Read The Play

• The Great Race Debate

  Welcome to our final episode of Read the Play! This week, Chelsea & David bring together a whole bunch of content from the 2025 National Symposium Unifying Anti-Racist Thory and Practice, offering us some final words on race, resistance, refusal and joy. To start, you’ll hear the wonderful Vernon Ah Kee & Ghassan Hage speaking to the “affective” dimensions of anti-racist activism, and whether it is either ethical or possible to “be joyful at a time when racial violence has once again reached genocidal proportions.” From there, we move into an edited recording of presentations made as part of The Great Race Debate: a joyful, satirical, incisive collection of the best worst takes on racism in the colony. This episode is a reminder that sometimes you just have to laugh in the face of the absurdity of race in the colony; and that it is in these moments of coming together and refusing the logics of racism that we find sites of solidarity and shared struggle to fuel the fight ahead. And finally, we end the series with the sheer Black Joy of the 2025 Great Race Debate, hosted in Magan-djin earlier this year. In a series of short, brilliant presentations we hear from Kevin Yow Yeh, Huda the Goddess, Nasser Mashini, Ruby Wharton, Sarah Schwartz and David Singh, all of whom offer their “best worst takes” on race in the colony. In returning to an event that ruffled more than a few feathers, we remember that Black Joy is always a threat to the colony, and that finding spaces to laugh at the absurdity of racism is vital to sustaining communities that can keep on waging the war on race in this place. Credits Recordings and Production: Some of the podcast materials are drawn from Triple A Murri Country’s Let’s Talk Black Politics and Black Knowing, recorded in the studio between 2023-2024, hosted by Professor Chelsea Watego and Dr David Singh in addition to excerpts from QUT Carumba Institute’s National Symposium Unifying Anti-racism Research and Practice, all of which were produced by Anna Carlson. Music: We wish to sincerely thank Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra for granting permission for free use of ‘Live, Laugh, Decolonise’ and ‘Eat the World’ Production & Sound Design: BlakCast Productions Artwork: graphic by Rachel Apelt, Artbalm. This podcast was supported (partially) by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council's Discovery Indigenous Projects funding scheme (project IN210100008). The views expressed herein are those of the presenters and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or Australian Research Council. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Justice is what love looks like in public (Justice for Stevie-Lee)

  Welcome back to our second-last episode of Read the Play, and another heavy and vital conversation about the everyday violence of racism, and the powerful love, resistance, and presence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities that confronts it head on. In this episode, Chelsea and David share a few pieces of material recorded at different points over the past few years with Gunggari scholar, writer and mother, Dr. Raylene Nixon. Over a series of interviews and recordings, Dr. Nixon shares the heart-breaking story of her son, Stevie-Lee Nixon McKellar, who was killed in police custody in Toowoomba in 2021. First up, you’ll hear an interview that Chelsea and David recorded with Raylene in September 2023, as the family was preparing to go into the coronial inquest into Stevie-Lee’s death in Toowoomba. Then, you’ll hear some recordings from the protest organised by the family on the first day of the inquest, where family and friends gathered to remember Stevie-Lee and demand accountability from the people and institutions that killed him. We then hear Raylene reading the full statement that she and her family prepared for the inquest, which they were not allowed to read in the courtroom. And finally, we hear Raylene speaking earlier this year at the National Symposium Unifying Anti-Racist Theory and Practice, reflecting on what justice looks like from her vantage point as an academic, an activist, and a mother with a broken heart. Reading list https://www.classpr.com.au/2023/11/21/final-statement-from-the-family-of-steven-nixon-mckeller/ Radio Reversal podcast. Episode 19: What If the Catastrophe Has Never Ended? n.d. https://www.radioreversal.org/episode-18-what-if-the-catastrophe/ Credits Recordings and Production: Some of the podcast materials are drawn from Triple A Murri Country’s Let’s Talk Black Politics and Black Knowing, recorded in the studio between 2023-2024, hosted by Professor Chelsea Watego and Dr David Singh in addition to excerpts from QUT Carumba Institute’s National Symposium Unifying Anti-racism Research and Practice, all of which were produced by Anna Carlson. Music: We wish to sincerely thank Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra for granting permission for free use of ‘Live, Laugh, Decolonise’ and ‘Eat the World’ Production & Sound Design: BlakCast Productions Artwork: graphic by Rachel Apelt, Artbalm. This podcast was supported (partially) by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council's Discovery Indigenous Projects funding scheme (project IN210100008). The views expressed herein are those of the presenters and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or Australian Research Council.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Racism is a matter of life and death (Justice for Dougie)

  This episode of Read the Play is a heavy one, but it is vital listening if we are to properly understand the stakes of Indigenous Critical Race Theory in this moment. In this episode, Chelsea & David return to Indigenist Health Humanities to understand the violence that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience within colonial health settings. First up, you’ll hear a powerful interview with Gamilaroi Dunghatti man, Uncle Rick Hampson, who shares the harrowing story of his fight for justice for his son, Dougie Hampson. Dougie died in preventable circumstances at the Dubbo Hospital in 2021, and his family have been fighting ever since to hold the institutions and individuals responsible for his death to account. In this conversation, recorded just before the coronial inquest into Dougie’s death in 2024, Uncle Rick talks about the role of racism in his son’s death, and their ongoing struggle to hold the hospital accountable. We end this episode with a sobering reminder from Metis & Duck Bayand Lake Manitoba First Nations man, Dr. Barry Lavallee, speaking at the 2025 National Symposium Unifying Anti-Racist Research and Practice. Dr. Lavallee reminds us that whether here in so-called australia, or on the lands claimed by Canada and the United States, it is no accident when Indigenous people experience violence in colonial health systems. Rather, he argues, these systems are operating precisely as they were designed, to ensure the premature death, ill-health, and eventual disappearance of Indigenous peoples. Reading list Watego, Chelsea, David Singh, George Newhouse, Helena Kajlich, and Ricky Hampson Snr. ‘“I Catch the Pattern Of Your Silence”’. Meanjin Spring 2022, no. Is it just me? (2022). https://meanjin.com.au/essays/i-catch-the-pattern-of-your-silence/CCPA Manitoba, dir. Speaking Up Nov 10, 2022 with Dr. Barry Lavallee. 2022. 39:50. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRDyuay6O50 Credits Recordings and Production: Some of the podcast materials are drawn from Triple A Murri Country’s Let’s Talk Black Politics and Black Knowing, recorded in the studio between 2023-2024, hosted by Professor Chelsea Watego and Dr David Singh in addition to excerpts from QUT Carumba Institute’s National Symposium Unifying Anti-racism Research and Practice, all of which were produced by Anna Carlson. Music: We wish to sincerely thank Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra for granting permission for free use of ‘Live, Laugh, Decolonise’ and ‘Eat the World’ Production & Sound Design: BlakCast Productions Artwork: graphic by Rachel Apelt, Artbalm. This podcast was supported (partially) by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council's Discovery Indigenous Projects funding scheme (project IN210100008). The views expressed herein are those of the presenters and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or Australian Research Council.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Telling the Truth

  In this week’s episode of Read the Play, Chelsea & David ask: what does it mean to tell the truth about the nature of racism in the colony? And how can we dedicate ourselves to truth-telling in all the work we do? Through a series of short excerpts, this episode weaves together an account of truth-telling in the colony: refusing colonial mythology, disrupting the lies that sustain it, and killing the cop (or colonist!) in our heads. Over a jam-packed episode, you’ll hear white Jewish scholar Dr Elizabeth Strakosch on truth-telling in academic work; Palestinian poet and lawyer Sara Saleh on linguistic violence, genocide and resistance; Meriam, Munbarra, and Nywaigi artist and abolitionist Neta-Rie Mabo on telling the truth about policing and prisons in this country; Waanyi and Jaru Associate Professor Gregory Phillips on telling the truth about Indigenous sovereignty and refusing to operate on colonial frames of reference; as well as Prof Watego, Dr. Amy McQuire & Deb Kilroy speaking at a public protest in Magan-djin in May 2025, in response to the death in police custody of Walpiri man Kumanjayi White. Reading list Macoun, Alissa, and Elizabeth Strakosch. ‘The Ethical Demands of Settler Colonial Theory’. Settler Colonial Studies (Abingdon) 3, nos. 3–4 (2013): 426–43. Saleh, Sara. ‘Punctuation as Organised Violence’. Meanjin, 30 November 2022. https://meanjin.com.au/essays/punctuation-as-organised-violence/ Saleh, Sara. Songs for the Dead and the Living. Affirm Press, 2023. Saleh, Sara. The Flirtation of Girls / Ghazal El-Banat. UQP, University of Queensland Press, 2023. National Network of Currently and Formerly Incarcerated Women. ‘Another Police Shooting: We Must Name This for What It Is — State Violence’. Media Releases, 11 June 2025. https://thenationalnetwork.com.au/another-police-shooting-we-must-name-this-for-what-it-is-state-violence/ Mabo, Boneta-Marie. ‘The Mabo Centre at Melbourne University: A Legacy Betrayed’. IndigenousX, 9 May 2025. https://indigenousx.com.au/the-mabo-centre-at-melbourne-university-a-legacy-betrayed/ al Encounters’. In The Limits of Settler Colonial Reconciliation. Springer Singapore, 2016. Credits Recordings and Production: Some of the podcast materials are drawn from Triple A Murri Country’s Let’s Talk Black Politics and Black Knowing, recorded in the studio between 2023-2024, hosted by Professor Chelsea Watego and Dr David Singh in addition to excerpts from QUT Carumba Institute’s National Symposium Unifying Anti-racism Research and Practice, all of which were produced by Anna Carlson. Music: We wish to sincerely thank Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra for granting permission for free use of ‘Live, Laugh, Decolonise’ and ‘Eat the World’ Production & Sound Design: BlakCast Productions Artwork: graphic by Rachel Apelt, Artbalm. This podcast was supported (partially) by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council's Discovery Indigenous Projects funding scheme (project IN210100008). The views expressed herein are those of the presenters and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or Australian Research Council. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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  1:15:08

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• Resisting Complicity

  In this episode, Chelsea & David dig into one of the key conceptual frameworks that Indigenous critical race theory offers: complicity. Through three conversations with people engaged in very different kinds of political and intellectual work, they draw out the role of Indigenous critical race theory in offering a language to describe the ongoing attempts of colonial institutions to incorporate, recruit, and co-opt our movements and struggles, and the strategies that activists and scholars are using to resist those processes. To start, you’ll hear a conversation recorded in 2024 with Yuin lawyer and legal theorist Assoc/Prof Amanda Porter, who talks us through some of the challenges that she has faced while working in the “crime scene” of the colonial university: making a case for why academics and students must actively refuse to be complicit in the colonising violence of these institutions. We then catch up on an interview with Eelam Tamil settler, writer and community organiser Jonathan Sriranganathan, who talks about some of his experiences as a city councillor, working to expand the conditions of political possibility and build actively non-reformist modes of political engagement within colonial systems. And finally, we hear an excerpt from white settler lawyer and theorist Dr. Helena Kajlich speaking at the 2024 National Symposium and reflecting on how she came to see the complicity of legal systems in has worked to disrupt colonial complicity in her own research and practice. Reading list Porter, Amanda. ‘Special Edition: Interrogating Methodologies’. Journal of Global Indigeneity, Decolonising Criminal Justice, vol. 3, no. 1 (2018). Porter, Amanda. ‘Non-State Policing, Legal Pluralism and the Mundane Governance of “Crime”’. The Sydney Law Review 40, no. 4 (2018): 445–67. Sriranganathan, Jonathan. 7 Years as a Local Politician Turned Me off ‘Big Government’ – but There Are Other Alternatives to Neoliberal Capitalism. 18 November 2024. https://www.jonathansri.com/beyondstatism/ Sriranganathan, Jonathan. ‘On Being Doppelgangered’. Jonathan Sriranganathan, 18 April 2024. https://www.jonathansri.com/doppelgangered/ Kajlich, Helena. ‘Racism in the Australian Health Justice System: Racial Logics and the Coronial System’. Phd Thesis, University of Queensland, School of Political Science, 2024. https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:210ce78 Bond, Chelsea J, Lisa J Whop, David Singh, and Helena Kajlich. ‘“Now We Say Black Lives Matter but … the Fact of the Matter Is, We Just Black Matter to Them”’. Medical Journal of Australia 213 (6) (2020): 248-250 Macoun, Alissa. ‘Colonising White Innocence: Complicity and Critical Encounters’. In The Limits of Settler Colonial Reconciliation. Springer Singapore, 2016. Credits Recordings and Production: Some of the podcast materials are drawn from Triple A Murri Country’s Let’s Talk Black Politics and Black Knowing, recorded in the studio between 2023-2024, hosted by Professor Chelsea Watego and Dr David Singh in addition to excerpts from QUT Carumba Institute’s National Symposium Unifying Anti-racism Research and Practice, all of which were produced by Anna Carlson. Music: We wish to sincerely thank Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra for granting permission for free use of ‘Live, Laugh, Decolonise’ and ‘Eat the World’ Production & Sound Design: BlakCast Productions Artwork: graphic by Rachel Apelt, Artbalm. This podcast was supported (partially) by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council's Discovery Indigenous Projects funding scheme (project IN210100008). The views expressed herein are those of the presenters and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or Australian Research Council.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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