basically discusses a variety of problems australia experienced with the introduction of non-native species and how we addressed them
- two types of shbasically discusses a variety of problems australia experienced with the introduction of non-native species and how we addressed them
- two types of sheep fleece - inner soft outer coarse - how much of the worlds wool - especially for clothing - australia produces (bc of the merino sheep) - so many cool and interesting areas of science - research into diseases to kill rabbits - importance of dung beetles! breaking down cow dung so it doesn’t poison the soil - how different countries have dung beetles suited to different dung - dung beetle = scarab = sun god in ancient egypt l ...more
essential reading for anyone living in so-called australia.
could have easily been a very boring read but was written in a way that makes it very engagessential reading for anyone living in so-called australia.
could have easily been a very boring read but was written in a way that makes it very engaging and easy to read.
extremely eye-opening learning more about aboriginal approaches to food, land management, living etc. - and all the ways this knowledge/practices were ignored/destroyed. i hope we as a country begin to recognise these more.
“But refugees shouldn’t have to be exceptional to get our protection. No one expects that of you in return for your freedom and safety.”
expected this “But refugees shouldn’t have to be exceptional to get our protection. No one expects that of you in return for your freedom and safety.”
expected this to be pretty average but really enjoyed it!! a short little book that covered so much more than i expected - part memoir/history of the ASRC, but more about self-development/growth, the experiences of refugees, and politics
there were a few moments where he felt a little preachy.holier than thou but he balanced it with his honesty i suppose. also appreciated the acknowledgement of women’s and first nations specific issues
also loved all the suggestions - for self-love, being a better ally as a man, to help in causes, improve the community, how CEOs can change their workplace etc - they felt realistic, achievable, practical! some things i specifically want to do: look into volunteering at ASRC, community garden, donating blood, intergenerational programs, visiting/writing to refugees, see if there are more ethical supers i can join
parents and family - how much parents sacrifice for their children/families - i will never be able to fully appreciate this sacrifice/love - nor how it influences these parent/child relationships, sense of obligations etc - the daily consistency of his dad buying him that scorched peanut bar ??? its really the little things sometimes - “My mum…No one has loved me more and yet at the same time created so many issues for me.” (and the quote i saw in a tiktok slideshow once that made me sob…. “and your mom is the person that has most deeply hurt you but your mom will not let anyone else but her do the hurting”)
we all just need some basic empathy for others - “The cold, hard truth is that people really don’t want to leave their homes unless they have to. They don’t want to say goodbye to their family, community, culture and friends, and to start all over again in a foreign land where so often they are greeted with suspicion, racism and resistance… This is what is so often forgotten in the debate about refugees, that it’s just a birthright lottery and nothing more.” - “If everyone who talks about ‘helping our own’ actually did just that, we wouldn’t even have a homelessness problem. As a society we invest so much time and energy into not helping people by raging against people who really do care. What a waste. People need to be valued and helped back on their feet. You can never help by asking people who are barefoot to lift themselves up by their bootstraps.” - “Love uplifts us. It is the scaffolding of our humanity. It provides sanctuary to the oppressed because it sees them as human beings in need of welcome. Love asks, What would I want if my family knocked on the door of a stranger seeking refuge from harm? What would I want for my children for whom I had sacrificed all that we had known to bring them to safer shores? Love asks, If I were to lose my job and become unemployed, would drug-testing me rehabilitate my hope of a new beginning? Would being punished for my poverty make me more willing to give back to society? Love asks, If I lose my way and break the law, is locking me away with no regard for my own lifetime of trauma the best way forward? Love asks, Once I have served this sentence will I be a citizen ready to contribute and assimilate, or will I be filled with anger and hurt and take that out on my community again?” - “No one wants to be a burden, a problem, an issue, a target for people’s rage, anger and bitterness. And by that I’m not saying that people aren’t accountable for their actions or that they’re perpetual victims; of course people have agency and choices and need to be held responsible, but it is not always that easy or clear-cut. It assumes that there is an even playing field for all, that there is an equity and equality of opportunity to contribute, participate and succeed. The truth is there is not.”
failure and self-improvement and self-love - love the phrase ‘fail forward’: “And I think we often miss this moment and retreat back into old habits when instead we need to let go and ‘fail forward’ – to see the opportunity of failure to reflect, learn and grow – so at least there’s some progress.” - importance of being open and letting people in and trusting them: “Allowing yourself to be loved means letting people decide for themselves whether to love you, not you doing it for them. “ - “I know it’s hard to let your long-held patterns and the past go. It’s because you then have to face the grief of the life not lived. And with it the realisation that it could have been different so much sooner. The grief is often too much to let in, so we double down on the status quo. Forgive yourself and know you could not have come to this point sooner as you were in self-preservation mode.“ - “So take a moment to consider that if we own our failures with perspective, patience, forgiveness, reflection and kindness, we open ourselves up to the most incredible opportunities for growth, development and success. How can we ever truly fail if we’re just honouring ourselves, our journey, our voices and trying to live an authentic life? The short answer is that we cannot…The truth is, though, that in not taking action, in not taking risks, we have already paid the highest price. That price is our own happiness.”
learning more about the ASRC was so interesting! - i’d heard of the ASRC but didnt know a huge amount about it - definitely keen to learn more/get involved - “It was that simple: we saw a need and we did something about it, with no excuses. ..It didn’t matter if we lacked the resources or know-how, we learned by doing. The greater risk was in not helping, the greater risk was someone dying or being sent back to their home country to be tortured.” - ASRC started as a class TAFE project!!! - doesnt accept any govt funding - easy as asking for help sometimes - people want to help!! (all his examples of the public exceeding what they needed when he asked e.g., funding, supplies)
our government sucks - “And John Howard rode our fear and ignorance all the way to another convincing election win, while refugees have been paying the price ever since.” - “The government and these law firms had cut corners because they thought no one would care about these human beings. That’s how injustice becomes endemic – it relies on the apathy and indifference of people not to care enough to stand up and be counted. And that’s what our government continues to rely on when it comes to its abuse of refugees.” - “To be neutral in times of injustice is to be complicit with it. Indeed, Desmond Tutu once said, ‘If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.’ Neutrality is for those lucky enough to engage in debates around human rights as abstract conversations rather than real life-and-death challenges. If we choose not to protest, choose not to speak out, we’re more than just a bystander, we’re an enabler. Oppression thrives on our collective silence, apathy or indifference, but it cannot prosper when we refuse to cooperate.” ...more
"these women were my community, despite our social and class differences... i would not give up that experience, despite my fears and the challenges, for anything in the world"
"no one questioned a three-hour round trip for the chance to be in a place full of gay people"
"even as we socialize in ways that threaten the survival of the gay bar as an institution, many of us still crave its reliable presence on the scene. it's great to have the variety that parties and special events provide, but we still want the good old gay bar to be there night after night... friends who stopped going to bars years ago expressed a lingering affection for the place that had played an important role earlier in their gay lives, one that could still serve as a refuge when needed. one friend told me, 'you don't have to be in constant mortal danger to need a safe haven once in a while. … i occasionally feel the need to be surrounded by people whose basic assumptions on a few key issues are the same as mine.'"
watched the accompanying documentary and saw that my library had the book also. i'm not the target audience for the book (it's a children's picture bowatched the accompanying documentary and saw that my library had the book also. i'm not the target audience for the book (it's a children's picture book) but i'll definitely be recommending my mum read it to my little brother.
the documentary itself was really good. it covered a lot of issues i was aware of, but it always hits home more when you see people experiencing these issues first hand.
-the policing of aboriginal kids, their institutionalisation, the ongoing threats of being taken away from their families. the fact that dujuan has been in a paddy wagon 4 times already and he is only 10. stop locking up children! - what really hit home for me was a) the importance of culture - including language and family, but also in education. the scenes showing how dujuan experienced the western education system versus after he moved to his dads were really eye-opening and not something i had really considered as something that younger children would struggle with (naively assuming younger kids wouldn't be aware of their history/culture...) (also the way his teachers spoke to him/about aboriginal culture, especially that principal...) - i was so happy to see he seemed to be doing better once he moved to his dads and his culture and identity was being affirmed, but it also struck me how lucky he was to have family who cared and who were on his side and in a place that they could try some different things. how many kids don't get that? ...more
“understanding the experience of disability is worth our time and energy”
i was so unsure if i should buy this or not and im so glad i did - loved it s
“understanding the experience of disability is worth our time and energy”
i was so unsure if i should buy this or not and im so glad i did - loved it so much!! i think i have a thing with memoirs where i dont think theyre worth buying/theyre pretty superficial - which i guess is true for some of the big celebrity memoirs but i got so much from this and it was definitely more than ‘just’ a memoir (and all the memoir-y bits were also very valuable!). also appreciated it being a very interesting and accessible read
i’ve studied a bit of disability studies at university, but it’s a topic i want to dive a lot deeper into and understand a lot more - especially because i know enough to be very aware of my own biases/ableism and want to challenge these thoughts, as well as gain a better understanding of the lives/experiences etc of those around me
it was also really interesting to see how my own experiences with mental health and feelings about my body/gender/sexuality all related to the experiences of people with disabilities also
some stand out parts for me:
“the revisions being made (or requested) for disabled bodies are often seen as extra. but this perspective holds up only because ableism is built on self-delusion; we tell ourselves the story that accessibility is a concern for only the disabled body! conveniently ignoring every form of access that has been care-fully, painstakingly breathed into existence to make life easier for nondisabled bodies.”
- it’s not as straight forward as disabled v able-bodied - we move in and out of these categories depending on the context/environment, our age/health, what we need to do, what resources are available to us etc - and regardless, we all have different access needs, our entire society has worked to make life more accessible/easier for us!! the problem is, we stop when most people have access - how exhausting navigating going out etc can be - all the work you have to do to ensure spaces you’re invited to are accessible. definitely something i will keep in mind - our reaction to disability is learner - it isn’t some “survival of the fittest” drive - some topics i wish she’d explored with more nuance and/or that i want to explore more - the downfalls of the social model of disability - how does it reconcile the fact that there are some aspects of disability that do just suck (e.g., chronic pain) - she briefly touched on this (pp. 56-7 - “it’s so much easier to see the one disabled person and say ‘she needs a cure’….when i trace the most painful threads in my story… these legs of mine are not The Most Debilitating Problem… it’s stigma, isolation, erasure, misunderstanding, skepticism, and ubiquitous inaccessibility”) and i get why she left it where she did but i feel its an important point that id like to have explored more (read this article at uni last year which i loved https://transreads.org/wp-content/upl... - the relationship between illness and identity - the overlaps between queerness and being Deaf - “disability as a neutral category” - Capitol Crawl protests in 1990 - “I intentionally provide more possible points of connection for the kids. I take care to protect myself a bit more. Instead of focusing exclusively on the disabled body, I expand the curriculum to look at the narrow scripts we've written for other bodies, too, like gender-nonconforming bodies and fat bod-es. I use the medical and social models of disability as tools to investigate a broader set of questions exploring the notion of "cures" and "fixes." I ask questions like: How much of the human body do we want to cure? What should be fixed and what should be left alone? What is the purpose of categorising bodies, and what do we lose when we do it? What do we lose when we fixate on a cure? Is physical health more important than well-being, mental health, or pride in one's identity? What is normal, and is it an ideal goal?” - “My experience just doesnt match up with those I so often see touted as the Experiences of Women… where does my disabled body fit into this narrative about Women? I wonder, does my disability swallow my womanhood? When people look at me, is my disability so loud and alienating that my womanhood is unrecognisable? And, a much more pressing question, Why does it matter?” (as someone who relates to this for reasons other than disability, i found this really interesting from a personal perspective, as well in the context of disability) - and the importance of other intersections in disability studies (will be going to read Christopher Bell’s essay "Introducing White Disability Studies: A Modest Proposal” and Lennard Davis’ - disability, the missing term in the race, class, gender triad (from the book enforcing normalcy: disability, deafness, and the body) “disability is….a social process that intimately involves everyone who has a body and lives in the world of senses” - all the resources in the back of the book, as well as the authors own instagram...more
really enjoyed this! my main issues with the manifestos i read last week were that they provided no actual solutions to the problems/solutions that fireally enjoyed this! my main issues with the manifestos i read last week were that they provided no actual solutions to the problems/solutions that fit with what they wanted. this book provided lots of successful examples of what implementing this would look like in theory. however - this book was also a lot less radical than the manifestos/didnt have the same theory/overarching visions, hence the 4 stars... but i really enjoyed it and it made me so excited and happy to read about real-world examples of things working!!
enjoyed this more than the family abolition manifesto! next up is my fuller length book looking at care which i think i'll like more as it goes more ienjoyed this more than the family abolition manifesto! next up is my fuller length book looking at care which i think i'll like more as it goes more in depth and both of these manifestos felt they didn't go deep enough for my liking (as someone who has just been introduced to these topics)
key point i liked: state needs to provide foundations that enable us to provide care - especially bc of the many good and bad emotions associated with care; current system makes it hard for us to provide care etc.
also really appreciated how this text gave more tangible examples! though it didn't seem quite radical enough perhaps? e.g., not advocating for no borders, a lot of it seemed to be about reforming current systems/institutions/structures - which while of course ideal, i feel goes against everything i know lol...more
what a powerful book. a bit late to reading this given the referendum was last year but still gained so much from reading this - both into first natiowhat a powerful book. a bit late to reading this given the referendum was last year but still gained so much from reading this - both into first nations culture/history, as well as the process of getting to the point of the voice/how the uluru statement came to be and just how much work went into this. it also made the fact the voice failed all the more heartbreaking/maddening. i am so sad and angry still at how so-called australia voted. really excited to read Always Was, Always Will Be: The Campaign for Justice and Recognition Continues when it comes out in september...more
provided a good overview of problems with allyship - but tbh felt a bit surface level and there wasn't really much on what it would look like to be anprovided a good overview of problems with allyship - but tbh felt a bit surface level and there wasn't really much on what it would look like to be an accomplice instead, which i feel would have been more helpful...more
this book was so different to anything else i've read and i loved it.
i picked it up based on its title and was expecting an illustrated history of quthis book was so different to anything else i've read and i loved it.
i picked it up based on its title and was expecting an illustrated history of queer resistance in the context of stonewall and all the other big events. this book wasn’t that at all but i didn’t leave disappointed - i loved hearing from all these people and perspectives i would never hear from otherwise, and hear about some other forms of resistance. as the author said, they “have helped me expand my understanding of social change to include the mundane, the quiet, the personal, the slow.”
the artwork/design of this book was absolutely beautiful - but sometimes the handwriting was hard to read, and there were a few points where i had to skip paragraphs as a result.
some interesting points: - so much of what we do is work, we (or capitalism/society) just don’t consider it as such - the harms of the strong black women myth - fat feminism - “i learned my relationship to my body will always be complicated and ambivalent and hard… doesn’t mean that i’m able to love my fat body unconditionally. this work is a never-ending process. - temporal connections between trans people - sex work and its importance in empowering people, providing them with options - vita - food justice - we pay trans people - redistributing funds without expecting any proof etc. (trans assistance project) - “how do we operate an economic justice model? because it’s really a privilege to be able to volunteer and give time… who ends up shaping the space is usually people with privileges. folks who can’t afford to volunteer free time need compensation and economic stability” - the tensions/baggage for asian people in learning their native languages whereas for white people it’s just fun - how healing is associated with social justice - “the history of creating health justice movements that were accessible… acupuncture had a deep history that came through the black panthers and social justice movements.. acupuncture was people’s medicine and it was put into a context in which there were free healthcare centres…” ...more
loved this so much. reading it after reading the stonewall reader was particularly valuable, because i got to put a face to so many of the names and eloved this so much. reading it after reading the stonewall reader was particularly valuable, because i got to put a face to so many of the names and events mentioned, really bringing that era to life.
particularly loved rosalyn regelson's freud dartboard - iconic and the 'women's liberation is a lesbian plot' banner
as with the reader, there are lots of people/events/resources i want to look more into now and i appreciated that this extra context was provided alongside all the images.
really enjoyed getting to engage with queer history in a way i don't often do (through photography - or indeed, anything other than text). would love to read some more books like this
such an interesting read - to learn more about queer history in melbourne, and of course, to get more insight into the making of the pride centre. thesuch an interesting read - to learn more about queer history in melbourne, and of course, to get more insight into the making of the pride centre. the business side of things made the book quite dry at times, but it was still eye opening to see how much work/thought had to go into such a project, and made me appreciate that it did actually get built so much more. i do wish it had somehow been done in a more engaging way though - i would have loved more pictures, primary source material, interviews (with those involved with the project, those who now reside there, those who use the centre) etc.
i love the pride centre and im so glad it exists <3 ...more
finally finished this one!! very mixed feelings - i don't regret reading it, but i wish i'd enjoyed it more
3.5?? i enjoyed the individual works in thifinally finished this one!! very mixed feelings - i don't regret reading it, but i wish i'd enjoyed it more
3.5?? i enjoyed the individual works in this a lot less than expected, but i enjoyed the overall anthology more than i expected if that makes sense. perhaps because i read this over the month where i started developing a much greater appreciation for anthologies (and poetry - thank you to pier paolo pasolini's the cry of the excavator). this one in particular encouraged me to slow down my reading, savour pieces of work, re-read and look up the meanings of texts (mostly the early poems etc) i didn't understand. it exposed me to so many works that i would never read otherwise, so many authors i'd never heard of.
on the other hand there was only a few pieces by authors i'd heard of which surprised me given how much queer works i read - but i guess what i read isn't really similar to what's in this book... but i also am surprised by how much this book didn't include - there was no science fiction/fantasy, young adult works etc... it was mostly adult/literary fiction (but not the type that i read) and memoirs
i do wish we were given some context of the works at the start of each piece
my favourite pieces (5 stars): - carson mccullers - like that - pier paolo pasolini - the cry of the excavator - rita mae brown - rubyfruit jungle - neil bartlett - words
some other pieces i enjoyed (3-4 stars): - radclyffe hall - miss oglivy fnds herself - patricia highsmith - carol - roz kaveney - three poems - murathan mungan - love's tears - alison bechdel - coming out story - patrick gale - brown manilla - a. revathi - the truth about me - hilda viloria - born both : going public - juno dawson - the gender games: the penny drops - alma mathijsen - forget the girls
a funny note i wrote down towards the start:
reading all this old stuff is so humbling bc i am having to look up what every single page means lmao... except for catullus where it is v obvious (84-54BC: "your prick though, wanders. into cute behinds, often as not. i know you say you're bi... there's gossip going around that you suck lots of dicks. and don't wipe clean" so wild that people so long ago were as petty/bitchy as we are now <3)
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