Shadows.
How much is our present shaped by the uneasy shadows of the past - the half-forgotten spectres that lurk at the periphery of our cultural vision? As a kid in 1980s white Australia, I remember there were three kinds of jokes: one kind was about Irishmen; one kind about Jews and the third about Aboriginals. Jokes about Irishmen centred on how stupid they were, Jews were money-grabbing and Aboriginals were pitiful and dirty. At the time I had no experience of people who were Irish, Jewish or Aboriginal. I know now that I was surrounded by people from all these backgrounds - some of whom would have been conscious of their heritage and others who were not. It’s an uncomfortable thing to remember as I think about the way these jokes were traded for cultural capital. We were kids passing narratives we didn’t fully understand, but we knew enough to sense the power they gave the teller and the power they sucked from their victims. Penguin Books Australia I’m reminded of these “jokes” as I ...