opinion

The Sinners Series – 004

| Sheree

You know I love the movie, Sinners. I’m onto my fifth watching of it.

One of my favourite songs within the movie is this one Dangerous sung by Hailee Steinfeld. I could rage on for hours about this song; it’s melody and words and underlining beat. But for now, I’m taking the word dangerous and running with it.

Within Sinners, what can be seen as dangerous is the invasion of vampires, a life or death situation. What could also be seen as dangerous is a community of sharecroppers having a safe space to listen to music and dance and eat and drink on their own terms. To be free. This could be seen as dangerous by the white supremacy culture they are living under.

For me what I see as dangerous are the white men who are still running around in their white hoods, calling themselves the brotherhood, the protectors of white women and democracy and who do whatever is takes to keep the black people( they do not use this nice a term for such people) in line even if it means killing them all.

These white men in hoods, the Ku Klux Klan, deal out justice as they see fit, creating terror as the deterrent to black people thinking of stepping out of line. And that could be just breathing.

These white men could meet you on the street one day and be burning down your house the very next day. But you wouldn’t know who they be. You know the enemy is a white man but it could be the smiling face neighbour who hides behind the hood, concealing their identity and cause havoc with no repercussions or justice or revenge on them. To live in this sense of fear is unimaginable.

Today these Federal Officials and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) marshals who are abusing their power, gifted by the Trump administration, to take people, children as well, from their homes, schools, work, off the streets and detain them, saying they are illegal, deport them, torture them for no reason except being seen as an ‘alien’ because they are brown and black are no better than the KKK. They wear the masks. They cover their faces. Conceal their identities and commit the crimes. The brown and black citizens of these communities are not committing any crimes except attempting to survive and thrive, living their lives.

Why cover your faces if you believe in what you are doing? Why conceal your identity if you are doing what is right, following the law? Why hide if you are proud of your actions?

This is dangerous. White men or white baby-men again have been emboldened and empowered to run havoc through our communities in the name of the law. Believing that they are doing what’s right in terms of some warped sense of superiority and the belief that they have a right to do so.

This is dangerous and has to be stopped. How? That is what we have to work out.

Running Scared, No More

| Sheree

Let’s be scared. Let’s demonise people.

This is the message sweeping across countries at the moment, around the world, as we continue to move further to the right in terms of politics and governing people. Suppressing people and voices.

Thinking about my weekend in London at the Defeating Narratives of Division conference hosted by the Ella Baker School of Organising, and coming home to see peaceful protests in L.A. around the over stretching arms of Federal Officials and illegal immigration raids on communities being portrayed as chaos and unruly and needs to be stopped with military force. Trump, man!

What the fuck is happening right now? What false narratives fuelled by fear and intimidation are catching like wildfire and are taking hold? What is happening to democracy and fairness and justice?

I too am scared. I’ve been told by some to have fear and anxiety and start panicking in order to take action. Time is running out. Passing on this narrative of fear is making us on the so-called left no better than those on the right whose fuel is fear.

We have to be pushing back against these fears. Not disallowing them but acknowledging them and choosing to fuel our movement with love and solidarity and joy. We can come together as we have the power and spread a message of love and welcome and togetherness and there is no way that message can be twisted or used against us.

It is plain to see that communities who stand together, even if from different cultures and races and heritages, are powerful and those who are crooked and authoritarian are scared of this. Scared of us taking back our power and saying no, enough!

I’ll be writing more on this in the weeks to come. But for now I just had to mark this moment of disgust at what is happening around the world but how there is much to be celebrating and reinforcing and elevating. Stories of love and solidarity and people taking back their agency and power. Thinking of Burkina Faso here and other African nations who are standing up and saying enough is enough.

But all in good time, and for me ‘good’ time is slow time. Taking the time to bring about lasting change on our own terms.

More to follow.

On A Reading Tip

| Sheree

Quantity over quality is a characteristic of whet supremacy culture. Say like with social media, we are wired to focus on the numbers. The number and amount of followers, likes, comments gives us the buzz. Keeps us returning usually. Rather than the quality of interactions. The quality of connections.

But in this instant when I say I’m on a reading tip and boast that I’ve read 12 books already this year, fiction, poetry and non-fiction, I’m taking the buzz of the numbers because I know they were quality reads.

Last year saw me fall off my reading horse. Reading was only happening when I had an extended amounts of time off the clock. Summer reading mostly. I didn’t have the bandwidth or desire to read at any other times. I was too antsy and not able to settle, as too many demands were pulling on my attention.

So I’m really happy that this hibernation season has seen me dive back into books. Physical and digital books. I do not care which as long as I’m reading, expanding my thinking and formulating new pathways of understanding and connection.

So White Tears Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad was completed yesterday. And it so feeds into my experiences with white women. Even though they’ve caused offence, been racist that is, it’s me who’s consoling them and making sure their feelings are not too hurt. Or it’s me having to apologise because my reaction to their racism or them touching my hair without my consent has been deemed far too aggressive and not very collaborative by the organisation or group I was working with.

They are used as a weapon, white tears, to shut down the conversation. To get the white person out of an uncomfortable situation and out of having to look at themselves and their behaviours.

It was so validating to read this book and recognise that it doesn’t just happen to me and that this is a centuries old tactic of the damsel in distress. And that damsel is white as Black and Brown women have never been deemed woman enough to protect. And all this shit is wearing thin with Black and Brown women. Believe.

This book was an extension of an article Ruby Hamad wrote back in 2018 for The Guardian. You can read it there and just know that one Black woman, Lisa Benson, who was working as a journalist at the time got fired for simply sharing this article because it was deemed ‘an attack on white women’. White tears in action right there!

A Black Virgin

| Sheree

My mind and body are hurting with the constant stream of information and images of this and that atrocity, and there is very little space to breathe, rest and take stock. I’ll be honest, I’ve been checking out. Checking out into Netflix boxsets, mindlessly watching episode after episode, numbing the pain and feelings of being inadequate , or not doing enough, being enough. Enough.

I don’t know about you, but it’s an overload at times of these times, which feel cruel and oppressive, evil and violent and unbelievable and yet we accept. There are no quick fix solutions but my heart and soul wants to feel that all will be well.

Society and culture ( the whole world) at the moment feels toxic and dangerous and I’m all for just slowing down and connecting in more deeper, honest and nourishing ways. I’m still leaning into my joys. Still bending towards the light as I don’t want to lose myself in this crippling spiral.

I’m slowing down alone and I’m slowing down in groups that I’m supporting and who are supporting me. I’m not by-passing the pain, the harsh realities, the genocides ( as there are multiple happening at the same time just now or have always been going on), but I’m also acknowledging how much I can endure and not beating myself up if I choose silence instead of performance. I know this is a privilege which I recognise, voice and keep checking.

Below I share the images from my Paris trip of Our Lady of Good Deliverance, often referred to as the Black Madonna of Paris. Over a 6 miles walk to see her, I covered more miles within my mind with my thoughts and feelings wondering and wandering, which were silenced or put to one side when I met this Black Madonna. I had the small chapel , in the suburb Neuilly-sur-Seine, all to myself when I visited. I walked around, I sat and looked and I lit a candle and remembered my ancestors and give thanks for this deliverance.

Deliverance: being rescued or being set free. How apt she comes back to me today. How I must have unconsciously known I needed her guidance today, needed her love and reassurances that liberty, salvation, change is possible. I’m not religious or spouting anything remotely religious or pious. I’m not preaching or looking to convert.

I’m spiritual and believe in love. I believe in the good in people and try to connect there on that common ground rather than separation and hatred.

What I do know is this isn’t a neat, tie-it-all-up-ending, with ‘this is what I want to say and you to take away’ as that would be another construct and false prophet.

I just know starting to look/ believe that ‘God is a Black Woman’, that the Black Madonnas are here to support and love us through difficult times ( as well as good times, our pleasures and joys) feels like a blessing to me that I will continue to lean into during these slowing down, turning away from exploitative and extractive society and culture times and continue to nurture others ways of {BEING} in this world.

Original post, Patreon, 10 May 2024

The Black Madonna(s)

| Sheree
Original post, Patreon April 10, 2024

I’m onto the second reading of this book. I think I heard Christena Cleveland on a podcast talking about her journey and I knew I just had to get her book. I’ve used the saying myself, “God is a Blackwoman.” But I didn’t know there was a book all about it.

The book explores Cleveland’s spiritual/ religious journey as she falls out of love with Christianity as its essentially fathetskygod/white make good and is used to uphold white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism. Basically just looking out for white cis males.

The book also follows Cleveland’s four-hundred-mile walking pilgrimage across the Auvergne to visit eighteen Black Madonnas. The book manifests Cleveland’s transformation through the Sacred Black Feminine, healing her Black female embodied soul.

Each chapter takes the reader on a journey in the present as Cleveland walks and also into the past as she reflects on her upbringing within her family, the church and society. How she grew up feeling unloved by God, unseen and not looked after. Each chapter also introduces the reader to a Black Madonna, each one Cleveland encounters along her pilgrimage.

It was when I read Chapter 5 and Cleveland introduced us to ‘She who cherishes our hot mess’, the Black Madonna Our Lady of the Sick in Vichy, that I got it into my head I needed to go see this one for myself.

Now I’ve seen the Black Madonna in Le Seu, Barcelona. Even climbed a mountain to see the Black Madonna of Montserrat, just outside Barcelona. But this time, this need felt different. A lot has changed for me since I’ve last seen these Black Madonnas and a lot more life experiences to heal from/ through/ round/over/in.

The Black Madonna of Vichy was decapitated during the French Revolution but the people who were oppressed loved her. They tracked down her head and built her new body out of walnut and put her back together again.

I love this story and it spoke deeply to my soul because I know what it feels like to be separated from my body in an act to fit in. To be disconnected from my body, living in just my mental space and not listening to my physical pains and discomforts but soldiering on. Denying my needs and wants as these are seen as weaknesses, produce feelings of shame and are not welcome here. Squeezing myself into smaller and smaller spaces so as not to take up any room and apologising for the space I do take up.

Been there, done that. Now I intentionally practice being with/in my body. I enjoy an embodied presence in the present. My head has been reattached to my body and I’m allowing my body to lead the way with practice. I’m no lover afraid to express my needs and wants or to walk away if these are not being met.

So once I realised I was definitely coming to Paris this year, I made the arrangements to go that extra mile or two ( well 450 round trip) to see ‘She who cherishes our hot mess’ in the flesh.

It would involve a 3 hour train journey each way. An over night stay and a little hope skip and a jump up to the Notre Dame des Malades, the new church where she stands.

And for a minute there I thought the church was locked …

I’ll leave it here for now because trying to see this Black Madonna turned into a bit of a crusade to see her again and again during my time in Paris. More to follow!

How might we divest from the human?

| Sheree

I’ve been reading. When I read, I feed my wonder and imagination. When I read, I fill up with ideas and dreams and plans.

Reading expands my mind and expands my understanding of the world I navigate.

I cannot stress or emphasise enough how much my world has been rocked or even burnt down since my reading and continued reading of Fugitive Feminism by Akwugo Emejulu.

This isn’t like anything I’ve read before because it goes against everything I’ve been trying to do for the last 50 years; to prove the humanity of Black people, of myself so we can finally be accepted and loved.

But what if we’ll never be accepted? Never be accepted as human beings because who gets to claim humanity is bound up with whiteness, bound up with white supremacy culture?

What if being a human is a construct and is defined by those with the power and was never constructed to allow us, people of the global majority to be as such?

So if I claim non-human what are the possibilities for my being?

This is where I’m heading. This is the space I’m navigating now. I’m making changes from the inside out. In a cellular level this speaks truth and blessings to me. How I {BE} is changing and it includes a whole more ‘fuck offs’. Well that’s how it’s shown up my so far!

How to feel better

| Sheree

It’s been a few days (weeks?) since I’ve been here. And I do hate it when I don’t turn up here because I’m missing out on opportunities for connection, with self and you, at the same time as the longer it goes in between posts the harder it is to get back here.

But I’m back and it was something I wrote on my journal last month that spurred me on to turn up. And I wanted to share it with you as it inspired me to feel better.

And these aren’t my usual activities which I go to to feel better but looking over the list this morning, I can honestly say I’ve been leaning into them the last few weeks without knowing it’s been so. I love when we get the chance to take a step back and reflect and see our journey. I’m so grateful for that.

So what has been making me feel better:

1. Cleaning my space. Be that handbag, bedroom, side table or whole house. I’ve been reaping the rewards of moving my body in cleaning/tidying up and then having the satisfaction of sitting down in a decluttered clear space. It helps the mind to gain clarifying also.

2. Eating something healthy. I’ve been deep in essay writing mode and have been living on toast and crisps and wine! But when I take the time, a break from the grind, to make a salad, or stir-fry and sit and eat mindfully, my body is not only fuelled with the good stuff but I’m resting in a space of joy. I enjoy my food and have the double whammy of knowing I’ve just given myself health.

3. Playing some good music. I’m known to have the tunes blasting in the car, especially as I’m using a friend’s mini convertible. Roof down, tunes high and I’m singing along. But I forget I can do the same within my home. Okay maybe not as loud as when outside. But putting on the mini speaker linked to my Tidal music account, I can move throughout my house listening to the music I love. Music that inspires. Music that I can’t help moving my body to. Music that brings back good memories. And bad. But still manages to get a smile out of me.

4. Lighting a candle. This is a simple act. One I’ve been doing more and more recently as I have candles in every room of my house. I’ve been having them on repeat as I attempt to create a welcoming ambience for anyone viewing the flat. Yes the landlord is selling the flat we’re renting so we have to move. So more people are flowing through the space and having candles glowing is my way of keeping the air clean and scented. It reminds me to take deep breaths and trust that everything is going to turn out for the best. Vanilla, cherry, cinnamon and lavender are my favourites at the moment.

5. Drinking water. Oh my. Now this one is a game changer but I admit I forget it. Daily. Water. I love water inside and out but when I get buried under tasks and emotions, I forget to drink water. That feeling of cold liquid journeying down my throat through my chest to my gut is refreshing, revitalising and a blessing. It only take a moment but still obstacles get in my way. I’m carrying a gallon sized bottle around with me as a means of getting more and enough water. It’s a practice and I’m leaning into it.

6. Sleep a little ( or more). Maybe it’s my age. Menopause. Or the time of year, or my body and mind and soul is just racked with anxious vibes but sleep has been evading me of late. But I’m not going to make it an issue. I’ll take sleep when it comes. And if I can help it, I’ll nap when I feel tired and stay in bed that extra hour if my body calls for it. I rest in other ways too. Be that zoning out in front of the TV, reading or an evening walk. All are a rest from ruminations and allow me to switch off.

7. And finally BREATHE. Yes yes yes. We breathe all the time as it keeps us alive. But how deeply are we breathing? It wasn’t until I picked my meditation practice up again did I realised how long I’m been breathing in the shallows not having the utilising the full capacity of my lungs. Living in the shallows means I’ve been panicking, being on edge, anxious, living on scraps of air when I could have been taking and enjoying big juicy expansive breaths that calm and recalibrate my whole body. I’m breathing deeply. I’m stopping what I’m doing/ being at times to take a few deep breathes. They reoxygenate my body and give me pause for gratitude. Gratitude for being alive in this moment.

I hope you find some inspiration in these practices and try a few. They make me feel better and sometimes we all can do with a reminder of what does make us feel better so we can lean into them more often and more deeply.

No More Monday Morning Blues

| Sheree

When I was teaching, I used to experience ‘Monday Morning Blues’. That dreaded feeling of going back to the grind after the weekend off. Going back to the bells and the timetables and the disruptive kids. One of the many reasons to leave the profession without a safety net in place, without anything lined up, was that I knew if I didn’t go then, I’d never get out. I was getting too comfortable, too used to the regular pay check at the end of each month, justifying the slog, the staying put within an environment that was slowly eating away at my soul.

I used to see cows outside my classroom window and I vowed not to become one of them; a cow put out to pasture, giving up on life and life giving up on them. I knew there was more to life that the 9-5 job, or as it was when teaching 7-7 job. I put my whole life, heart and soul into that job to the point of probably neglecting my child at the time. But I was after perfectionism, acceptance and recognition. I was defining my whole self -worth by how good or bad I was at teaching. And teaching shite I may add. Shite filled up with the words and opinions of mostly white dead men who probably didn’t think much of me being a Black woman.

I was duped into the belief that work was meant to be hard and difficult and long and mostly unrewarding. It was what we were put on the earth to do, to be. To work for most of of our lives for others, propping up the system and if we worked hard enough, we’d get time off at the end with a pension that would be taxed again. This is what I bought into and what was fed to me through family, education and society. To step out of this construction to pursue creativity, to do my own things and be my own boss was seen as weird, a risk, stupidity and misguided to say the least.

I knew how I felt. And I know how I feel. And even then I put a lot of store by how I felt. How I was uncomfortable in my own skin. How I felt a fraud. How I felt unbelonging and always striving for something that would never be mine. Acceptance. Whiteness. The Norm.

Now I don’t have ‘Monday Morning Blues’, because I don’t put that kind of pressure on my days, on my weekends, on my time. I pick and choose when to work or not. I try to have a 3 day week. Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday being the work days and the Monday and Friday flow into a long weekend.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not idle. I’ll always be practicing my creativity ( I prefer using practice to work). I don’t think I’ll ever retire because being creative is who I am. And when I reserve certain days of the week for outside commitments, ‘work’ the other days are mine to create, to rest, to dream, to plot, to {BE}. And I’m grateful for the circumstance to be able to {BE} this way. I’m also grateful to my younger self who wasn’t afraid to jump and believe and trust that a net would appear to catch her fall. Again and again.

I’m quote proud to say I’m being useless to capitalism today. And the next day and the next.