“A powerful and scholarly critique of white-privileged ‘innocence’. This is essential reading for anyone surprised that 52% of white women voters chose Trump.”
—Melissa Lucashenko
White Tears/Brown Scars is not an easy experience, but it is a life-affecting one. […] What you read in Hamad’s book cannot be unread or overlooked or forgotten. But commendably, this book is not a self-pitying rant with no way forward. It prompts every reader to revisit their experiences through a revised lens, but not to remain in a state of anger or repose.”
—Amal Awad
About White Tears / Brown Scars
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. White Tears / Brown Scars deconstructs the meaning of womanhood in the settler-colonial context.
Evolving from an opinion piece Ruby Hamad published in The Guardian, ‘How white women use strategic tears to silence women of colour,’ that went unexpectedly viral across the globe, White Tears / Brown Scars is an important and powerful book. It’s the first book that attempts to deconstruct and contextualise the dynamic between white women and women of colour, and whilst it certainly can’t provide all the answers to the problems our society cannot solve, it does synthesise enough historical context to enable us to ask the right questions to get us started.
A confronting reality check for the privileged position of the white woman.
About Ruby Hamad
Ruby Hamad is a Lebanese-Syrian journalist and author who was raised in Australia. Hamad’s work has appeared in Fairfax media, The Guardian, Prospect Magazine, and The New Arab. She is currently a PhD candidate in media and postcolonial studies at the University of New South Wales. She was a contributor to Defiant Daughters (2013).
About Winnie Dunn
Winnie Dunn is a Tongan-Australian writer and arts worker from Mt Druitt. She is the general manager of Sweatshop: Western Sydney Literacy Movement and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Western Sydney University. Winnie’s work has been published in the Sydney Review of Books, The Lifted Brow, The Griffith Review, Meanjin, SBS Life, Southerly and Cordite. She is the editor of several anthologies including Sweatshop Women, The Big Black Thing and Bent Not Broken. Winnie is currently completing her debut novel as the recipient of a 2019 CAL Ignite Grant.
About Willurai Kirkbright
Willurai Kirkbright is a Wiradjuri woman who lives in Sydney on Gadigal land and has tribal roots in Northern NSW. Growing up half in the city and half in the bush, carrying the blood of both the invaders and the invaded she knows all too well the complexes of living in two worlds. Using mediums such as installation, multi-media and performance she delves into issues of identity, gender, colonialism, belonging, displacement and shared histories. Kirkbright is an educator and facilitator, focusing on empowering disadvantaged minorities and Aboriginal people. She believes in Art as activism and change through breaking conventions as well as community engagement.
SMSA (Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts)