radical

Creative Fugitivity Practice In Community

| Sheree

What do you do to be involved in the community?

I’m been expanding my reading of late. I’ve just become a member of the Abolitionist Futures Reading Group which is focusing on abolition, obviously.

Reading in community, sharing ideas and thoughts which are probably considered radical, revolutionary to the majority is so refreshing and affirming.

It makes me feel less alone in my way of thinking and {BEING}. It gives me hope that there are alternatives to the current system and that together we can get there.

Abolition, might be associated recently with prisons, or defunding the police, and closing detention centres.

But abolition is much more than this. Started with the aim of abolishing Transatlantic Slavery, abolition of prisons has been there since the inception of prisons themselves. Abolition is revolutionary because in order to decarcerate the Prison Industrial Complex not only does the whole of society have to change, be overhauled not reformed as that just wouldn’t work, but we also, the people have to change.

The world has to change at the same time as the people within this world change. We have to move away from the indoctrinated belief that prisons and the police, state terror more like, are the only means of deterring crime and criminals. Which jus isn’t the case.

We have to stop focusing on the individual ‘evildoers’ who deserve the harshest punishments for whatever crimes they committed, to taking an honest look at our societies and cultures that have forced people to commit such crimes ( or in a lot of cases no crimes being committed but still punished with prison sentences.)

I’m talking about poverty, economics, drug abuse, race, class, sexuality, isolation, migration etc.

To reiterate, rather than try to imagine one single alternative to the existing system of incarceration, we might envision an array of alternatives that will require radical transformations of many aspects of our society.

Alternatives that fail to address racism, male dominance, homophobia, class bias, and other structures of domination will not, in the final analysis, lead to decarceration and will not advance the goal of abolition. – Angela Y. Davis

Me reading, thinking and becoming anti-prisons, anti-establishment, becoming an abolitionist is just the next step on this journey of fugitivity, via black anarchism. And I’m so pleased and relieved that I don’t have to walk this path alone. I have a community around me as support.

Where am I at with Afro-Surreal?

| Sheree

Afro-Surreal was the word I chose for 2026. My guiding word of the year. I might not have posted a lot about it here, and yet, it has been a constant so far, bubbling away in the background. Shimmering away just beneath the surface, ready to boil to the top, or over when something happens to question or disrupt my reality.

I chose Afr0-Surreal as my word of the year because I was doing it already. I had finally found a word for what I was experiencing and I wanted to explore it further. Unpick it, hold it up to the light and examine it closely.

In a sense, it’s an attempt to go back to the beginning, go back to the source of this term and its meaning and how it does show up in my life and practice.

D. Scot Miller in 2009 wrote “The Afro-surreal Manifesto”. He is the source who coined the term. He could only find the term being used one time before this by Amiri Baraka, who used the term to describe the work of Henry Dumas. Miller went to Baraka asking him if he had any issue with him using Afro-Surreal and running with the term and concept. Miller asked permission and was granted it. Since then Afro-Surreal / Afro-Surrealism has gone on to be a genre or school of art and literature.

I’ll start my study with looking at what Miller has to say about Afro-Surreal and continue from there as since 2009, Miller came out in October 2024 to say that Afro-Surrealism is dead. And when I read this I was like, noooooo. I’ve just come to the party and it’s over? But then on further reading I totally get why Miller is saying this.

Go back re-read the paragraphs I have already written about the inception, the birth of Afro-Surrealism. And then imagine or consider this, predominately white institutions, universities, academics trying to erase the work, trying to erase the manifesto created by Miller in 2009 as the beginning of Afro-Surrealism, trying to change the history of Afro-Surrealism, sound familiar?

We’ll be exploring this and more but let’s get things straight from the start, the names we need to know and give credit to. Amiri Baraka and D. Scot Miller. Remember those names as we insert them back into history, into their rightful places of the founding fathers of Afro-surrealism. And as Miller has said lately, in 2024:

So what to do?

When Brooklyn Rail contacted me, I understood the impact and reach of the publication, and after some serious reflection, it came to me that if I brought Afrosurrealism to life, I was the only person to be able to announce its demise in order to divorce my vision from this white-led hostile takeover. So I killed Afrosurrealism in front of the very people who need it alive in order to feed off of it.

AFROSURREALISM IS DEAD! LONG LIVE AFROSURREALISM!

Update – Mamathon

| Sheree

As I was saying over in the introduction to the recent episode released from The Earth Sea Love Podcast, apart from the year flying by, May was the month that kicked my butt. It’s officially going down as the worst month of 2023, so far for me. But hey I’m still here to tell the tale and I’m grateful for that.

I have to give some credit to still being here and getting through the trenches down to my walking practice of May. I completed the Mamathon as hosted by Girltrek and clocked up 53 miles. Of course I did more walking than that in May but these are the miles that were recorded with my Garmin watch. Just trying to keep everything recorded so I knew when I hit the miles, I knew I was banking them towards this challenge.

I’m so glad I took up this task. I started it with Miss Ella and finished it with Miss Ella yesterday afternoon. Even though she was full of cold she joined me to mark the occasion. I also went over on my right foot again. Same place / same injury as the one that stopped me completing the West Highland Way last year. But I’ve been icing and elevating it as well as walking on it today. A bit swollen and bruised but okay to walk on.

And I’m pleased about that as I would be most upset if I was out of action again just when I feel as if I’ve gotten into some kind of walking routine. Girltrek are running their Black History Bootcamp podcast this year again, which entails 21 days of meditations of Black stories are shared. So I’m just gonna keep on walking in June to the sounds of this podcast and clock up some more miles.

The West Highland Way is on again this year. Birthday week with dear friend, Alex, we’re walking the way together. More details to follow. Already excited about completing it. See what I did there? The power of positive energy. It usually get’s me through. Got me through May. Thank you very much.

Happy June.

May Gratitudes

| Sheree

May 2023, will go down as the month that kicked my butt. Hard.

On so many fronts, and with many changes and challenges. Maybe I’m being melodramatic in the scheme of things. In the scheme of things, my life and challenges are small and insignificant. But it’s my life. And hell if I don’t pay attention to it. {BE} in it. Present.

I’m glad May is over and I have that beginning of a new month kind of excited vibe. But before I jump into June, I’d like to give thanks for what May has delivered to my door. The good and the bad. As I believe, even the bad, difficulties and pains, turn out to be blessings later on down the line. I just have to keep the faith and trust that all will be revealed in time.

For now I’m grateful for:

  • the late night walks with the sun just going down and a chill in the air.
  • the pleasant company of Miss Ella when she’s in a good mood! And also when she’s not as she still makes me laugh!
  • the bonds of friendship with people near and far, for long and short periods of time.
  • the opportunity to share my words with other people.
  • the opportunity to share my artworks with other people
  • the success of applications submitted.
  • the rejections of applications submitted as they always give me the opportunity to reflect and refocus.
  • the promise of a restful summer.
  • the green plants that keep me company and lift my mood.
  • the morning black coffee and dark brown sugar.
  • the comfort of hot noodles.
  • the roof above my head for now.
  • icepacks, and comfy sofas, YouTube content and music.
  • humour, wherever it comes from.
  • my body, big or small, young and old, she has always been there for me.
  • late night conversations.
  • single malt whiskey.
  • the dawn chorus.
  • workshops and readings facilitated by others that really support my creative practice.
  • morning pages, visual journaling and words/ images/collage.
  • an endless supply of brown moving boxes and tape.
  • selling, donating, giving books away and feeling lighter in the process.
  • scented candles and afternoon breezes.
  • the sea, always the sea and more!