Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time to go into this in detail. But I thought readers to the Freire Project would be interested in the following, particularly as it relates to some contributors and colleagues. Recently, the Young Liberals (the youth-division of the conservative Liberal Party of Australia) launched its Make Education Fair campaign. The campaign mirrors moves by conservative forces in the United States to identity and purge alleged left-wing bias from universities. In fact, a recent Opinion piece by the National President of the Young Liberals even borrowed the same language as used by Andrew Jones of the “Bruin Alumni Association”. Although it is not affiliated in any way with UCLA, Jones (a former college Republican and graduate of UCLA) targeted “extremist professors” including Peter McLaren who was named #1 on the UCLAProfs.com “Dirty Thirty” list.

I'm just in between preparing lecture powerpoints and took a break to surf You-Tube. And I came across this song from the 1980s by Michael Hutchence of Max Q - "whether its god or the bomb...its only fear under another name". I don't think it got much airplay at the time. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbbPkpzAipI

This semester, one of the courses I'm teaching is a large 2nd year course called Sociology of Education in the primary education program. It is a big issue course that looks at education and inequality in Australia. After the students return from prac, the next topic is multiculturalism. I actually use a number of writings from the United States, particularly some of the different typologies that have been developed. As an undergraduate at Curtin University in the 1980s, it was reading the revisionist colonist history of Henry Reynolds that challenged what I was taught in school (particularly the myth of Aboriginal passivity when confronted by White colonisation).

Warumpi Band and Midnight

Well, between now and my last blog, I managed to get overwhelmed with work etc. Not 2 much time for social activism. I had intended to provide a follow up on my visit to the Aboriginal Rights Coalition (ARC) in Redfern (visit their website at: http://aboriginalrightscoalition.wordpress.com/). Since then, the Sydney ARC held a "Black and White: Unite to Fight conference” on May 23-25 about the Northern Territory (NT) Intervention.