To begin I would like to inform readers that my words and thoughts flow solely from an inner place of reflection. This piece is written by me, a privileged white, approaching forty female with European ancestry. I am a writer and filmmaker who is currently working on a personal journey towards educating myself on African American history and the representation of minorities in film. Some of the topics I have been reading, watching and listening to over the last month have included police brutality against minorities in America, how American history is built on a foundation of oppressed black slaves, and how white feminism has and continues to exclude women of colour.

I felt compelled to write this article during the beginning of recent protests occurring around various states in and around the USA, after countless unjust deaths of black men and women at the hands of white American police officers. I can’t identify to my core with the African American community as I have not lived my life as a person of colour. I will never understand how it feels to have to make calculated daily choices based around my safety due to the colour of my skin, but it doesn't mean that I don't feel angry, sad and frustrated when hearing of the unwarranted deaths of George Floyd and the many who have come before and likely will follow.

For me, though far removed, the protests brought up a lot of memories of my past and made me think about how much American Black culture I consumed as a child and a teenager through watching American movies and music performed and written by African American artists. It also made me realise that despite all that consuming in my youth, as an adult I did not know much at all what a truthful representation of African American culture was, what the culture was built on or what it stemmed from.

With this miseducation and ignorance in mind, I want to talk about how I personally consumed and then perceived African American culture as a white woman growing up in Australia. Also, I want to share with fellow white artists reading this ways in which we can take responsibility for what perceptions are put out there and how we can change the narrative through storytelling.

Personally, my introduction to African American culture started through music. Growing up in my pre-teens I listened to my parent’s record collection religiously, and that is when I fell in love with the sounds of Motown. I would listen to Marvin Gaye, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Tina Turner, The Supremes, and more. Jimi Hendrix was my favourite.