These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.
These are stolen lands built by stolen people
“Who are your comrades?”
Who are your comrades? Who are your co-strugglers? Who are the people who make getting free and laboring for that freedom worth it?. As seductive as it may seem, social justice, antiracism, and abolition, whichever one you are practicing, or if you are me, you are striving to practice all three simultaneously then you understand that these political orientations are not self-improvement projects. Yes, I am trying to help build a better world and on some level I am trying to be better at this human thing, but I practice antiracism, abolition, and social justice because they are the antidote to the pandemic that is white supremacy a virus that infects every life and every aspect of our lives.
White supremacy is the belief that the category of human and white are synonymous. Human = white. If you are not white, then you must try out for your humanity, and if you are Black, anti-Blackness makes it that you are always left out of the category of human.
Antiracism is a long walk back home to yourself. The self that you were denied from knowing when you are swimming in white supremacy without any awareness. I do not think that you truly know yourself, can love yourself, or love another if your love and knowing are always being filtered through oppression or the subjugation of others. Meaning, if you are not aware of the power dynamics that are ever-present between you and another and you are not seeking to flatten those power dynamics then love is not a thing that can genuinely abide. It was not until I started reading feminist theory that a path to self-love, acceptance, and self-forgiveness was made possible. Those ways were made possible because I was getting clear on how white supremacy undermined my ability to know myself and relate to others. The more I rooted down into my politics, the more I had to ask myself where I can find other people who are doing the work of not allowing white supremacy to dictate their knowing? I knew if I was doing it, others were doing it, and those people were my potential people.
My people are people who are serious about being antiracist, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist. My people understand that there is no freedom or life on this planet without seriously confronting global racism. My people know that conflict is not abuse and accountability is a love language. My people are people who submit to being transformed by their politics. My people are people who are more invested in their evolution than their ideas because they know ideas evolve and sometimes expire. My people are people who on the daily try their best to practice abolition and who get on their hands and knees energetically to uproot the weeds of the carceral state that keeps defiantly growing inside of us. The carceral weeds turn otherwise loving human beings into cops, parole officers, correctional officers, judge, and jury inside of our relationships.
My people are the ones who understand on a cellular level that the words of Angela Davis are real, "freedom is a constant struggle." As revolutionary Black queer feminist ideas become mainstreamed and as representation gets falsely equated with justice and liberation, my people are willing to make unpopular statements and remind us not to be seduced by the lobotomizing power of neoliberal capitalism that wants to co-opt and whitewash our radical messages.
Who are your comrades?
Notice that in my description of who my people are, I did not use race, gender, or ethnicity as qualifiers. I think it is too facile and unsophisticated to say wholesale that all Black people, queer people, and femmes are all automatically my comrades. Nah. I want love, freedom, and the needs of all people to be met, but knowing the identities of people alone does not tell me anything about their politics or values. Political solidarity requires work, intentionality, coalition building, negotiations, and lots of ancestral intervention, grace, compassion, and forgiveness. There is no shortcut to becoming one’s comrade in the struggle. To be my comrade, we have to share similar visions of the future and be organizing our present lives around this future. There is a nuanced difference between people who agree with me and people who are my comrades aka my people. Many people will concede that Black Lives Matter and that #GeorgeFloyd should not have been killed the way he was killed, but my comrade will take this to the next level. My comrade will fight for a world where #GeorgeFloyd being killed by the police will become an aberration and not remain the norm. The Black Lives Matter movement has reached a fever pitch; it is stronger today than it has ever been.
We are witnessing on a large-scale people realigning their values, clarifying their values, and asking themselves what my values are?
In the book How To Be An Antiracist, a book that I have fundamental intellectual disagreements with that, you can read about here [LINK] Ibrahim Kendi writes about an interesting phenomenon that he calls biological racism.
Kendi defines biological racism as,
Biological Racist: One who is expressing the ideas that the races are meaningfully different in their biology and that these differences create a hierarchy of value
Biological Antiracist: One who is expressing the idea that the races meaningfully the same in their biology and there are no genetic racial differences
Why does this definition matter, and what does it mean in my life? I do not rely on others' identity categories as the determining factor of who is or is not my comrade. To do this is to engage in biological essentialism. Biological essentialism reinforces the racist idea that there is something inherently different between humans that can be surmised by racial differences. As people on the left, we do this often. We often conflate identities with our targets. For example, cisgender, heterosexual white men are not my natural enemy. Whiteness and white supremacy are my targets. How white cisgender heterosexual men interpolate, their power is what I have an issue with and what I am seeking to address. If we take Kendi's argument seriously, we must be honest about the fact that there is nothing inherently wrong, evil, or flawed about having white skin. There is nothing inherently righteous about having Black skin.
I recently told someone that I am not a sacred cow and have no interest in being treated as if I am. The assumption that my identities make me inherently right about everything is absurd, and I do not see how this helps the overall freedom project. What we should be clear about is asking each other what do we believe? What do you practice? What are you for? How deep is your commitment to freedom?
Antiracism is about resisting straightforward narratives, definitions, and hollow critiques. Your people are the ones who will get in a fox hole with you, vote with your interest in mind, put their bodies, money, and relationships on the line for you if it means those actions will get us that much closer to an abolitionist future.
So, who are your people? Who do you study with? Who holds you accountable? Who are your thought partners? When is the last time you had a conversation with your people and asked them to articulate what is their vision of the future, how do they think we should address harm, what are they willing to lose for the sake of freedom? What do they believe? What are their nonnegotiable when it comes to advancing racial justice? These questions help us lay the foundation for us to queer intimacy and to queer our politics. Put differently, these kinds of questions invite us to prefigure and practice living and loving as if the world and ourselves were already free.
The geographer and abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore describes solidarity as something we make. Therefore, the question I leave you with is, who are you making solidarity with?
VIEWINGS AND READINGS
Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along The Transatlantic Slave Trade by Saidiya Hartman – this book is about the complicated, messy, and devastating relationship that Black people who are the descendants of the enslaved have with Ghana and with Africans who are not the descendants of the enslaved.
the black interior by Elizabeth Alexander- this book is about Black interiority a thing that Black people are denied because of anti-Blackness a subject I am obsessed with exploring.
“Black Men Loving Black Men Is A Revolutionary” Act by Darnell L. Moore [LINK]- “It is not easy to love those imagined as broken, dead, the terror, and the perpetually captured. It is not easy to love black men, men who are not imagined as sites of worthy cultivation. It is easier for some black men to rationalize away our disdain for other black men or intellectualize our thirsts for white men as inherent, rather than a consequence of anti-black socialization and fetish. Fetish isn’t love, although it can be pleasure. Fetish sits on the surface, on the skin, and doesn’t quite dig deep enough to see the human, the man, the black or white man, under the skin we kiss and touch.”
“Letter From Newark: I Hated That I Had to See Your Face Through Plexiglass Nyle Fort responds to his Nephew” [LINK]- “I was anxious the first time I visited you in jail. What could I say to comfort you? How could I explain, in 30 minutes, that your 10-year sentence testified to centuries of racial bondage? I didn’t want to lecture you, but I wanted you to know that the system didn’t fail you. It’s rigged against you. I wanted you to see how your choices are shaped by what Sadiyah Hartman calls a “political arithmetic” that multiplies the chance you’ll end up dead or in prison. I wanted you to understand that your inmate number marks our government’s criminal history, not yours. More than anything, I wanted you to know that I love you.”
Geographies of Racial Capitalism with Ruth Wilson Gilmore [LINK]- RWG is my new intellectual muse. I aspire to be as clear and precise in my analysis of the problem and the solution as she demonstrates in her scholarship.
No, the police cannot be reformed with Professor Alex Vitale [LINK] – Kim Foster (For Harriet) interviews Professor Vitale about police, reform, and abolition. Abolition is not a new idea or ethic and Black people are not the only people who support this idea this is a great conversation if you are new to abolition
Sunday School Abolition in Our Lifetime [LINK]: Dream Defenders assembled a crew of abolitionist including Dr. Angela Davis that served as both an introduction to abolition and as a tune up of sorts for those of us who are striving to practice abolition.
What is an Anti-Racist Reading List For? by Lauren Michele Jackson [LINK] - “An anti-racist reading list means well. How could it not with some of the finest authors, scholars, poets, and critics of the twentieth century among its bullet points? Still, I am left to wonder: Who is this for? The syllabus, as these lists are sometimes called, seldom instructs or guides.”
On Turning Breonna Taylor Into a Meme [LINK]-This youtuber goes into the dangers of turning Breonna Taylor into a meme something that I have been noticing on social media and something that I am completely uncomfortable with and saddened by.
LUTZE SIGHTING’S
I have been making the rounds I wanted to share with you all the spaces I have traveled with my gospel of antiracist feminism
Blogger’s Union- How To Use Your Influence for Social Justice [LINK]
Las Comadres Lunch Break Series – Committing to Antiracism [LINK]
Miami Workers Center – Living At The Intersection: Immigration, Race, and Gender [LINK]
Working While Black – I narrated a film about the anti-Black violence that Black people experience in the workplace. It Is making its way through the film festival circuit you can watch the trailer here: [LINK]
Humanity.the Podcast: Interview with the Social Justice Doula [LINK]
“What You Need To Do To Support Your Black Colleagues Right Now – And Always” [LINK]
“Guiding words to help educators connect with their students and peers in support of Racial Justice [LINK]
LISTENING
The first four podcasts I am sharing center Black people talking about their vision of the future. Some of these Black folks have reformist dreams and others have capacious abolitionist dreams of the future. I share these episodes for two reasons to further underscore that Black people are not a monolith and secondly I want you think about where you would place yourself on the spectrum of change. On the spectrum of abolitionist futures and reform where are you? Now, is a great time to answer this question for yourself.
Intercepted: Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes The Case For Abolition [LINK]
Intercepted: Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes The Case For Abolition Part 2 [LINK]
AirGo Ep 253 The Abolition Suite Vol 2: Mariame Kaba [LINK]
Terrible, Thanks For Asking: Policing and Racial Trauma with Angela Davis [LINK]
For the 12th issue I also wanted to share some older podcast that I revisit or that have stayed with me for one reason or another.
The Nod: You Don’t Make Free People [LINK]
Justice in America Ep 20: Mariame Kaba [LINK]
Why is This Happening: Organizing in Trump Country George Goehl [LINK]
The Bitter Southerner: Hillbillies Need No Elegy [LINK]
1619 Project [LINK]
BONUS: I am sharing a playlist I created called “Black to the Future” lets normalize sharing playlist as a love language again. This playlist is only on Spotify and if your music taste leans conservative this may not be for you. [LINK]
ANNOUNCMENTS:
I have a very vulnerable ask of you folks. I am raising money to pay an intern a stipend. Since the unrest has started my work has been in high demand. I am raising 2k to pay an intern. All the money is going to pay this amazing young person. Here is the link to GoFundMe: [LINK].
Later this month I will be opening registration for my second online class that will be about antiracism. People who are subscribed to my newsletter will know about it first. Stay tuned.