Aunty and academics won’t ride Shakespeare, the Trojan horse for white supremacy

White supremacy? The ABC’s Q&A, ­October 29:

Question: What kind of influence can a 454-year-old dead white guy have on Australia’s varied cultural landscape without whitesplaining things?

Indigenous actress Nakkiah Lui: I’d … call Shakespeare “white classics”, so we identify that the canon … is actually racialised … one of the reasons … Shakespeare is so prolific is ­because he was a white guy. Because white supremacy was something that’s been very prevalent around the world … And let’s talk about race when it comes to whiteness as well.

White? Tom Clift, Junkee, March 17:

ABC sketch show Black Comedy … (parodied a Seven Network Sunrise segment on ­Aboriginal adoption) … The sketch features (Nakkiah) Lui … (and) a trio of commentators … (who all agree) “white people are c..ts”.

Osman Faruqi, Junkee, March 13:

This morning the federal Assistant Minister for Children, David Gillespie, announced that he wanted to “relax” the rules around the adoption of Aboriginal children to make it ­easier for “white families” in particular to adopt. Gillespie cited “rape, ­assault and neglect” in Indigenous communities … “If a child is being raped, we can’t just say it’s ok on ­cultural grounds,” he said, refuting an argument that no one has ever ­actually made.

Never OK? Candace Sutton, News .com.au, September 17 last year:

Roebourne, Western Australia, is in the grip of a paedophile epidemic that has seen such a high incidence that child sex abuse is “normal”. Police have charged 36 men with more than 300 offences against 184 children … kids are more likely to be raped (here) than almost anywhere else on earth.

White supremacy? Sascha O’Sullivan, The Australian, yesterday:

Academics protested last night at Sydney University against the Ramsay Centre’s proposed Western civilisation degree … Shima Shahbazi … said: “The idea of (Western civilisation) involves violence on so many levels. The Ramsay Centre is structurally violent” … “(The Ramsay Centre is) almost entirely made up of right wingers,” (said) John Frow, who teaches English literature … “the course’s motions are the same as Pauline Hanson’s ‘it’s OK to be white’ motion” … “We must not allow ourselves to become Trojan horses for a political agenda … least of all supremacist ones,” (said Priyamvada Gopal … of Cambridge University) … (Students and staff nodded at) accusations of “reigniting the ideology of empire”, and encouraging racism.

Bias Aunty? ABC’s Q&A, October 29:

Director Toby Schmitz: The devil can quote scripture. Hitler was very fond of quoting Hamlet … so, if you want to pick out some relevance from … the Scottish play, the ScoMo play … you could almost take any line.

Host Tony Jones: Here’s one line that probably might … ring a few bells for the audience — “It’s a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” … it does sound just a little bit like the explanation for getting rid of Malcolm Turnbull.

What might Shakespeare say? The Complete Works of Shakespeare, ­Oxford University Press, 1928:

O Gull, O Dolt, as ignorant as dirt … not so much brain as ear wax … long-tongu’d babbling gossip … highly fed and lowly taught … the soul of this man is his clothes … light of brain; all eyes and no sight … anointed sovereign of sighs and groans; a fusty nut with no kernel; elvish mark’d abortive rooting hog … footlicker; clod of wayward marl … I do desire we may be better strangers.