If we know that acts of genocide are being carried out in Gaza. Then we are complicit in the acts of genocide too.
If the British government knows that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people as it has been declared by the UN and is running it’s course through the International Court of Justice, then to continue to not call it out and to continue to trade with Israel, then the British government through it’s actions is complicit in the genocidal acts also.
Acts of genocide are being committed in Gaza and Britain is complicit in them.
In order to stop the genocide, from a British point of view, as other counties are also complicit in the genocide, we have to stand up and say:
NO more continuing to supply Israel with arms.
NO more overflying flights to give security information to Israel.
NO more use of RAF airbases for Israeli forces.
NO more manufacturing parts for F45 jets which are being used in the bombardment of Gaza.
No more. No more. No more complicity in the genocide of Palestinian people.
These are the demands we have to continue to put on the British government.
What the fuck is the UK doing in our name? Well not on my name as I condemn them.
To come out and say that the USA can fly their planes off from UK RAF airfields to ‘defensively bomb Iran’ and then come back is scandalous as well as being complicit in an illegal war and terror. And is supporting the Israeli government and state through the back door.
There is no such thing as ‘defensive bombing of Iran’. Of anywhere.
You can’t say,
When people are killed and infrastructure destroyed, don’t worry, it was defensive.
They are still dead. People are still killed, communities destroyed by bombs, defensive or not. There is no such thing as defensive bombing, but it’s the language so-called leaders use to justify their illegal actions and war crimes.
Call it what it is. A bomb.
And it’s happening in our name. This shit has to stop.
along with other themes and issues like abolition, emergence, black study, black anarchy, fugitivity, living archives , ancestral wisdom, African cosmologies
Already, just a few pages in, and I feel that this is going to shift my practice along even further down this path of refusal, stealing my body away through liberatory practices and beings.
For half of my life, I lived with someone who made me question my reality.
What do I mean by that?
I mean that within white supremacy culture and racial capitalism, I was primed to see myself as guilty and so discipline myself accordingly.
So then when I get into a relationship with someone who had their own mental issues and superiority complex and sense of entitlement, then I’m already primed to let whatever they do slide and make the (wrong) assumption that it is me who’s wrongs too demanding. Too needy. Too much. Too stupid.
I was primed and it was frequently reinforced that I knew nothing. That my reality was not reality and that if only I listened to the white man, let him lead me and control me then I would be saved. Or at least assimilated.
Psychic intrusions, near and far. The far is society itself. The colonial settler mindset that those who are colonised are already flawed, wrong, inferior and in need of assistance. In need of direction. In need of being controlled.
Psychic intrusions that meant that for most of my life I’ve been hating on self. Thinking and feeling less than. Thinking and feeling that I need to prove my worth. Prove my humanity.
Of course my eyes are open now.
Of course I’m taking back my psyche and coming out fighting.
I’m not playing this subordinate role anymore. I’m not playing stupid. Because that’s what it all was/is a charade. A falsehood.
It is reproduced here to raise awareness of a troubling increase in the number of black women going missing and later found dead by/ within bodies of water.
The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.
Malcolm X made this statement as part of a eulogy he delivered at the funeral of Ronald Stokes, an NOI officer who was killed by Los Angeles police in April 1962. A recording of the speech can be found here.
I had the pleasure of gathering with the WOC Azadi again in Sheffield today.
We gathered to share ideas around how to plot/plotting our healings, our liberation together.
Visual journaling was on hand to capture our thoughts, feelings, plans and plots.
It was such a nurturing and nourishing space in nature. It was a gathering of hope and aspirations.
It was an honour to be part of the day retreat. Ideas for The Plot of Our Repair came about from a reading is Saidiya Hartman’s essay , The Plot of her Undoing (2020).
The plot of her undoing begins with his dominion. It begins in the fifteenth century with a papal bull, with a philosopher at his desk, pen in hand, as he sorts the world into categories of genus and species. It begins with a bill of sale, with a story in the newspaper that enumerates her crimes, with a note appended to the file: she answers questions easily, but appears stupid; it begins with a wanted poster that reduces the history of her life to a single word-condemned.
And then towards the end of this essay there is a switch. A turn to explore how we can undoing the plot of her undoing. How we can move against the forces aiming to ruin/ control/ oppress the black/brown woman.
The undoing of the plot proceeds by stealth. It is almost never recognized as anything at all and certainly never as significant.
…
It begins with the earth under her feet. It begins with all of them gathered at the river and ready to strike, with all of them assembled in the squatter city, with all of them getting ready to be free in the clearing.
The undoing of the plot begins with her runaway tongue, with her outstretched hands, with songs shared across the unfree territory and the occupied lands, with the pledges of love that propel struggle, with the vision that this bitter earth may not be what it seems.
The undoing of the plot, the plot developing towards our repair was started before us. We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. We continue this journey, this plotting together. Today makes me feel that we have already won.
What’s one small improvement you can make in your life?
I’ve been noticing how my work/ being has been reactive. There’s been a sense of scarcity and time urgency that’s been guiding my thoughts and actions. There’s been a hopelessness. Because some incidents are out of my control but which have impacted me. There’s been feelings of not being appreciated, feeling a lack of trust and working without purpose, moving away from my core values and moral compass.
I might have been using food or drink to numb my way through the shit. Through the ‘work’, not allowing myself to feel and be present. Really present to all the feels.
Do you feel me?
I know I need to take a step back and really look at the life I’ve been living. This is the only life I have and cannot be relived. I have a deep desire to change the system. To abolish the system and live otherwise.
And yet in order to change the system, I have to change my life, how I live my life. The way / how I live has to reflect the way/ how I want the world to be.
What does this mean in reality?
How I am just as much as what I do within the system will have an effect on system change. I have to be living my life with intention and purpose. Making sure I’m living my values, that I’m not compromising my integrity. That each decision I make is coming from that place of love and trust and hope.
That I’m not shutting down but open to togetherness but also trusting my gut that when I say ‘no’ it’s not from a place of malice but from a place of capacity and boundaries.
I’m learning, I’m sharing and I’m growing. Alone and in collaboration.
And I’m feeling and shifting into the practice and recognition that this is coming from a place of love and care rather than exhaustion and pain.
Small steps. Small acts. Small makes up the large. Small scales up to large.
I’ve got to be practicing the world I want to see now in my own life. Daily. Practice.
Love not hate.
Cooperation not competition.
Conversation rather than condemnation.
More care less harm.
More listening less violence.
The turn towards Mother Nature rather than against her.
A recognition in the value and worth of every human being regardless of race, class, gender, religion, ethnicity, age, sexuality, body type and body and mind abilities.
