This will hurt me...

  One of many. Davey Street, Hobart. March 2021. Why Weren't We Told? by Henry Reynolds This is an essential read for any Australian who still holds (what they perceive as) the benign view that Australia's foundation was a case of gritty settlement of an unoccupied land against the odds. Moreover, it challenges the notion that the fate of its Aboriginal occupants (however tragic) is primarily due to their primitivism rather than any specific colonial policy or action. Why Weren't We Told?  is an exciting and accessible history. The book serves as Reynolds' literary memoir of a journey from 'innocence' (believing the comfortable myth of Australia as one of heroic settlement) to understand the true horrors of invasion, dispossession and ongoing racism. While I thought of myself as being quite across the realities of the Australian story, Reynolds has done a fabulous and thorough job in unpacking and interpreting the trends in historiography and highlight the disti...

Tasteful? Hunter Street, Hobart. June 2012. This one was spotted right out the front of Hobart's Art School. Seriously, it was. Tenebrae , Paul Celan We are near, Lord, near and at hand. Handled already, Lord, clawed and clawing as though the body of each of us were your body, Lord. Pray, Lord, pray to us, we are near. Wind-awry we went there, went there to bend over hollow and ditch. To be watered we went there, Lord. It was blood, it was what you shed, Lord. It gleamed. It cast your image into our eyes, Lord. Our eyes and our mouths are open and empty, Lord. We have drunk, Lord. The blood and the image that was in the blood, Lord. Pray, Lord. We are near.

Perhaps the only way that you could trump the obnoxious and boorish racism at the base of today’s advertisement for coffee would indeed be eschewing coloured models at all! I am sure that Maxwell House’s logic was one rooted in the question of why even bothering use a primitive savage when you can find two perfectly decent and upstanding white folk, get them to open up the can of boot polish and blacken themselves up for our amusement? Dare I suggest that – tub of Kiwi aside – you would struggle to find two more Caucasian-looking characters than these two Uni revue rejects? I hate this ad.

Now, I am certain that the brainiacs behind this little fundraising effort for the war didn’t mean any harm by their choice of words here, but that’s kind of the problem, isn't it? It reminds me of the time that the former Collingwood Football Club President (and budding-MENSA candidate) Allen McAllister clumsily attempted to refute accusations of institutionalised racism against Indigenous players. He decided that the best course of attack was to explain how he did not have a problem with coloureds , per se ... “As long as they conduct themselves like white people, well, off the field, everyone will admire them and respect them.” In the words of teh Internets, EPIC FAIL.

Much like some infamous ads that I have already featured, race and racial stereotypes are often at play in advertisments. Who could forget #51 (' little darkey in a watermelon '), #38 (‘ Chip feels sorry for Jap kids ’), #31 (‘ darkies eating watermelon on the fence while the slaveholders puff on cigars ’), #25 (‘ really cute Eskimos beheading surprised seal ’), and #6 (‘ traumatised pickaninny has penis eaten by goose yet mistakes it for Nazi panzer attack ’). Yet this one disturbs me probably the most, and no, it is not the lack of burnt cork or muss (whatever that is). The whole notion of marketing the 'oddball eyes (adjustable to any angle!)', 'buck teeth' and 'plantation hat' as " great fun " is offensive to the extreme. The fact that the stereotypes are based on crude caricatures of misfortunes no doubt associated with neglect and ill-treatment makes it worse. When you consider that these sort of ‘entertainments’ could still be commonly p...

This is an ad for a toy. That's right, a toy for kids. No jokes. ... Fucking hell .

Now, I do appreciate the sentiment expressed in today's ad, and (as ever) context is vital. When you're in the middle of a war a certain liberty may be taken with expression, so the jarring notion of a blonde, curly-haired scamp - let's call him 'Chip' - talking about "Jap kids" (in a strange and foreign font, no less) can be overcome. Yet what really concerns me about this ad is the odd lens through which the Sparton company have chosen (in 1943) to define what it means to be a "free American boy". Free speech and action, yep, no problemo. "Free American boys" should experience those delights. "Warm comfortable homes". Well, homes are a good start, and I guess you wouldn't want it cold. Comfortable? That surely is in the eye of the beholder? But yeah, comfortable is good, I guess. "Automobiles and radios by the million"? Yeah, you're starting to lose me here Sparton. "Electrical machines to keep and c...