Conversation with Ruby Hamad author of White Tears/Brown Scars, a book that attempts to deconstruct and contextualise the dynamic between white women and women of colour.
Throughout settler-colonial history, the bodies of women have served as a battleground. Women of colour were marked as guilty and depraved so that white women––and by extension white society––could claim innocence and virtue for itself.
The book White Tears/Brown Scars delves deep into the history of this socialisation, excavating the roots of the biases and stereotypes that govern our lives and shape our interactions with one another.
In this book, Ruby Hamad poses and explores some very powerful questions including:
How did the Angry Brown Woman stereotype come about? Why is the Damsel in Distress always white? What do both of these stereotypes have to do with the way our society developed?
Ruby Hamad will discuss White Tears/Brown Scars and other writing projects this weekend in the context of the 2019 Melbourne Writer’s Festival.
