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Keywords: Hidden Figures

  • AUSTRALIA

    Being sick in Australia is harder than ever

    • El Gibbs
    • 29 May 2018
    2 Comments

    I first got sick when I was 19. I am now in my 40s and still sick. I have tried myriad medications and treatments, and live with a now permanent disability. The public systems I have engaged with over this time have become increasingly adversarial. The gaps between systems are getting wider, and the expenses higher.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Interracial romance's antidote to cultural appropriation

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 08 March 2017
    2 Comments

    Mildred would later say of Frank that 'he always took care of me'. Yet this telling of the story shows a more mutual exchange of strength and support than such a statement might imply. The Lovings' entanglement with the state of Virginia would ultimately lead to constitutional change in favour of interracial marriage, and Loving portrays Ruth as the main agent of the battle. At a time when cultural appropriation has become much talked about, this film by a white filmmaker shows a different way.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Space race saga's Black history through White eyes

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 14 February 2017
    1 Comment

    There's a gag about sitting in the back of the bus, the realities of segregation dismissed with a giggle; references to university sit-ins and firebombings come via the eyes of a cartoonishly earnest character. Meanwhile the White characters are either the object of contrived sympathy, or too thinly drawn to invoke genuine menace. Accusations of 'cultural appropriation' might be uncharitable, but the short shrift given to the real, continuing hardships of Black experience raises questions about objectives and authenticity.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Fences and co. fight back against Oscars racial bias

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 08 February 2017
    1 Comment

    The Academy, it seems, has listened. After the #whiteoscars furore of past years, three of this year's Oscar nominees for Best Picture, Moonlight, Fences, and Hidden Figures, are films with predominantly (if not entirely) Black casts, and focused on the experiences of Black characters. Cast and crewmembers from all three have been nominated in various categories. To be fair, all three films would have demanded attention, with or without the recent controversy around awards season racial bias.

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  • EDUCATION

    Jostling for justice on school funding's contested ground

    • Michael Furtado
    • 04 November 2016
    12 Comments

    Amid the furore surrounding Minister Birmingham's disclosure of figures showing massive discrepancies in public funding between some independent schools and low-SES schools, some facts need scrutinising. Systemic Catholic schools draw for their enrolment from lower-SES postcodes than independent schools. Postcodes being an indelible predictor of the educational chances of Australians, balancing systemic school funding against that of independent schools is politically and ethically problematic.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Scott Morrison's conflict of interest

    • Michael Mullins
    • 04 August 2014
    13 Comments

    The majority of Australians voted for a government strong on border protection. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison is delivering in spades, so it seems they're prepared to turn a blind eye to disputed claims of child neglect, even if he is their legal guardian. Their only hope is that accounts of their suffering will gain the kind of exposure and momentum that led to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Labor's light on the hill

    • Frank Brennan
    • 02 November 2013
    7 Comments

    'There have been innumerable post-mortems and words of advice as to how the party with new structures, election rules, and policies can pick itself up, dust off, and win the next election. Sadly some of those post-mortems have come with more coatings of spite and loathing. It is no part of my role in the public square as a Catholic priest to offer such advice.' Frank Brennan's address to the Bathurst Panthers Club, 2 November 2013.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Australia's pension fund perversion

    • David James
    • 03 October 2012
    7 Comments

    The demise of Gunns, Tasmania's biggest paper and pulp mill, has been greeted as a triumph of environmentalists over business. The saga encompasses much more than that. It poses some deep questions about ownership and accountability in Australia's financial system which are yet to be answered persuasively.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Best of 2011: Religion's homophobic scratch and sniff

    • Barry Gittins
    • 03 January 2012
    1 Comment

    Vile denunciations and allegations waft across the vast expanse of space and time. Flatulent Dutch ovens of bigotry aloft fly, as adult, equal love's tagged 'sin', not raft to finding solace, as surely as the Made seeks the Maker's consoling deeps. Published 21 November 2011

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Religion's homophobic scratch and sniff

    • Barry Gittins
    • 22 November 2011
    9 Comments

    Vile denunciations and allegations waft across the vast expanse of space and time. Flatulent Dutch ovens of bigotry aloft fly, as adult, equal love's tagged 'sin', not raft to finding solace, as surely as the Made seeks the Maker's consoling deeps.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Atheist critic blind to current religious symbols

    • Rod Pattenden
    • 05 October 2011
    12 Comments

    Controversial Fairfax art critic John McDonald is scathing in his assessment of the 60th Blake Prize for Religious Art. His frustrated search for traditional religious symbols in the works reveals a lack of understanding of the role of images within Australia’s living religious imagination.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Discerning Britain's smoke and fire

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 11 August 2011
    14 Comments

    'It's what happens when it's the school holidays and the kids are bored,' quipped one British Jesuit. 'Bit of heavy rain would put a stop to it.' His minimalist explanation rightly questions the apocalyptic theories that are being erected on the behaviour of excitable young people.

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