how the fuckity fuck do you write an essay again?

I am a non-Indigenous Australian of British origin. first generation one side, third and far earlier on the other. I am writing this assessment on the intersection of race and ethnicity and their relationship to nationalism from the perspective of one who has rarely had their ethnicity challenged. One who has rarely even had to explain , think about, or define what it is to be me in an ethnic context. Who am i? Am I white ? What does that mean? What mythical nation state do the “whitey” people come from. Whitemania? Whitetopia? Whitey Island ?When someone asks me where I am from, which being white and not travelling much, doesn’t happen to me that often, I say Australian and some times qualify it with a reference to England, usually to explain why im so pasty and burn easily. I because of the colour of my skin can choose to have my location unconditionally represent me. If I had dark skin or green the follow up question would be, so when did your parents come to Australia. I know this because I have done it to people.

There’s something alluring about ethnicity. I have grown up with an all pervasive sense of cultural and spiritual beigeness. feeling anchorless and bereft. My family are products of the 1950’s whitebread and pickled onions, profoundly atheist and staunchly working class, although this seems to be being eroded. Farmers, Teachers, bakers, cement truck drivers, once card carrying communists now duck shooters. We have nothing that multicultural policy has told us that ethnicity is about. Our food is bad, bolied eggs, boiled veges, boiled boiled boiled. Our music bad, Pop liked slim dusty, mum abba, my cousins Shania Twain. We really don’t know how to dance. We never go to church. Our weddings are in front yards and we generally all get drunk and grumpy by 5pm. Theres a penchant for tracksuits made from parachute material and our only family tradition being that of backyard cricket at Christmas and even that’s gone to the dogs as we all get older and fatter. Is this common cultural experience amongst other people of my ethnicity ? Is this why we don’t have a stall in multicultural week? Doesn’t anyon want to see an exhibition of mum dancing drunkenly to Mumma Mia in her trackies at the diversity concert on National Day of Healing. Is this why “we” pretend we are not ethnic.

I could proberbly count on my hands the rare moments in my life that I have experienced being otherised or perceived negative differential treatment presumably because of my outward appearance . I have been called a white cunt , a skippy and have had my ex boyfriends family draw quick breathes at his new white girlfriend. But these moments are aberrations in a distinctly unothered existence. So much so that when I felt marginalized in my first Aboriginal studies class in 1997 it was intoxicating. I had never felt such a level of complicity by association. My lecturer with full awareness of this shift went on a tirade against whities. I left wanting to rub ash into my skin. Lifes like that. im having a lot of trouble starting my essay.