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Keywords: Crime And Just

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    'Racist' Luke Cage's case for black justice

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 12 October 2016
    2 Comments

    Representation of minority identities in popular entertainment is key to amplifying and dignifying those identities and their stories. Conversely, the lack of representation is a form of silencing. It's why the charges of racism laid against the all-black Luke Cage is so laughable. 'I will never get tired of seeing a bullet-proof black man,' series creator Cheo Hodari Coker told the LA Times earlier this month, positing the character as a riposte to the phenomenon of police shootings of unarmed black men in the US.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The cost so far of Filipinos' gamble on thug rule

    • Fatima Measham
    • 18 August 2016
    13 Comments

    I fret more than ever for friends and family in the Philippines. If life is so expendable, who can be safe? What if my brother-in-law is mistakenly identified as a drug 'pusher'? What if my dad goes to a cockfight and armed vigilantes do a drive-by? It is disheartening that many Filipinos seem to approve of Duterte's methods. This is the purge many had wanted. They see the current campaign as a necessary, painful transition to better things. They are wrong. Nothing personal, just history.

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  • RELIGION

    Story, event and person: Ignatius and Jesus

    • Frank Brennan
    • 01 August 2016

    Inspired by the person Ignatius, inspired by the person Jesus, we are motivated to make a difference; we are passionate to seek justice for all, especially the poor and the marginalised; we are convinced that we can find God in all things, even in the Don Dale Detention Centre; we know that all persons are called to a deep interior freedom, even those prison guards with hardened hearts; we are convinced that the law of the Lord teaches us right from wrong and that the ways of the Lord inspire us to do and proclaim what is right and to denounce what is wrong, especially when the wrong is done by the powerful upon the powerless.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Neglecting and reconnecting with elderly parents

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 12 May 2016
    2 Comments

    The film explores the dynamic between men and their ageing parents, as Frank, trying to make up for neglecting his relationship with his own dead mother, clashes with Sarah's neglectful adult son. Essential to this sifting of family and belonging as central to the identity of suburban males, is a rumination on houses as homes versus property. As a real estate agent, Frank is repeatedly chastised by a young father who feels increasingly priced out of the market.

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  • MEDIA

    The Kanye West konundrum

    • Jen Vuk
    • 26 February 2016
    4 Comments

    It seems not a week goes by that Kanye West isn't in the news. Over the past few weeks alone, West has among other things disparaged Taylor Swift, announced that 'white publications' had no right to write about black music, and tweeted in support of alleged serial rapist Bill Cosby. Depending on your perspective, West is either the gift that just keeps giving or the twit who just keeps tweeting. How has someone like him managed to flourish in a time in which online shaming has become the norm?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Are corrupt bankers terrorists?

    • Justin Glyn
    • 14 December 2015
    4 Comments

    There is a new proposal from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that those convicted of terrorism offences are to be remanded in jail even after they finish serving their sentences. Given that the pressing of terrorism charges has already proven to be a highly subjective practice, there is good reason to fear that any new powers to detain people beyond the expiration of their sentences for terrorism offences will, like the offences themselves, be applied in a politically selective manner.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The changing face of racism

    • Ruby Hamad
    • 30 November 2015
    10 Comments

    It is naive to equate racism with individual acts of bigotry. The current anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment for instance goes deeper than sporadic attacks against individuals. Australian jobseekers with Middle-Eastern sounding surnames must submit up to 64 per cent more resumes than someone with an Anglo name in order to secure an interview. People may not actively engage in racist displays against Arabs, but that doesn't mean they are willing to spend time in close proximity to them.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Untangling the murky Turkey plane incident

    • Justin Glyn
    • 26 November 2015
    6 Comments

    The downing of a Russian Sukhoi-24 bomber by Turkey reminds us of the risks which attend military intervention. There are, however, a number of additional complicating factors which promise to make the Syrian war even more dangerous and bloody for all sides. The situation could escalate dangerously. If this kind of event is not to become much more common, potentially leading to a much wider war, genuine peace talks with a lot more honesty on each side need to be a priority.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Heroes of Victoria's juvenile justice reform

    • Tom Keating
    • 17 November 2015
    2 Comments

    The case studies given during the Royal Commission's dealings with Victoria's state run institutions were heartrending for anyone like myself who worked within that system in the 1960s and '70s. It must have been harder still for those who were trying desperately to reform the system at that time. By the mid-'80s Victoria came to have the most progressive and effective juvenile justice system in the country and was a leader internationally. Much has been lost in the intervening years.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Where can Netanyahu possibly go from here?

    • Ruby Hamad
    • 27 October 2015
    11 Comments

    Benjamin Netanyahu's historical revisionism last week essentially blaming Palestinians for the Holocaust was much more than just empty rhetoric. Demonising the Palestinians is how he sets the stage for the west's acceptance of the Israeli Occupation: the more he dehumanises them, the more brutality Israel gets away with. The context that gets lost along the way is the link that exists between Palestinian actions and the abysmal living conditions imposed on them by the Occupation.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Soft sympathy and hard redemption for scarred chef

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 22 October 2015
    2 Comments

    Brilliant but volatile chef Adam humiliates and physically assaults a female colleague, Helene, over the heinous crime of mis-cooking a piece of fish. The encounter ends with Helene telling Adam to keep his hands off her and storming out. Yet clearly her justified indignation has its limits: in the very next scene she is shown madly rehearsing cooking the dish whose mangling sparked the incident. The glossing over of this abuse reinforces the notion that creative genius somehow excuses arsehole behaviour.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    What might have been for the toddler in the suitcase

    • Jen Vuk
    • 07 August 2015
    8 Comments

    Behind scrub on a nondescript South Australian highway lay a battered suitcase. It had been abandoned and largely forgotten, yet its presence was incongruous in this vast, unforgiving landscape. Last month, one passer-by was so disturbed by what he found after peering inside that he contacted police. Just off the Karoonda Highway in Wynarka, in South Australia's Murray Mallee region, a terrible secret had lain in wait.

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