Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Wednesday 25 September
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
We have limited reserved spaces for any women of colour who missed out on a booking – please email ticketing@wheelercentre.com or call 03 9094 7800 to request one.
In 2018, Sydney journalist Ruby Hamad wrote an article for the Guardian that touched a nerve with readers around the world. The article, ‘How white women use strategic tears to silence women of colour,’ was about the special and dangerous claims white women make to victimhood – in the workplace, in public debate, and in private interactions – and how these adversely affect and are wielded against women of colour.
The ‘damsel in distress’ tactic, Hamad wrote, is employed ‘to muster sympathy and avoid accountability, by turning the tables and accusing the accuser.’
She has since adapted the article into a new book, White Tears/Brown Scars. Hosted by Hella Ibrahim, Hamad will be joined at the Wheeler Centre by Arrernte activist and social commentator Celeste Liddle for a discussion about what happens when racism and sexism collide.
This event is booked out, but you can watch and participate from wherever you are – the event will be live-streamed on this page, and you can sign up for reminders here.
Paperback Books will be our bookseller for this event.
Featuring
Ruby Hamad
‘That the voices of Women of Colour are getting louder and more influential is a testament less to the accommodations made by the dominant white culture and more to their own grit in a society that implicitly – and sometimes explicitly – wants them to fail.’
Ruby Hamad is an author and PhD candidate in media studies and post-colonial studies at UNSW, where she is researching media criticism and coverage of Arabs and the Middle East. In 2018, Hamad’s Guardian article – ‘How White Women Use Strategic Tears to Silence Women of Colour’ – became a global flash point for debate around feminism’s intersection with racial and colonial oppression. Her new book is White Tears/Brown Scars.
Hella Ibrahim
Hella Ibrahim is an editor with a passion for activism through writing and publishing. She works as a project editor at an education publishing company on weekdays, and is the founder and editorial director of Djed Press, an online publication that provides a paid platform for creators of colour.
Celeste Liddle
Celeste Liddle is an Arrernte woman (traditional owner in Central Australia) who was born in Canberra and has been living in Melbourne since she was a teenager. She is a trade unionist, an activist, a feminist, a social commentator and an opinion writer. In May 2021, she was announced as the preselected Greens candidate for the seat of Cooper in the upcoming Federal Election.
Celeste currently has a column with Eureka Street but has additionally been published by Fairfax, Newscorp, ABC, SBS, and many independent publications. In addition to this, Celeste has contributed to a number of anthologies of note including Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia and Mothers and Others.
She completed a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Theatre and Drama at La Trobe University in 2002, a Graduate Diploma in Arts (primarily Political Sciences) at the University of Melbourne in 2012 and a Masters of Communications and Media Studies at Monash in 2020.