“On the afternoon of May 16, 2020, about a week before George Floyd was killed by the police, twenty-one-year-old Tye Anders was accused by the Midland, Texas, police of running a stop sign. He pulled over in front of his ninety-year-old grandmother’s house.”
Excerpt From We Refuse Kellie Carter Jackson
There’s Anders pleading for his life. There’s many policemen with guns drawn pointed at him and there’s bystanders filming it all. One woman who’s filming this is also pleading for the police to not shot Anders saying he’s scared. Hasn’t there been enough killing of unarmed black people, killed just because of the colour of their skin?
Still no guns are lowered and Anders is on the ground clearly empty handed but the situation is just escalating as the police continue to train their guns on his body.
Anders’ ninety-years-old grandmother steps out of her house praying. With cane in hand she walks towards her grandson even though guns are trained in her direction.
There was still panic still bystanders screaming for the police to put their guns up. Some do but still one cop is walking towards Anders with his gun raised. Trying to move and push her out of the way, his grandmother doesn’t believe that her grandson won’t still be shot so she falls onto her grandson, protecting his body with her own body. Not longer after this with the police and crowd pushing and pulsating around her , she loses consciousness.
Anders is arrested for fleeing the police. His grandmother is taken to hospital.
Reading this story this morning made me cry. Not because of the police brutality or the disregard for human life, black life. But because of what the grandmother in the story did. She’s ninety-years-old, frail and only has her prays and body, but used both in protection, in an act of love.
“Her collapse was not a coincidence. Protection is powerful, beautiful, and sacrificial because protection is love. But she should not have needed to put her body between the police and her grandson to protect him.”
Excerpt From We Refuse Kellie Carter Jackson.
Protection. She should not have needed to, but she did put her body between the police and grandson to protect him. This act of courage broke my heart this morning. Had me weeping. Maybe it was the last straw that pushed me over the edge into the breakdown. Maybe it was my imagination seeing this playing out.
Maybe I’m just sick and tired of living in a world where white violence is justified and black violence is really self-defence but is never judged that way.
I’ve always been a supporter of care work but even more so now. As care work, along with rest are forms of protection. Through the way I {BE} with myself and others, and the work that I do for self and others, I’m tending daily to the mental, emotional, and physical needs and health of black people, so we are better equipped to survive and thrive within a hostile, brutal, grinning world.
Woman got herself dry socket. Exposed bone and nerves after a tooth extraction happens when the blood clot for Porte took doesn’t form properly or get dislodged.
It’s painful and can lead to infection. Guess I’m one of the lucky ones. As mine is infected.
I thought the pain and bad taste and breath were part of the healing process. No pain no gain right?! Seems this level of pain and the foulness is a sign of dry socket and infection. Go figure.
Thank goodness for saltwater washes, walking and self-care. Looking out for myself has become a priority in a world that just doesn’t care.
It’s a week since I’ve been here nearly. I’m not going to try and backtrack and fill in the gaps. Let them lie, because I’ve been healing. And today I’m beginning to feel more like myself again. This is my first image in a week. I ventured out not far from my front door into the sunshine, into my local park. It was glorious to get out as well as to feel a load or two dropping from my shoulders. I didn’t realise what stress and worries I’ve been carrying for the part month or so until they were let go.
More recent was an emergency extraction of a cracked wisdom tooth. Tooth hardly there at the back of my gum, but cracked on some food, cracked all the way down. I was advised to get it extracted. A simple procedure. Done in half an hour or so. Let’s just numb up the area. Little did the dentist know that my teeth are strong or that this little fucker was fused to the bone. An hour later or more and I stumble out of the chair into the growing dusk and I’ve got a gaping hole in my gum, held together by 4 stitches.
Fast forward to today, and me out walking in the sunshine and not allowing my self-pity to get the better of me. I look like a chipmunk and talk as if I’m drunk. But it could have been worse right. I daren’t think what would have happened if I’d left the cracked tooth and gotten an infection, not just teeth, gums but down to the bone. The dentist said I’m lucky. I said no I’m not. I’m intentional I said. Health is wealth, and I’m not going to mess around with mine, I said. The dentist said, he respects that. He said he liked my energy and made his evening, going in with my emergency. Made the time fly by.
Glad to be of service. Aren’t I always glad to be of service? Doesn’t a lot of people feed off my energy. Don’t I just bring my ‘A’ game for a lot of people. This Summer, I’m turning up for me. I’m giving myself the time and space to heal and breathe. My energy is low for other people, as I want it to be high for me.
I’m a shining light that creates space for other people’s lights to shine. I make people feel at ease and comfortable at the same time as inspired and tuned into themselves. I create space for people to air their cares and worries. For them to find a way back to themselves. And I don’t even get paid for this. This is just who I be. And I’m not complaining. I’m not having a ‘woe is me’ moment either. I’m just stating facts.
Fact is, this wisdom tooth brings wisdom. This wisdom tooth gone but left a wound, a wound I need to heal. A wound that needs time and care and space to heal. And I’m here to give it to myself as no one else will. Don’t worry I’ll still be turning up here as this is my space. I’ve not been bought by any corporation. I’m sharing my art not a commercial. I’m not selling you anything or getting paid. I’m free. I’m just sharing this little light of mine and my heart.
With the warmer weather and the slower pace, I’m so ready to lean into the lazy, easy, light and breezy days of summer.
My six weeks off the clock summer holidays are just around the corner. I can taste the sweet sweet honey of rest. But I’m not quite there yet. Still things to complete, anniversaries to celebrate and forms to send off.
But it’s close. I can smell the cut grass and strawberries and syrup already. The long drawn out of days of doing fuck all. Hell to the yes!
Reading is top of the agenda. Summer self-study of topics and issues that are making me buzz. I’ve already started my crime fiction reading as I get back into the DCI Ryan Mysteries Series from L J Ross, all set in the north east.
And now tonight, with an hour to spare before pick up I dive into We Refuse by Kellie Carter Jackson. This is just what I need coming off the back of completing my black mothering and fugitivity chapter. But it also is adding fuel to my fire of refusal and divesting from racial capitalism.
I’m only a few pages in and my heart is singing and I’m thumping with energy in the recognition of finding my space, my safe place where my desires and wants for freedom on my own terms is not weird or unachievable. But is very much necessary.
I’m been talking here about finding my tribe. About my search for comrades in solidarity. I’ve remained pine in the process, for real. From one particular source I asked for further reading, as something was niggling me. Id expressed my concerns in terms of using the oppressors language as well as, well I felt as, the lack of warmth, kindness, care and love. And then through the further reading it all became clear. This was my response.
I believe that there needs to be unity to fight all oppressions. You can’t fight racism without fighting against capitalism.
But I realise through this further reading where my concerns lie. It’s not in the socialist/Marxist movement as a whole but it’s with the people who make up the movement.
I’m not sure if the people of the movement have/ or continue to take the time to work on their own racism. There seems to be a given that because the movement is against all oppressions that it means those who are part of the movement can’t be racist or sexist because they say they are against all forms of oppression. Saying it is one thing. Practising it is another.
In practice there is still the use of the oppressors language as I’ve mentioned before. Using ‘non-white’ or ‘minorities’ is offence as they still centre whiteness which is used for division and oppression.
The articles mention the BPP alienating white people because of their support for Black Nationalism and Separatism, and their language used around Black Power. You even mentioned yourself that we can’t fight capitalism through language and its use. Modifying language is not going to bring about material change you say.
And yet it is language the party is using to rally the masses, to bring people together. Language is the tool of persuasion no? Language is the tool of education.
But if that language continues to use the language of the oppressor and is offensive to certain groups of people, they are accused of being confused, ill informed and falling into the identity politics trap again.
However, from my experience, through reading the literature of the party, I feel that the language used reflects a party line where the people behind that line are not continuing to work on their own racism/ biases while focusing their efforts on society’s ills, outside of themselves.
I do not feed into white supremacy culture with the characteristics of either/or. I believe in and/both. That means for me, there has to be the work on the individual’s internalised racism and sexism at the same time as working against oppressions within society. Working on our own blind spots and prejudices can only benefit the movement as a whole. Where this fails to take place is where the oppressors divide and rule become fixed without our recognition of it.
To say that ‘non-white’ is every day language, quote, ‘commonly understood by ordinary people as respectful ways to refer to some people who are oppressed’, as a black person being referred to as ‘non-white’ is offensive to me and I’m not really bothered if other black people are okay with it. I might be falling into an identity police trap but one my identity is not built on my relation to whiteness that is racism. Two, if someone says they find it offensive and that is not recognised or is questioned and explained away as being the norm is denying that person’s experience which is racist. Three, to bring this up then to have it dismissed as being defensive and accusing someone of being a bigot/ racist and dismissed as a distraction from the cause is another example of an individual failing to check themselves and work on themselves to combat their racism/ discrimination tendencies.
I work on myself daily to check my prejudices or biases or judgments and blind spots. I only wish more people would also as I do believe the world would be a better place because of it. Movements and societies are groupings made up of individuals. Working on the individual at the same time as the collective can only strengthen that connection and keep moving it forward in an effective way, I believe.
If we think about what is happen in the USA today, and the ICE raids within every community. The Latino community is coming out and asking where are the black people why are they not out here on the streets with them protesting? Why are they sitting this fight out etc.? Black people are tired, esp. black women. Black people told everyone to vote for Kamala Harris and they didn’t listen. They voted for Trump. And now he is doing all that he said he would do.
Now people are asking for black people once again to put their bodies on the line. And yeah this is a prime example of the ruling class dividing and ruling. Pitting one group against another. But what is true there and what is true here, black people only make up a small percentage of the population. In the states 12% here 4% with other ethnicities. And yet it is expected for us to save the world. ( Aside here we might be termed ‘minorities’ within these countries but we are the global majority. I don’t use ‘minorities’ because it is used as language of control. Black Feminism or Third World Feminism has always been global in its remit).
It is expected for black people to put aside those differences which on a daily effect our life chances. Our lives in terms of life and death. And this is not feeding into a victim hierarchy and who’s suffering is more than someone else’s. It’s a reality. Black people, black women do not just suffer violence and brutality from the state but do so from person to person in their every day and yet black feminism still criticises and attempts to bring material change for all through fighting all oppressions including capitalism and yet if they ‘fail’ to bring about material change it is because of ill-fighting or confusion in their ideology but no mention of doing this within a racist/ sexist society that does not see Black women as anything except mules of the world. Not either/or but and/both.
As black women we continue to not be seen as human. Read Fugitive Feminism by Akuwgo Emejulu to understand this, which is anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist. It’s arguing for a rejection of the whole system. A refusal of what has already been refused to us. Other ways of being are possible.
Marx himself saw the future of capitalism as self-destruction and a social mode of production being the outcome. Fugitive Feminism is being/working now with the other possibilities. It’s about creating an outside while still on the inside. Creating spaces of liberation and joy on our own terms. It’s not waiting until then for it to be now. It’s collective and speculative and might be fostered by black women but can be utilised for all, all oppressions including capitalism and the class struggle. It is probably dismissed though because it comes from the mouths, minds and hearts of black women.
Thanks for all these readings. They have helped in clarifying where I stand. In solidarity but at the same time in my own fullness and power which I lend to any movement which recognises this and works with me to bring about dismantling all oppressions for all people.
The reply I got, was thanks, I’ll reflect on it, and wish you luck on finding your people.
I’m sharing it here as I don’t want my realisation to do to waste. The words I shared to go to waste, as I’m still open for the conversation, still open to standing together.
Neil Kenlock, 1970, Resistence Exhibition, Steve McQueen, 2025
In March the United Nations issued a report about Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinian women since October 2023.
Those who shout long and hard about #womensrights have said fuck all about this abuse.
Perpetuating a system of oppression through gender-based violence and undermining self-determination is not coincidental.
But those who profess to be standing up for #womensrights say nothing.
Sexual and gender-based violence perpetuated across the Occupied Palestinian Territory is a strategy of war by Israel to demoralise and destroy Palestinians.
Those who shout long and hard about #womensrights have said fuck all about this abuse.
Israeli forces have destroyed sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities across Gaza. Medical support and equipment for safe pregnancies, postnatal care and neonatal care are decimated.
But those who profess to be standing up for #womensrights say nothing.
Women’s and girl’s reproductive right and autonomy as well as their right to life, health and dignity have been erased.
And yet these people, mostly white women, such as JK Rowling, who harp on about #womensrights and the so called threats posed by transgender people, say nothing about the Palestinian women and girls who are subjected to violence right now.
The deliberate starvation by Israel of Palestinian people has a devastating effect on pregnant women resulting in anaemia, malnutrition, miscarriages, stillbirths and undernourished newborns as lactating women cannot produce enough milk.
And yet these people here for #womensrights say nothing.
It would seem that those who claim to be champions of #womenrights pick and choose who has rights as women, fuck it, as human beings.
Living Wild Studios 