The sarcastic title of this work pokes fun at the old fashioned idea that race should not be the subject of polite conversation. Deacon uses a white and a Black dolly to represent the unequal power dynamics that exist within Australian society. The dolls stand in for people who, based on the colour of their skin, experience the impact of racial inequality in vastly different ways. The cracked head of the white doll reveals an empty void. Symbolically violent, perhaps this emptiness suggests the dolls will never be able to fully comprehend one another’s experiences.This work was curated in RACE 2016 at Wyndham Art Gallery. Destiny Deacon (1956–2024) was a descendant of the KuKu (Far North Queensland) and Erub/Mer (Torres Strait) people. She exhibited nationally and internationally since the early 1990s in solo and group shows. Deacon held two major retrospectives, in 2004 and 2020, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne respectively. Her 2004 survey show, Walk & don’t look blak, toured to the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo, the Tjibao Cultural Centre in Noumea, New Caledonia and Wellington City Gallery in New Zealand. In 2022, she was the recipient of the Red Ochre Award for Lifetime Achievement at First Nations Arts Awards. In the same year, Deacon’s work was shown at the Australian Embassy in Paris in an exhibition titled Destiny - The art of Destiny Deacon. In 2023, Deacon was included in the Sharjah Biennial 15, Thinking Historically in the Present, conceived by the late Okwui Enwezor and curated by Hoor Al Qasimi. In 2024, Deacon's work was exhibited in the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, curated by Cosmin Costinas and Inti Guerrero. Deacon’s work is held in most major public collections in Australia as well as Tate, London, Museum Moderner Kunst (MUMOK), Stifting Ludwig, Vienna, Austria and Museum Sammlung Essl, Austria.first nations photography, australian photography, australian indigenous art, race, racism, colonisation