whiteness

WHY DOES SCIENCE KEEP FINDING WAYS TO EXPERIMENT ON BLACK BODIES?

| Sheree

Tiago_Fernandez/iStock

Reading Bone Rooms by Samuel J Redman, which starts off documenting the beginning of the frenzy to collect bones in the 1800s, especially Native American bones, as a means of establishing pseudoscientific ‘evidence’ to support the racial hierarchy, I am hit by the continued disregard/ disrespect/ lack of recognition of the humanity of black and brown bodies. History is littered by these practices one example being the transatlantic slave trade.But it would seem that history continues to repeat itself and we as a civilisation have failed to put in place safe guards against these atrocities happening again and again.

Has there no just been Holocaust Remembrance Day and the rally call always that we will not let this happen again, and yet we stand by and allow it to happen again and again within our lifetimes because we, and the establishment, pick and choose who’s life is more valuable and recognised and willing to fight/ stand up for. Usually black and brown bodies are not protected and usually there is no up roar in our blatant and deliberate destruction .

I come here today enraged and saddened as hear about the case of the USA funded , Danish scientists medical study on Guinea-Bissau newborns around the hepatitis B vaccination.

Within the UK, newborns are given the hepatitis B vaccination within 24 hours of birth as it is proven to lower the paediatric contraction of the disease. There is no cure for this disease which is life threatening. But does not pose a threat here or any of the western countries because of this preventative medicine as birth.

In December 2025, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made the announcement that they were stopping their country’s hepatitis b vaccination programme for newborns as there was worry about the effectiveness and safety of such vaccinations. Bearing in mind that the programme has reduced new infections, with up to 90% effectiveness in preventing perinatal transmission when administered at birth and 98% immunity for infants, resulting in decreased liver cancer and mortality.

Why this change of policy? Robert F Kennedy, and the Trump administration.

Then just two weeks later, there is the announcement that the USA will fund Danish scientists in Guinea-Bissau to carry out the medical study on newborns around the effectiveness of the hepatitis B vaccination.

Over 14,000 babies involved where half would be given the vaccine within 24 hours of birth and the other half had the vaccine withheld until 6 weeks old.

1 in 5 people in Guinea-Bissau are infected with hepatitis B far more than USA, Denmark etc. This country is one of the poorest in the world. Why run tests on a vaccine that they know works in reduced the contamination of the disease. And why if there’s concerns about the vaccination why not carry on this study on American babies or Danish babies?

Guinea-Bissau has not asked for this study to take place. This is ‘medical’ colonialism.

The effectiveness of the vaccine has been proven so why carry out further tests that they know will endanger the lives of newborn babies? Will probably plunge the country into further poverty and disease, suffering and deaths related to hepatitis B.

This is just another example happening now of a foreign ( white) state/ power/ institution acting as if they have a god given right to exploit, extract, experiment on black/ African/ brown bodies? As if our lives do not matter as we are just disposals.

That our only value upon this earth is to further the will/ need/ wants/ lives of white people.

This sickens me. This is a policy, funded by fascists, to deliberately murder African babies. Why? Because they think they can. Because they have done so before. Because we live in a system where whiteness reigns supreme.

History does continue to repeat itself and whiteness finds new ways to justify the same harm. Or is the harm getting worse?

we warned you

| Sheree

we have always been experimented on

they experimented on us

and then rolled it out to everyone

we warned you

but you didn’t listen

we were just the beginning

the prototype

they perfected their violence on us

and now it’s reaching everyone

no escaping now

there’s nothing more dangerous and hideous than whiteness

the abuse of power is coming home to roost

| Sheree

What is your mission?

If you’ve been watching the news this week, you’ve seen that it’s been dominated by what is happening in America. Or the actions America has taken elsewhere in the world. Flexing their muscles, going in for the strike.

In my opinion, what is happening, right now, is that white people can see the power of the state being used against people who look just like them.

This is where AfroSurrealism takes on significance – because the reality of blackness is the power of the state is always and, repeated for centuries and generations, been used against black people. Being black is a surreal experience. THEN. RIGHT NOW. ALWAYS.

The abuse of power has been turned up to the max so that no one is safe. But some people can’t see this yet. Maybe even deny it, spin a false narrative around it.

There’s a quote somewhere that I remember which goes something along the lines as, they’ll come for me in the evening, but then they’ll come for you in the morning.

Fascism had raised its head once again. But did it ever go away for black and brown bodies? Did it not just change its mask, switched up its playbook?

There’s protests across American cities against the unlawful killing of a white woman/ mother by an ICE agent. These protesters scream out, “say her name.”

The thing is this – no disrespect or condoning of this violence or unlawful killing as it is an abuse of power and murder. I am outraged but …

I am also outraged because #SayHerName was an awareness campaign started by Kimberle Crenshaw to bring attention to the unlawful killings of black women by law enforcement that were going unreported/ not getting the same level of outrage and attention as when black men and boys are killed by law enforcement, in comparison. And this doesn’t even start into the ‘white woman syndrome.’

#SayHerName was needed to highlight and remember and get justice (?) for black women who have been killed in custody, or when calling 911 for help, or when sleeping in their beds, or for just breathing while black.

#SayHerName is needed for these unlawful killings of black women not for the white woman killed in Minneapolis on Wednesday because everybody knows her name and everybody is saying her name.

What happened in Minneapolis was wrong and the Trump administration is lying about it and blaming the victim. This is an abuse of power and is being played out, as the images of the bloodied seat and the bullet hole in the windshield, as a threat.

You get in the way of us, protest our regime then this is what happens to you, is the message. They rule with fear, threats and intimidation. The ICE agent is immune from prosecution because he was just doing his job. His job for the state. Above the law. Lawlessness is the state. This is the only way to get the mass of population behind a fascist society. Fear, threats and intimidation.

Check the historical playbook.

The reality though, the truth that has to be stated otherwise I’d be silenced through fear and intimidation, is that #SayHerNane centred black women, centred blackness. But using it here in this instance for the murder of a white woman, this is just another thing that is whitewashed and co-opted by white people.

I’m thinking this and berating myself for thinking this. Condemning myself for seeing this play out in reality. I had to go online and check myself. Check that I’m not being unreasonable, or hateful or wrong. But I’m not alone in seeing this reality.

This truth.

( And do you also notice how much and often I’m couching my opinion in diplomatic ways, highlighting my intentions not to cause harm. Obviously needed as far too often people choose to see only part of the argument. Take issue with what isn’t the real issue as a means of not listening and not addressing the real issue! Kill the messenger and all that!)

I also have to ask ( myself, anybody else) if the woman who was killed by ICE was black or brown would there be such media attention, protests, calls for justice? Would her unlawful killing/ murder be used as a touchstone, as a moment that changes American history moving forward? Or would that be another case of #SayHerName?

I say this not to distract from the horrendous crime that has been committed by the state against a white woman. I say this because it’s all part of the same system that has been operating for centuries and it is just now, in this moment, that more people, white people are seeing that this shit is killing them too. It has been all along but just slower than black people (Fred Moten).

These are strange times (white) people are arguing. Democracy is being eroded. Violence is no longer buried and concealed. Violence is (now) at their (white) doors.

AfroSurreal. This has always been the reality of blackness. The violence. The absurdity of it all. No rhyme or reason except profits and power.

Now white people are waking up to seeing on their feeds people who look like them being murdered by the state. Unlawfully murdered by the state for demanding justice and fairness.

It’s awful that some (white) people are just starting to experience the dangers of oppression right now.

This is nothing new for / to black people. And saying this isn’t to wish ill will on anyone else or to take glee or satisfaction in violence inflicted on anybody.

Just speaking truth to reality.

An Archives of Memories, Feelings and Skyr

| Sheree

This is one of my favourite images from my extensive collection.

I know exactly when and where it was taken. Westfjords Residency, Iceland, Feb/March 2017.

This was my go to breakfast. Coffee, cornflakes and Skyr, Icelandic protein enriched yogurt. I love the colours, the composition. The items included. But most of all, I love the memories and feelings just looking at this image evokes.

It takes me back to that time of wonder and discovery during my second time to Iceland. A residency I gifted to myself, writing the application while teaching temporally; frustrated, longing to get out and create.

I stayed for two weeks in the shadows of the mountains, knee deep in snow most days until the thaw came with some greening of the landscape.

I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing there back then. I just knew in my body that I needed to get away, gain inspiration from the landscape and {BE}.

I might not have completed much when I was out there, but I know when I returned the experience shifted my creativity and how I saw myself as a creative.

I saw glimmers of the Northern Lights during this retreat. Pale creamy wisps and trails in a dark navy sky. It was magical and a mystery.

This makes me think about my art-making practice and how most of the time I’m working in the dark, moving out of my comfort zone into the unknown, looking and listening hoping to catch a glimpses of magic and mystery in the process.

What’s created on the page, like this photography, is an archive, a record which when looked upon brings to the surface all the memories and feelings of the process, the experience once again experienced to the full with wonder and a smile.

Over on patreon

| Sheree

I spend so much time and energy on the work I share at Sunderland University, one or two sessions, out of their social work studies that I’ve decided the share what I create over on my Patreon in a special collection.

It’s just the power points for now. I’ll go back in at some point and share the resources as well. But I just thought it might be of some use for someone else. I’m not expert either. And my style and message has changed over the six years of doing it. I’m mighty please withy last one, November 2025, because I just centred blackness all the way. I was unapologetic and intend to stay this way.

Go check them out if you’re interested.

Antiracism is Anticapitalism -002

| Sheree

Last week and the week before was a deep dive into the far right rising within the UK. The raising the colours from one neighbourhood to another. The flags to stroke unity and patriotism is the hearts of every British subject. Right? Bullshit.

I know it’s not either/or thinking. I know it’s and/both. But having a conversation with these people is not possible. Listening doesn’t take place because those who hold far right tendencies see a black or brown face and instantly think inferior, immigrant, illegal. No right to be here. No rights at all as not really human. You can’t listen to something you don’t see.

Anyway, I was doing all this research into ‘raise the colours’ for my annual trip into Sunderland University for my lectures around antiracism.

I change them every year in line with my own learning and development in becoming antiracist. And really antiracism is anticapitalism. Has to be . But the different antiracism forums or organisations or groups operating at the moment that I’ve been part of haven’t received this memo. Their still operating under the guise that we need to come together as allies and educate people around privilege and fragility and be kinder to each other. Bullshit.

In the words of Fred Moten,

“I don’t need your help. I just need you to recognise that this shit is killing you, too, however much more softly, you stupid motherfucker, you know?”

So I’ve decided to release my 5 years of antiracism lectures I’ve prepared for Sunderland University over on my patreon account over the next month or so, as a sharing of knowledge and learning. Please consider checking it out. It should be free to access but sometimes these sites put in shit you don’t realise all in the name of progress. Bullshit. More like profit. Capitalism again.

But yeah should be free but if you fancy buying me a coffee, hit that button!

Anti-racism is anti-capitalism

| Sheree

I really appreciate it when you’ve bought a book and are ready to dive into it, but you’re just not feeling it. You can’t get into it. So onto the book shelf it goes, collecting dust. Maybe even taunting you.

And then, over time, into a different time, you pick up said book again and you dive into this time, deeply. It’s singing it’s message through you mind, body and soul.

This practice happened for me with Women Who Run With Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes and here it’s happened again with What is antiracism? by Arun Kundnani.

It’s that time of year again where I’m due to go back into Sunderland University and lecture within the Social Work Department around anti-racism. This started in 2020, in the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter uprisings around the world. Up until this point there had been no addressing of race and racism within social work training. And you could still say this is the case as one session, 2-3 hours long, is hardly making a dent into racism and its consequences. But I digress.

Anyway each year, my thinking and practices have changed as I’ve read more and developed more as an anti-racist, anti-capitalist agitator, organiser and activist.

I share my learnings and findings as I want to bring about change for everyone. And this transformation can’t be just limited to working on a personal level as the usual anti-racism training/ education would have us believe.

The problem is not just on an individual level, our unconscious biases etc, the problems are structural and are engrained into the bedrock of our societies, countries and communities.

Anyhow, this book What is antiracism? is not only giving me the historical evidence of racism, the term and practices, but is also sharpening my argument around how racism and classism go hand in hand and that you cannot have a revolution without black workers leading the way. As black workers have always fought for freedom and the dismantling of capitalism for everyone, not just for (white) workers as the revolutions within Europe have done.

We have the French Revolution in the 1700s, lead by the urban masses. We have the Russian Revolution lead by the vanguard party for the proletariat. But we have the Saint-Domingue Revolution in the 1700s lead by the enslaved for abolition of all enslavement in the colonies and Europe, in tandem with the French Revolution happening in Paris. The first time that black and white workers were fighting a common cause together on this scale.

Which revolution succeeded?

The revolution lead by the enslaved, black forced labour, which created the sovereign state of Haiti, a black revolution which had at its heart radical action to transform all societies.

This is what we need now.

Over Here Zine Festival 2025

| Sheree

Today, Dal and I were in Manchester as the Over Here Zine Festival again. I think is out third year there together, sharing a table of our creations and laughing far too loud for such a small room in People’s Museum in Manchester.

It was good to be in a space that was created for people of the global majority to share their zines. It’s usually a safe and supportive space. And it still is in some respects. But what is worrying is that more and more white people are infiltrating our safe spaces. I know that white people come in to see and buy our creations. I can this is who we are selling to, while we swap with each other. But at the same time, I noticed white people behind the curtain, on the wrong side of the tables selling zines. But I could be wrong?

An article I read the other year, titled ‘Ontological Expansiveness’ by Chris Corces-Zimmerman, Devon Thomas, Elizabeth A. Collins and Nolan L. Cabrera, where I learnt the language I needed to call out this sense of expansionof white people into black and brown spaces where maybe the ethos and intention is exclusivity.

Ontological Expansiveness is a theoretical framework used under the umbrella of Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) that was conceptualized by Sullivan (2006) to describe the complex and nuanced relationships that exist among race, Whiteness, and space. Sullivan (2006) argues, “As ontologically expansive, white people tend to act and think as if all spaces – whether geographical, psychical, linguistic, economic, or otherwise – are or should be available to them to move in and out as they wish” (p. 10).

Corces-Zimmerman, Chris & Thomas, Devon & Collins, Elizabeth. (2021). Ontological Expansiveness. 10.1163/9789004444836_058.

I could be wrong, but how is feels to me, and how I’ve been experiencing things, is that white people think and act and move as if they have a right to be in any and all spaces. Sullivan suggests that White people tend to think of themselves as though they are the only people to exist or have worth in the world. Black and brown people just don’t come into the equation. Colonialism is the epitome of ontological expansiveness.

In this example as the zine festival, I’m talking about taking up physical space, but ontological expansiveness also applies to language and who white people claim ownership, through creating definition of what is proper English for example. What’s acceptable is the language and tone and style of whiteness, any other forms of communications are wrong. Yet that doesn’t stop white people wanting to use Ebonics or use the ‘N’ word. And then there’s the appropriate of our cultural practices .

As Sullivan (2006) states, White people frequently act as if, “The appropriate relationship is one of appropriation: taking land, people, and the fruit of others’ labor and creativity as one’s own” (p. 122). Frequently, instances of White people engaging in acts of cultural appropriation represent a fetishizing and exploitation of the language, customs, or practices
of Communities of Color.

Corces-Zimmerman, Chris & Thomas, Devon & Collins, Elizabeth. (2021). Ontological Expansiveness. 10.1163/9789004444836_058.

Of course white privilege is wrapped up in this but it’s not enough to say this privilege needs to be given up or shared. Before anything changes white people need to acknowledge what they are actually doing, but how are they going to do this if they are oblivious to what they are doing?

I invite white people to recognise that they will feel uncomfortable when they do enter spaces that are predominantly non-white and get used to it. As in that discomfort is the seed of change.

where are you judging yourself as wrong?

| Sheree
i ain’t smiling

The whole shebang.

I second guess myself around race and the way I’m being treated. Or think I am. The vibe I’m sensing from other people. And if I always have to bring it back to race. Why I’m always seeing the gaps and having to speak up.

I’m judging myself as wrong on the ‘i ain’t smiling’ stuff. How I’m doing this to individuals who have probably not done anything to me. It was someone else who looked like them who did me wrong.

And I’m treating them in a way I don’t want them to treat me. Like lumping them all together and not seeing them as individuals. Judging than as all the same and not giving them the benefit of the doubt. Not giving them a chance. This individual might be different. Might be doing the work. Might see me. Might smile.

I think I’m tired. I’ve been living that way for so long now. Smiling into the faces of strangers. Smiling with hope without much in return. Without much connection and now I’m just not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt because I’m not given the same curtesy.

We see in the US, the Republicans are in office, have control of both houses, Congress and the Senate. They have all the power and are shutting down the government peddling lies that it’s the Democrats fault. But instead of the Democrats stopping smiling and taking the gloves off, they’re reaching across the aisle, holding out their hands and hoping that some Republicans will join them and vote against the shut down.

Now I’m not dissing hope. I still have hope. Hope is a wonderful thing. We have to have hope. Hope is a practice. But the uselessness of the Democrats hope is around where it’s placed.

Even when the Republicans know they are wrong, doing wrong and being dishonest, they will not admit it, take responsibility and change. Act differently, no. Something about keeping face. Winning an argument and keeping power is the mission. Not giving anything away out of fear and greed. Keeping power.

This is how I see my situation. I’ve been appeasing monsters. I’ve been holding out hope for change and I still do. But I’m just choosing to place this hope elsewhere. Holding hope within my community ( village, Dal!), for and by us.

Smiling into the faces of the comrades and friends as they have not let me down. They see me. They respect me. They listen to me. They’re with me not against me.

I don’t need to perform any convincing, or prove my credentials as a human being. They love me as me. And there’s the rub. They love me. And I love them.

I’m smiling at that.