Pallavi Sharda Instagram – Another exhausting but fulfilling week in the life of the returned Indian-Australian specimen to Aussie shores. Tonight I had dinner with two blokes…. One of whom couldn’t bring himself to admit that ‘Australia has a racist past’. His arguments against this premise were filled with qualifiers and feelings of being blamed and victimised as a white man who fears for his ilk. He said that racism had nothing to do with the way in which this land was taken from its rightful inhabitants – that that’s what people did at that time. I was at a loss. While trying to speak about the general practices of colonialism, I reminded him that until 1973 Australia had a ‘White Australia policy’. That migrants of colour who arrived in the wake of its abolition continued to feel the ripple of its effects. It often makes these conversations hard, when I am made to feel guilty for pointing out my own experiences, those of my parents and those of so many that I know and have witnessed. Experiences which simply ask for acknowledgment. Our present is inextricably linked to our history, to deny what we have inherited from our forebears removes context for a robust conversation today. #sherniisback