Critical Reflections on Blackness/Blakness and the Whiteness of Coloniality in the Pacific

It is in Blackness/Blakness that Whiteness is made real. This is not a unique thought and is certainly situated in broader conversations of critical race theory. This chapter is not a claim to uniqueness but a claim to perspective, one that is not often provided a space to be discussed, analyzed, critiqued, and one which can always be improved. The current perspective emerges from within a story of Black/Blak Pasifika and its entanglements with coloniality, against a Whiteness of coloniality that has been shaped through various experiences. The chapter brings together over 10 years of critical informal discussions between a group of four, female and male, early academic Black/Blak Pasifika researchers. These dialogues – from the researchers’ undergraduate to postgraduate experiences to early professional life – are raised to closely demonstrate a collective response to pervasive Whiteness. If “whiteness” in an academic, institutional setting is characterized by objectivity, individualism, competition, and color-blindness, then the authors argue that the creation of “Onetalk – a Black Writers Crew” was, and still is, a specific strategy of subversion against these values: they celebrated achievements collectively, recognized the value of their own subjectivities, downplayed competition, and asserted themselves as researchers of color. Therefore, Onetalk is frequently referred to as a “safe space” since, faced with the option of either distancing themselves from the academy or submitting to it, this was how they were able to retain their sense of Black/Blak identity while participating within the mainstream of Whiteness. The entanglements between being Black/Blak in Papua New Guinea and Black/Blak in Australia have many intersections. The sharing and learnings between experiences provide a basis for shaping the future of Black/Black Pasifika early career academics. The journey speaks not to attainment, but it speaks to moments of becoming over time, with an understanding that “becoming” is a project that is open-ended and, in a sense, unbounded.