From: L.J.Connell-AT-sussex.ac.uk
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 1997 05:15 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Australian literature



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On Thu, 03 Apr 1997 17:42:17 -0500 John Eustace wrote:

>Mudrooroo has apparently said in his defense, he
> was always treated as an Aboriginal.  But he himself attacked Sally
Morgan
> a few years back when her autobiography _My Place_ won a major
Aboriginal
> literary award.  His point, if I remember correctly, was something
to the
> effect that she was not aboriginal enough, that she was never
treated as an
> aboriginal because she could pass for white, and thus had little
claim to
> the award (I'm afraid he missed the point of the book altogether--if
he
> even read it).  You can see where all this is leading: to some sort
of new
> racial essentialism.

I'm sorry I don't know either of these authors or their work but as
you describe it, Mudrooroo's point doesn't seem to me to be about
essential racial categories at all.  Isn't he simply saying that
racial identity is about perception/classification by others?  That an
award designed (if this is the case) to reward writers from a group
who, because of their status as a _visible_ minority, are
disadvantaged should not go to someone who is able to escape that
category by passing?  I'm not sure that I would agree with him but it
is consistent with his claiming that b/c he is taken for an Aborigine
due to his appearance he can legitimately claim to be one.  Obviously
this perspective misses a great deal about personal identification
with an identity group but is it really essentialism?

Liam Connell

________________________________________

GRC Humanities,
Arts B
University of Sussex
Falmer
Brighton
UK
l.j.connell-AT-sussex.ac.uk




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From: L.J.Connell-AT-sussex.ac.uk (Liam Connell)
Subject: Re: Australian literature
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