White Blindfolds and Black Armbands
The Uses of Whiteness Theory for Reading Australian Cultural Production
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1321816600001872Keywords:
History of race relations in Australia, cultural production, the white blindfold, the black armbandAbstract
Analyses or descriptions of the history of race relations (and cultural production) in what has been called Australia for about a hundred years, have frequently been informed by two orientations that might be simply categorised as the white blindfold and the black armband positions. In many cases, these two mindsets can be observed in other Western cultures although the interaction between them, and the society around them, gets played out differently in particular places at particular times.
References
Some of the same oppositions and dichotomies can be observed (functioning with further differences) in non-Western cultures. To take this up is beyond the scope of this short paper, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that such connections and comparisons are an essential part of an adequate account.
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See the argument by bell hooks for the use of this term in preference to racism in ‘Postmodern Blackness’ in Walter Truett Anderson, ed, The Fontana Post-Modernism Reader (London: Fontana, 1996): 116.
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