Complex(ion) Speak: I Am White, I Am Australian. Pookey Is Black, She Is Not Australian

Abstract

Ganga now begins to tell stories of “othering” in early childhood settings, and speaks with the initial strong boundary stream, Complex(ion). Ganga and I begin our “Complex(ion) speaks” with children’s “othering” that classified the identities of “Australian / not Australian” using skin color. We then navigate together to trace the ideological origin of such classification and end with identifying the “power” of “whiteness” in the silences and voices of all postcolonial subjects who contested “Australian.”

But it is difficult to talk about color. If a child comes and asks me, why are you white, I wouldn’t know what to say. You say pigments and stuff about your skin when children ask you about color, but what can we say, nothing.

—Gina, white Anglo-Australian, early childhood educator