Where to Now?
A release, request and guide for when the noise dies down.
Over the last two weeks, I have restarted, rethought and redone this week's newsletter countless times. With its release being the day before my 23rd birthday, there were many angles I wanted this piece to take. But as the days went on, so many events transpired and I felt a detachment from all I had in mind. It has been such a hard, tragic and emotionally taxing week. There has been so much I have been feeling and wanted to say and express, but I couldn't bring myself to add to the noise of social media.
Then I came across this interview by Tupac and an essay from my favourite, Toni Morrison that reminded me of why I choose words and writing as my medium to cope, why I choose words to create out of my happiness, sorrow, anguish and discomfort.
“Every time I speak I want the truth to come out. Every time I speak I want them to shiver … I’m not saying I’m going to change the world, but I can guarantee that I’m going to spark the brain that will change the world ... That’s our job, to spark somebody else watching us… I don’t know how to change it, but I know if i keep talking about how dirty it is out here somebody gon’ clear it up.”
And it’s from that message that I choose to fight through my exhaustion, my racial battle fatigue, (look up the term) to find the words to articulate my feelings for this piece. I didn’t know how I could rationalise my thoughts to add to this conversation so I am just going to speak from my heart and truth. I have split this newsletter in two. For Black folk reading, I welcome you to skip straight to what's under the subheading On Searching for Joy, that’s for you. Anyone else can continue on.
I think I have spent most of this 22nd year of my life feeling quite hopeless and resentful, especially since December when the elections happened. Not so much the individualistic sense that is formed from my poor mental health, but more on the means of really sitting with how everywhere in the world I feel quite failed. It’s not a new realisation. Since the age of 14 I have been learning and unlearning - firstly for myself on various social issues, anti-blackness, transphobia, womanism, whatever it may be and then arguing with everyone from my mother, friends, colleagues and professors about these things. But never, in all my years of understanding, growing and fighting did I let myself really feel my emotions surrounding all the injustices that exist around me, that I have blatantly faced and subliminally experienced on a day to day.
Election day was the first time I really felt the weight of everything come down on me - that day all the fight I had in me dissipated and all that was left was a heaviness like a wrecking ball had been placed on top of me. Shortly after this, I decided to disengage with mass conversations, physical and online organising surrounding social justice for a little while. I just wanted to take some time out to merely exist and just sit in my pain for a bit, in a way I had not allowed myself to do for years. I felt a fraction of my youth had been stripped away shouting for justice in every space I existed and I was growing bitter as a result, so all I wanted and felt I needed was a small break to just exist and feel ... not rationalise, not conceptualise, not explain but just be sad about my reality for a little bit.
I soon remembered disengaging was practically impossible. I don’t wish to sit here and list out all the scenarios and my traumas from election day that left me unsettled, but the current climate surrounding the death of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony Mcdade, Nina Pop, Breonna Taylor and all the others who have died at the hands of white supremacy was quite literally breaking point for myself.
The reality of being Black is that even if you want to tap out into actively engaging and fighting against your oppression, something somewhere will make sure you don’t catch the break you yearn. Somehow, you or another like you will fall into a person's bias or ignorance, that reminds you the wicked don't rest and as the victim of their unrest, neither will you.
I think like so many other Black people I am tired, distraught and lacking the right language to articulate my feelings in this fight for Black liberation. And then I’m battling with myself over how long I can sit in my feelings for, because work needs DOING. There is a literal global war on Black people that has been ongoing for decades. Not one single person can deny its existence. If the Amish, who don't exist online, folk in prison who are detached from outside society, and children who are present at protests protecting their Black friends are aware of the problem, I refuse to hear that anybody else might not be. Videos and footage shared every other week demonstrating the exertion of white supremacy as a weapon against the livelihood and lives of Black people. And every other week there is silence from the masses.
That is until the pain of Black folk spills over and their rage becomes too loud for you to ignore.
Then the performance comes out. The hashtags ... the I stand with Black Lives ... the over flood of info-graphics or meaningless black screens. I watched it in 2012, in 2014, 2016 and again now in 2020. I hate to be the cynical nancy and complain about it all … but I also refuse to applaud anybody for merely speaking up on social platforms because the work is so much heftier and harder than that. An instagram post is honestly the laziest and easiest job there is. I want you to truly ask yourself, when the race to look like you're doing the work is over, what are you doing? How are you engaging behind closed doors? What did you, as an agent benefitting from the system, not do the last time mass outrage occurred that you will do now.
This is not a seasonal fight. This is ongoing. Think about the reality you are living now. For Black, people this is a fantasy we are fighting for ever.single.day we reside on this earth that extends beyond social media, or a week's worth of outrage. Right now, I will not list the extensive things Black people cannot do without being under threat of possible death, do your due diligence and research how not just in the USA or UK but across the world Black people are oppressed and killed for merely existing.
There is so much discomfort on your part in the fight for Black liberation that you need to confront. So many difficult truths you need to engage with. The biggest part of the fight is facing that discomfort. And no discomfort can ever compare to the pain, the fear, the tiredness and anguish faced by my community, so shame on you and your cowardice because it is costing lives. The legacy of imperialism, colonialism and slavery run so deep into the functioning of todays society and it is about time you do the work to really gauge how, and the efforts you must take to dismantle it. As British people we have been disillusioned through the education system about this countries history and the role it played in atrocities across the world and it is time you sought the truth. You as a non Black person, as someone with access to wealth or a desire to be rich and benefit in a capitalistic sense need to understand what you have or yearn for, feeds into the constant struggle faced by Black people. You need to read, listen to your counterparts, to community leaders and understand the power to create change quite literally lies with you and the people and places you have access too.
It is not enough to not be racist, you must be anti-racist. As Ijeoma Olua put it “Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself.” Notice the keyword, commitment. You must commit everyday to learning, to growing, to sitting with your own resistance and unnerving revelations to really help this fight move forward. Your out of context Martin Luther King quotes are not cutting it anymore. Search hard for truths.
Start by accepting and unlearning your own biases. Accept Black people as humans, not characters you witness on TV. Engage in our stories and history beyond slavery. Support Black businesses, artists, content creators and distribute your wealth. Respect us in life and death, and afford us some dignity by not spreading our trauma and dying moments all over the internet. Utilise your Spotify to hear the speeches of the many activists and individuals doing the work. Find people on the internet who constantly provide free access to simple readings and information that will open your eyes on what to do to strategise. Engage with grass-root organisations in your community. Use your voices to speak up against microaggressions you witness. Use your body to protect us from harm. Extend the work from beyond today. Stop leaving us out to hang dry when the noise subsides because you no longer have an agenda. Your silence outside of now is complicit in our pain, our struggle and our unjust death.
List of resources:
Email your local MP and put pressure on them to engage with what is happening. Here are some templates you can use for various issues.
Tear Gas Sales, Police Brutality and Belly Mujinga
Sign this petition calling for reform in GCSE reading list.
Other ways to help current climate
Reading -
Current:
A Guide to Allyship (links to where you can donate towards current issues here too)
We Need To Rethink Our “Pics Or It Didn’t Happen” Approach To Activism
White Anti-Racism: Living The Legacy
For long haul learning and commitment
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race
Free EBooks Courtesy of Noname’s Book Club - Follow it here
Support
Film and Video -
Reni Eddo-Lodge and Priyamvada Gopal in Conversation
Akala deconstructs race, class and Britain’s modern myths
Audio
About Race with Reni Eddo-Lodge
Music
On Searching for Joy.
Right now the world is on fire. We are feeling a myriad of emotions that we can't quite understand and I implore you to just sit with that because you have every right too. To do nothing right now is a valid response because this is a fight we have fought everyday outside of now. There is a pandemic going on. Collective grief, pain and sorrow is running through us all. Your health matters, mental and physical, as much as anything else, so if you don't feel compelled to engage or go out and physically be present, that is fine. To rest in this moment is just as important as the fight outside of the current wave.
You are not obliged to entertain dialogue. Create boundaries with your peers and what you digest. Come off the apps if you need to. Don’t let guilt settle in as you search for moments of joy right now, because ultimately it is deserved. Don’t feel bad for choosing to celebrate something right now, because every moment of pleasure as a Black person, you should never deny for yourself when so much is already against you.
I think it is important to know that the fight has many roles. You do not have to attend a protest, or be a part of current discourse that is happening everywhere to be participating. Do not let social media and the climate in this time make you feel like you are not doing anything to help. There is a need for healers, story tellers, visionaries, care givers, guides … and there is no place like home to start creating these tools. Whether that is finding time to heal your own wounds, or sitting with your friends and family in whatever capacity you may to relish in life and the little pleasantries you can. We are fighting for a fantasy right now, but visualisation is one of the most important tools in creating the life you want. Visualise the peace of living as a Black person and use now to cultivate the space to experience it.
Celebrate your humanity. Watch a Black comedy. Remind yourself you are more than a victim of pain and trauma. Watch a documentary, remember your history goes beyond oppression and anguish. Do a puzzle. Watch some trash TV. Disconnect if you must. Take time to clean your space. Cook yourself your favourite dish. Dance and move. Take care of yourself in whatever capacity you can.
Everyone wants to look like the radical beacon making change right now. As a Black person, do you realise how radical it is for you to find joy in your life and be in that. Do you realise how radical an act it is to preserve your mental and emotional wellbeing by doing you, away from social happenings everywhere? Your existence is resistance, so understand the power you hold in living happily when the world wants you to merely grieve.
Resources for Escape -
Wellness
Build Community and Find Your Om
Grow your intuition and more wholesome stuff
Entertainment