that the report is offering something that the government will accept.
“If we understand race as structural and the state as perpetrator, then our national anti-racism framework shouldn’t be framed around what the perpetrator would accept. It should be fierce. It should be confronting. This is a fight.
“The thing that energises me is the courage of black fellas, not just now, but those gone before us for over 200 years that have maintained that fight.
“What we hope to do with this event coming up is to honour those that have paved the way for us and reflect on the lessons that we should take heed from as we move forward, and not to be broken by this current time or feel hopeless but be inspired and motivated to keep up the good fight.”
National Symposium Unifying Anti-Racist Research and Action is from the 23rd to the 24th of January.
Feature image: Professor Chelsea Watego and Dr David Singh. Image supplied (QUT)
