What Is Critique?

The articles, “Kalgoorlie riot proves Leak right” by Andrew Bolt and “White man’s manslaughter, Black man’s murder. White man’s riot. Black man’s uprising” by Chris Graham, on the topic of race relations in Australia, serve as examples which can be used to examine the functions of ‘evaluation’ and ‘critique’. Judith Butler and Gayatri Spivak in the article “What is Critique?” define critique as a process of questioning, which disrupts dominant thinking and norms, not just to replace them with a ‘better’ understanding, but to challenge the basis of their naturalised assumptions (Butler & Spivak, 2011, para 2). Alternatively, evaluation seeks to avoid problematising its own position reinforcing ideological systems and structures that maintain

It can be argued that Chris Graham’s article, “White man's manslaugher, black man's murder. White man's riot. Black man's uprising.”, therefore works as critique because it reveals rather than hides the issues. Graham’s article, written in response to the riots, arising from Doughty’s death, that occurred in Kalgoorlie on August 31. Through a historical reflection on the past injustices against indigenous people he asks the audience to consider “will Elijah Doughty become the latest victim of a vulgar, corrupt, indifferent system?” (Graham, 2016, para 54). Graham attempts to disrupt the power structures through an interrogation of the foundation of justice as it pertains to white and indigenous populations. Graham exposes the inequities of the discourse that allows the one incident to be view in radically different ways. He overtly draws to the reader attention the impact of language used frame the dominant thinking. He shifts the power to his readership to determine for themselves how to interpreted the ideologies presented. By giving a choice of terms in which to frame the dominant ideology, such as ‘manslaughter’, ‘murder’, ‘uprising’ and ‘riot’, it is clear from the article that terms privileged in this discourse are the ones that will determine which ideological framework that is to be continued. O’Shaughnessy corroborates that “reality can be named by language in different ways” (O'Shaughnessy, 2012, p. 63) and Graham challenges the reader to choose which terms, and therefore, which ideology to perpetuate or disrupt. Chris Graham’s article through its critique of the brutalized history of indigenous people functions as critique because it challenges the