The tap, tap, tap of your foot under the table, your eyes flitting, your kind smile, your pauses, your quiet confidence and inability to settle, all feel like coming home when we first meet. Your child is also strong just like mine, your family difficult, your knotty past not unravelled; you understand. 

I breathe a sigh of relief and that’s it; you are now on my team. 

I forgive you one hundred times for your faults, because, so what if you don’t tell me you love me? So what if conventional signs of affection are absent in our relationship? We hold tight in my bed (you only hold tight in the dark) and I whisper ‘you are the best thing that has happened to me in a long time’ and you whisper back ‘I feel the same’. My fit and my match. That is all I need. You are now my home.

I let you go your own way, I know there is no other way to keep you, because that is me as well. The way you look at me, your open, warm silence, tells me you are coming back every time. 

Until you go for good. 

Kelly Sikkama

I feel the icy whoosh of every good thing we ever made together leaving my body all at once as I realise what is happening, streaming upwards iridescent through the crown of my head. Then you leave to start your next stage, your new beginning, without me, whilst I am left here staring at the kitchen table. 

I drive for hours through pale green country lanes; I heave in a garage forecourt. You are moving on. I eye up a pan of boiling water and imagine plunging my arm in. You have already moved on. My rage at the world is incandescent; it is like a blowtorch, but I turn it inwards so my children can’t see. My rage isn’t against you (I would still hold tight and gingerly reach out to your naked  back on the side of my bed, hunched over your phone, if it was still there); my rage is at the world. I forgive you as I always have. The world took away the only person on my team; there is no way the world wouldn’t have eventually.

From rage comes something not resembling it; it has an impetus to transform into something else. Rock is compacted by rage’s force and transforms into precious elements. Not over the course of centuries, but in fast motion. The elements were underground, but rage compacts then breaks the rock open as the words flow; pushing the seams of gold to the surface. I mine and polish what the stratum reveals. Rage also creates watercourses running through those rocks, and I drink from them. Rage turns into Lifeforce. And I am full of it.

So now it is time for me to say; it’s time for me to move on with the next stage of my life, and I don’t see you in it. There are feelings, but not enough for me to stay.  But I will keep the rage (my gulley) and turn it into words; because they are now my home.

This reflective piece is a summary and critical analysis of a conversation between author, activist, and Afro-Pessimist philosopher, Professor Frank B. Wilderson III and Chairman of ‘Before Columbus Foundation’, Justin Desmangles. The discussion was entitled, ‘Re-Imagining the Black Body: Race, Memory, and the Excavation of Freedom Now’. 

I wish to begin this reflective piece by outlining my personal understanding of freedom. I will then critically engage with some of the claims made by Wilderson about the nature and function of freedom. Following this, I will provide some closing thoughts on the further nuances that can be found within my initial understanding of freedom.

‘Freedom is, speaking out against racism and anti-blackness, talking back to whiteness, whilst holding a mirror to itself and reflecting what black people see, experience and feel, without the fear of consequence and retaliation. Such a freedom would also necessitate that my conscious and subconscious would center around me and the issue at hand. My first, second and third thought would not be concerned about the repercussions of white supremacy’s, ironic and innate fragility’. 

Rachael Lamus

I also wish to further interrogate the nuances of Wilderson’s use of the phrase ‘could not speak about their experiences without the risk of sudden death’. Whilst it is essential that we recognise the mortal danger that speaking out against white supremacy holds, its immediate response does not always equate to the ending of life. Therefore, to create a more nuanced understanding, ‘death’ perhaps, could also be understood as the abrupt and violent end of one’s physical and verbal expression. Consequently, examples of torture, dismembering of the body, exile, false imprisonment, damning public portrayal, silencing and erasure, could be understood as a broader articulation of ‘dying a strange death’. We could consider it as such because, the imposition of the latter would relegate the individual into a zone of non-being.  

Therefore, it is essential that we see society’s and humanity’s constant need to ‘[impose] forgiveness on top of the trauma and anger of a deeply traumatised people, [as not merely unjust and callous], but more to the point, a form of policing’ (Wilderson). Therefore, the tears and anguish of black people does not incite the rest of humanity to witness our truth and work in solidarity to change the status quo, but rather, it initiates a reactive response to pacify, neutralize and minimise our struggle for freedom. 

In light of my reflection and my initial reimagining of freedom, the following sentiments become a reoccurring thought  

When I wish to speak my truth and call out the injustices that in many ways dictates my experience, I should no longer need to internally calculate how much of my feelings and thoughts I can give voice to without anti-blackness [enslaving me, colonising me, lynching me, shooting me, imprinting its knee on my neck, silencing me and retaliating against my mere existence through murder. True freedom necessitates a ‘level of irresponsibility, that does not leave one feeling bound or anxious to that level of responsibility’ (Wilderson).

I looked at my daughter one day, watched her face as she cried that nothing she does is ever right and I felt a raw emotion bubble inside me.

It’s been bubbling ever since…

Rachael Lamus

I’ve stood on the outside, looking in, as an innocent child was crumpled into believing she had no power, no talent, no autonomy, no voice, no rights.

Let me tell you something, people of the world!

I’ve choked on my words for long enough!

I’ve stood back powerless while all that was done to me!

Thiego Cerquia

She will be strengthened.

She will be empowered.

She will be inspired.

She will have rights.

She will have autonomy.

She will have a voice.

I’ve experienced countless situations in my life where I’ve responded to something in a way that I felt was justified and reasonable and yet others have responded in dramatic, aggressive and often harmful ways and I’ve still been labelled as the villain.

When I was younger and I didn’t understand, this often led to outbursts that were then used as examples of my behaviour for years to come. As if my meltdowns, caused by confusion at unjustified and illogical behaviour, were indicative of me as a whole person, rather than an example of a neurotype that they hadn’t even considered belonged to me… Because I was doing all this on purpose, obviously… 

Rachael Lamus

I have given them nothing and been called selfish and withdrawn and a bitch because my silence isn’t allowed either.

This seems like I’m whining and many of you may be thinking that maybe the problem is me.

Believe me, I’ve believed that my whole life.

Of course the problem is me. I’m the common denominator, right?

I’m the one who is too loud, too opinionated, too forceful, too brash, too crass, too honest, too too too much…

And yet, when I look back on the times when I was too much not right, there was also another similarity, another denominator.

I’d

Said

No.

Maybe not in so many words… But denial had been in play in every situation.

I’d denied someone their right to abuse me.

I’d denied someone their right to silence me.

I’d denied someone their right to dictate to me.

I’d denied someone the right to control me.

Because, in my innocence, I hadn’t understood that in this society, I am the puppet of the world in which I live. Not an autonomous being with thoughts, feelings and needs of my own. I am theirs to control.

My words are only supposed to be what they say they should be… Even though their words out of my mouth are never right for them either…

I wish to begin by sharing a prose I wrote in response to the murder of George Floyd.

Institutional, systematic and structural racism, feels like I am dying a slow and painful death

When I learnt of the murder of George Floyd….it was like trauma to the soul

I fell silent…. as I screamed

I am filled, consumed and embroidered with RAGE

The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black people has acted as an eerie reminder of the precariousness of Black life. This attains to both the British and global context. That coupled with the knowledge of George Floyd’s murder, has created a sense of collective pain and trauma, that words could never attest to.

Yine Ge

These sources of authority establish that the truth the world is witnessing is nothing new for Black people. It is not a coincidence that Black people are protesting across the globe. It is not a coincidence that Black British people can easily draw parallels to the narratives of their brothers and sisters across the diaspora. This is because the Black experience outside Africa and the Caribbean bares a painful and violent resemblance and this truth is an integral part of our heritage and something, we continue to teach our children.

Many of you may take exception to what has been said thus far, but I assure you:

Statistics, empirical knowledge, and logical reasoning cannot not speak of the reality, potency, and pain of the following:

• The conversation many Black parents have with their children about how ‘The world is not fair’. As a Black person you will have to work twice as hard just to be seen as equal and ten times as hard to be seen as above average (take Obama and Trump for instance).

• That the collective unconscious still views Black people as biologically subhuman, inherently aggressive, and intellectually inferior

• How Black people are violently reminded of their blackness whenever they stray beyond the norms and expectations of society

• Despite not seeing many people who look like us occupying positions of power and leadership, and despite living, toiling, and contributing to this society you will still be made to feel that ‘you don’t belong here’

Statistics, empirical knowledge, and logical reasoning cannot speak to the loss of innocence and gaining of wisdom that Black children experience upon hearing this truth and eventually coming to this realization for themselves. Neither can it capture the pride and joy we feel when we see people in our community achieving and surpassing expectations, despite the barriers.