Culture not colour

Jared Thomas is an Aboriginal Australian.

Born of mixed race parents, he has been brought up in two worlds with two different cultures. Jared says his daily life consists of "border crossing" between black and white Australia. His journey to understand identity - and its complexity - has taken him from his family's Aboriginal land in South Australia, to Asia, Africa, America, Europe and Jamaica. Jared is a writer and uses his plays and novels to explore the complex and confused identity of many young Australian Aboriginal men.

Mentored by Jamaican writer Olive Senior, Jared's current novel explores the similarities between young Australian Aboriginal men - who idolise Jamaican reggae and black American culture - and young black Americans and Jamaicans who idolise Australian Aboriginal culture. In a globalised world, Jared believes that every culture looks to others for answers, when the truth - if it exists at all - lies somewhere within.

This programme explores Jared's world. It's a world where white can be black, and black can be into hip hop, cricket and country & western, as well as ceremony and ancient "dreaming" stories. We follow his search for the nature of identity, see how it relates to a generation of young Aboriginal Australian men, and recognise its relevance worldwide.

First broadcast Friday 3 April 2009