Burned Bridge--Race in Australia

There is an inevitable amiable struggle over whose Netflix movie to watch together on the weekends. mbh has an exasperating tendency to search out obscure movies of unreliable "quality" but he is very skillful in marketing his choice of movies to me. This week again..."What is it called?" I demand as we begin our negotiations. "Burned Bridge"..."Nooo" I groan feeling like it doesn't sound like a movie I want to watch. "You'll like it" he says as always "It is about aboriginal issues in Australia." That did sound persuasive. He knows me so well. And indeed I am finding it VERY worth watching and UNCANNILY in keeping with my recent ruminations on race. (There are several episodes to the program.) How srikingly race issues in Australia parallel race issues in the US! How unsettling the injustice and damage that "white" social structures are wreaking on our planet.

The first episode of the series is really poorly shot--terrible lighting and editing and videography but the following episodes are so much better and maybe it is also because the story sucks you in so that you no longer notice the unrefined technique. The series is striking in its realism and the gradual unfoldment of the characters' lives so that one gradually feels trapped by the maddening complexity of the issues and theblatant injustices perpetrated knowingly and, even more often, unknowingly. We are given an insight into aboriginal life, family and culture in contemporary Australia. Also played out so well are the internal contradictions faced by those of aboriginal background who manage to "succeed" in the white man's world. They must constantly struggle to make it, all the while feeling torn in their hearts by a sense of betrayal and disloyalty to their own people.

Most certainly a study of the micropractices that construct White privilege in society-- to borrow from Michelle Fine's terminology in her chapter Witnessing Whiteness [Fine, M. (2004). Witnessing Whiteness/Gathering Intelligence. In M. Fine & L. Weis & L. Powell Pruitt & A. Burns (Eds.), Off White: Readings on Power, Privilege, and Resistance. New York: Routledge.]