Race Matters

"⁠A journey through time, and gender- exploring Dalit womanhood and Dravidian masculinity through an anti-caste and trans lens. Bounded and centred by an all-Dalit & Tamil Greek chorus consisting of photographer Jaisingh Nageshwaran, scholar Dr. Roja Singh, community oragniser Grace Banu and wise young woman Ritu Elizabeth Samuel, soundtracked by rapper nasbandi - and me." R.Talitha Samuel is...

"⁠How do you find your place in a world that was never built to accommodate you? An intimate memoir, unravelling the shifts in a body and the world around them in a world before and during the global pandemic." Tori Hobbs is a disabled healthcare worker, writer and co-founder of Disability Justice Network. a grassroots organisation run for and by multiply marginalised disabled people in so called...

"⁠What is it that you call home? For a queer Palestinian in diaspora the answer can be complicated. From Beiti to Beitak, Chicago to Naarm, I try to find out. Featuring interviews with Nourah of Salon Kawakib and Mirna of Aywa Syndicate." Kal Jazeera is a queer Palestinian creative currently based in naarm by way of potawatomi land Chicago. They orbit many fields across performance but the heart o...

Broadcasting from the 24/7 sit-in at the PM's office, we hear from two core organisers from Families for Palestine - Sarah Shaweesh and Zuzia. We chatted about the collective power of staking a picket and how communal acts of care are an expression of resistance.  ⁠ Please support the work of Families for Palestine, sign up for a sit in shift by sending them a message, or learn about other ways yo...

A sprawling, expansive chat with two artists who embody a DIY ethos interconnected with spirituality and poetry.  Two chats with musician, sculptor Lonnie Holley and poet Moor Mother (Camae Awaye) chatting through their practices, converging across their innovative use of materials, unique ways of collaborating and principled resistance. A conversation to sink deep into, with both Lonnie and Camae...

Conversations at the intersection of healing, justice and anti-racism happening this summer.  "We are watching genocide, a lot of us come from lines of attempted genocide. we can't 'self care' our way out of that but what we can do is hold each other ... we don't have a choice" our final episode for the year is helmed with Samantha Haran in conversation with Quandamooka and Wiradjuri woman, and Fi...

Conversations at the intersection of healing, justice and anti-racism happening this summer.  Hear Toobs and community herbalist Salma Yassien speaking through community practices of collective care, herbalism and spirituality that proved vital in the wake of hyper-policing and medical racism in and outside the global pandemic. A sprawling chat grounded in spirit, hope and the wisdom of daily, anc...

Conversations at the intersection of healing, justice and anti-racism happening this summer.  Hear Tanya Shukla in conversation with narrative therapist Sekneh-Hammoud Beckett. In an intimate and reciprical dialogue they explore the intersectional race politics in our deepest desires and connections; unravelling into a vulnerable offering of how we can move through and transform sites of trauma in...

We are honored to offer this bonus episode with gratitude and soldiarity with The Red Rattler Theatre , Autonomous Collective Against Racism (ACAR) & Blak Caucus . This is as much a talk as it is a compelling call to action, listen to their words.  "Palestinian activists and the Blak Caucus invite you to this plenary on unceded Gadigal land.  Our siblings in Palestine face a genocide...

Xuan and Marina from Amplify Bookstore  are back for another episode of anti racist book club! Hear their recommendations of Palestinian authors across all genres of books. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but we hope it offers a starting point for engaging with Palestinian literature in the spirit of solidarity, empathy and dissent.  Hear them chat through  A Woman is No Man  by Etaf Rum...

Alicia Zhao and Toobs Anwar chat to poet and Fulbright scholar Stephanie Niu, about her expansive research on Christmas Island with the local community, weaving together poetry, stories and community mapping and archiving. Plus, Stephanie shares a reading of her poem "Vision for America" Find out more about Stephanie’s work here. Her forthcoming collection "Survived By" will be available for preor...

Where would Race Matters be without Tanya Ali? Honestly, we probably wouldn't exist. As well as being one of the founding co-hosts of the show, Tanya was a luminous compass for the show’s vision and growth in her time as executive producer and continues to nurture what we do. Somewhere in the haze of post-lockdown she graciously stepped out of her volunteer role as Executive Producer and never got...

We take some reprieve amid the heaviness of the world to bring you some of the new(ish) voices of Race Matters. Over the last six months, every week, our new volunteers have been coming together to help bring Race Matters to life. Today we hear from  Tim Worton, Alicia Zhao, Toobs Anwar with Executive Producer Shareeka Helaluddin  talking about what brought them here, consciousness-raising texts (...

Meet some of our newest co-hosts and producers Samantha Haran and Alicia Zhao. They’ve been working together on this new series to reimagine and explore the possibilities of what ‘education’ can be and alternative ways in which we learn, gesturing towards modes that are transformative and healing. They begin by looking critically at the ways in which current models of education are failing people...

We are very excited and honored to bring forward the first episode of Migrant S3x Workers of Colour, a series of intimate dialogues produced by Jasmine Raat Ki Raani "The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this audio series are by migrant sex workers of color who speak for themselves and not for the entire community. We do not take responsibility for how the audience perceives us or our sto...

On today’s show we seek to continue to uplift the ongoing resistance and interconnectedness of displaced peoples on these lands, in Palestine and occupied territories. Tracing settler colonial roots in so-called Australia, this moment a day after the referendum and links to Palestine.  Content note: some of this episode contains mention of graphic acts of genocide, dispossession and state-sanction...

As the noise continues and racist rhetoric unfolds across the continent, Race Matters will be deferring our platform entirely to First Nations activist and community groups to amplify nuances beyond the yes/no rhetoric of The Voice and to centre complex and healing dialogues.  This week, we hear from Kieran and Dan from Black People's Union : a revolutionary organisation that aims to empower Indig...

Tahlia Palmer's work grapples with tensions of the weight of colonial trauma and finding comfort in recovering ancestral practices. She's an artist of Murri and European lineage, working in a variety of mediums to explore history, identity and perception. Her art practice works on confronting the conditions that create and perpetuate inter-generational trauma, as well as finding pathways for heali...

BEYOND THE BARS X RACE MATTERS SOLIDARITY SYNDICATE From Gadigal to ... those on the inside, with love .  This week we dedicate our airwaves to the trailblazing, radical output of  Beyond the Bars Prison Radio, on 3CR Radio . An honor to be joined by Shiralee Hood - she's a Noongar, Kurnai, Gunditjmara comedian, broadcaster and educator. She uses her work in prison radio as an extension of her dee...

What are our responsibilities when it comes to sharing stories of vulnerable communities, and those that have been displaced?  What are ways that we can understand one story as ways to disrupt, to uncover the truth of so many more that go unnoticed, untold?  Our show today traces the flows of displacement of a Tamil family that was thrust into the national political spotlight as they experienced t...

DECODING RACE, AI, ALGORITHMS & AUTOMATION The  tech we use  impacts  our  lives. They aren’t neutral objects but can have particular worldviews baked-in to the very operation of them. It can be overwhelming to begin to challenge those cultural biases when a lot of mainstream conversation on technology is wrapped up in speculation and paranoia. How do we make sense of all this? On today’s show...

On Race Matters we head to Damascus, Syria as we are joined by researcher and creative Mia Shouha, co-founder and director of Souq. In an intimate chat, she shares how artists create in a complex, post-war context and craft through autonomy and imperialism resistance to find magic and connection. Alongside her collaborator Romy Cole-Groth they’ve begun working on a project that elevates the value...

Content note: this talk will mention Black deaths in custody, policy brutality, grief and mention of torture. These are told from the lived experience of our guest and how this shapes their response to the conversation. In some instances this is described in detail to shed truth, so we ask that you go gently and decide when the time is right for you to listen in. On today’s show we’re asking: What...

RADIO SKID ROW X RACE MATTERS SOLIDARITY SYNDICATE This week we dedicate our airwaves to the trailblazing, radical output of  Radio Skid Row 88.9FM . An honor to be joined by Aaliyah-Jade Bradbury - she’s host of Skid Row’s  Blak Friday / Koori Connection , and comes from a lineage of radio makers and storytellers at Skid Row and beyond. She’ll be joining us to talk through the power of community...

Our friends Marina & Xuan at Amplify Bookstore  are back for another anti-racist Book Club takeover! The episode spans works around invisible labour and recovering knowledge systems. In the first half we hear them delve deep into a contemporary fiction by Balli Kaur Jaswal. Mystery meets sharp social commentary with Now You See Us  shedding light on the lives of 3 domestic workers in Singapore...