white tears brown scars ruby hamad

“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).

Ruby Hamad — White Tears/Brown Scars

Monday, 28 October 2019, 12:30pm – 1:30pm

Venue: Mitchell Theatre

What happens when racism and sexism collide? Ruby Hamad provides some confronting answers.

White tears have a potency that silences racial minorities. White Tears/Brown Scars blows open the inconvenient truth that when it comes to race, white entitlement is too often masked by victimhood. Never is this more obvious than the dealings between women of colour and white women.

Join Ruby for a penetrating exploration of how, when white people cry foul, it is often people of colour who suffer.

FREE — EVERYONE WELCOME

No Booking Required

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