Withdrawing my labour: Or, why i cant teach you that lecture right now

I sent the below email today to my first year students explaining why I cannot deliver my intended ‘Afro-Futurism’ lecture just yet. It is important to be honest, direct and transparent with our students because as Black scholars, lecturers and educators we need to prioritise our mental and emotional health, even if that means withdrawing our labour.

The original email involved correspondence between a student of Colour and I, who then urged me to send this to their entire cohort.

Dear Stage 1,

I hope this email finds you well.

I would like to explain and respond to a query raised by a fellow student, asking, ‘where is the afro-futurism lecture? Part of my reply is in direct response to them but also to foster a culture of transparency to you all.  

In this current time of global unrest sparked by Black Lives Matter movement, not fully disclosing would be dishonest to hers and perhaps your own query. More importantly, I do not want to deny how I truly I feel; this is because oppression functions on dishonesty, lack of transparency and non-truth telling. Oppressive cultures also aims to disconnect you from your body and feelings as being divorced or existing separately from our social reality i.e. propagating ‘distance’ and ‘objectivity’ as positions to be upheld within academia.

So, why is the ‘afro-futurism’ lecture not yet uploaded, a completely valid question to ask? Truth be told, I cannot bring myself to teach a lecture that requires me to pretend or give the impression that I have hope for myself as a Black person and for Black people more widely. Afro-Futurism is lecture that aims to connect the historic and contemporary oppression Black people experience and to imagine/dream of a future where our liberation is possible. With the current events taking place regarding the disposability of Black life, I am genuinely concerned if there will be Black people in the future. In the UK Black people are 4 times more likely to die from Covid-19, in the USA Black people are 3 times more likely to die from Covid. I also live in the London borough of Newham, it is one of the most economically deprived boroughs in the UK, with one of the highest populations of People of Colour and also the borough with the highest Covid related deaths in the UK. 

And then we have police brutality and the gruesome death of George Floyd. George Floyd death and the countless others (Brazil has one of the world’s death rates of Black people by the police) have haunted me these last few weeks and many Black people. As your only Black lecturer, , to do a lecture which requires a suspension of  belief that Black people have a future where our current reality is dominated by our hyper mortality and necro politics. Thinking about doing this lecture literally fills me up with dread and anxiety because poor Black (and Brown) people are dying due to systemic racism. I am unsure what the threats on my life will be from a day to day basis will it be  medical racism or police brutality?

I know there is sentiment of disappointment regarding disruption to your learning this year due to the strikes and online learning, I am mindful I have now contributed to this feeling. However, I hope you can appreciate where I am coming from and apologies if you were looking forward to the lecture, in theory I was too. On Stage 2 there will be opportunities to teach this lecture (Unit 8 and 10) perhaps it will be best for a later date when I am in a much better headspace.

If would like to know more about either Black Lives Matter or Afro-Futurism, please see the resources below.

Thank you for understanding,

Kind regards

Janine

Afro-Futurism

 Pumzi [short film]

Ytasha Woman – Afrofuturism Imagination and Humanity [Lecture]

Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter US: https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/13O7yipKHeIF2-QJ_K9IKIdLQAlN8NgEOF62qQjUjEVM/mobilebasic

Black Lives Matter UK: https://www.lazyoaf.com/blogs/story/black-lives-matter-resources

Non-Optical Allyship: https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2020/06/08/non-optical-allyship-meaning-how-to-be-an-anti-racist-ally-in-the-fight-against-oppression/

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when white women get caught: victimhood as racialised violence

I exist in a time where Black Lives do not matter, where the Black psyche is under attack and our spirits are being ritually murdered. It is often in these times where Black voices are the most vocal, direct and unabashed and it is often in these times where white supremacy is its most violent. But we, Black people, will always push back, it is what we do and we know how to do it well.

I also exist in a time of a global pandemic, where Black people are disproportionally dying due to medical and systemic racism. Many of us are using social media to convene and speak out against anti-black racism. However, witnessing the countless cultural and academic institutions co-opting the #blacklivesmattter as a way to perform their “allyship” all whilst not hiring Black people and or centring our work, was a massive slap in the face. Performative allyship is the worst kind of behaviour because its gaslights Black people, we know our lives do not matter to them, but they are trying to convince us otherwise. Performative allyship propagates lying as solidarity. This co-opting also dissipates the urgency and abruptness of a statement like #blacklivesmattter when it is a strategy used to avoid responsibility for everyday and institutional racism. At least with white silence it punctuates with its directness: they do not care, had never care or will ever care about Black lives, so why change now?  After seeing so many of these flimsy and worthless tweets circulate, I was raging. I was livid. I was fuming. I wanted answers. I felt a heat rise from my shins to my collarbone, a heat I intimately know, a heat I call justice and so I decided to tweet the below:

An important aside: I often notice white people re-tweeting me as a way to shift responsibility. I follow Janine, she is outspoken, I am onboard with what she says, I am not the problem. However, this is just another strategy to avoid accountability, they are micro performing the same macro performances white cultural and academic institutions do: performative allyship.

Whilst contrary to popular belief, time is not linear, it’s an abstract process informed by racialised social conditions that intercedes across historical and transnational temporalities. The twitter timeline is perhaps the best embodiment of this. Before writing my above tweet, I had witnessed a violent exchange on twitter, involving a white woman onto a Black Woman. I knew neither of them nor had come across them before, remember time is not linear. So, now my above tweet is picking up traction, it’s also gets retweeted by Daniela Nadj. In the grand schemes of things, Daniela re-tweeting me would be meaningless. However, it did mean something because it was Daniela who was the white woman who engaged in this dialogue with Tana Joseph, the Black Woman. Tana had simply critiqued Daniela for centring Mexico/ US relations within the lenses of Black Lives Matter. Since we are all academics, twitter is our platform and critiquing is what we do, this shouldn’t have been a problem for Daniela, but clearly it was. I found it bizarre she would re-tweet me, considering the above encounter and so I a decided to call it out:

Black Women as “bullies”

What spewed from this engagement were behaviours I and so many other Black and Women of Colour are all too familiar with. What is important to understand about racism, is that it is a system of power that white people have constant access too and can weaponise it whenever they feel like. I want you to imagine racism as free-floating levers that orbit our metaphysical space. white men constantly hold on to their levers with a firm and tight grasp, violently yanking on it to display their power. Whilst white women pretend they do not have access to leavers, they are always somehow just out of reach. Black and Women of Colour know white women well, we see how they sneakily dance their hands around it rims, flirting with it and threatening us with the pull.

Daniela Nadj pulled on many levers to exert her whiteness, she threatened, stereotyped and was abusive to me and countless other Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (BIPOCs). The first act of her racism (and it was racism) was the clear disparity in how she engaged with the Black and Women of Colour critiquing her versus the white people critiquing her. Her second action was deploying racist signifiers of “bullies” who had “attacked her” and “jumped on her,” not only did she repeatedly say this about me and others she never referred to her white challengers in the same way. This language draws on racist stereotypes of Black and Women of Colour as being violent, aggressive, criminals and deviant. Tweets are not superficial activities because they speak to and on the behalf of our societal inequalities. They are our digital mirrors to our “real world” and a reflection of what people truly think. The problem here for Daniela was who was doing the tweeting/critiquing and why this was such an affront to her? Clearly, she does not think Black Women have the right to critique her. After all knowledge is power in academia. Black Women demonstrating our knowledge was a challenge to her power. When a whole group of people are systemically denied entry into academic, a setting that thrives on knowledge production, when Black Women critique (and speak) we are always disrupting this racial boundary. white people like Daniela are often used to our absences but engage with our work as disembodied words divorced from the realities and minds that have produced them. Or as cannibals, only liking Black celebrity academics who can endlessly feed them. Not as agents who can respond and speak back in real time to their aggressions. And so, Daniela pulled a lever to remind me of my place: the aggressor, an anthropological position in which she can locate and understand me from. Therefore, our critiques were not ones of inspiring discourse but was intentionally perceived as inciting violence. white people can only register Black Women’s “speech” as acts of aggression, even though aggression is predicated upon power. I was not being aggressive neither did I cause her any harm (nor did anyone else) and when pressed for such evidence none was provided. This is all immaterial because her myth making process was about bestowing virtuous qualities on to herself, the aggrieved party, the wronged victim: these are the levers which white women pull on to execute white supremacy. This explains why we see countless videos of white women calling the police on to Black people.  Within this myth making process, archetypes are produced, the white damsel in distress and the ogre-like Black person. This racialised myth-making is used to harass Black Women like Serena Williams by depicting her as a “hyper-masculine ape” and Maria Sharapova as a dainty whimsical wall-flower. This wider dehumanisation fits Daniela’s myth-making project well, she gets to play the perfect victim in a problem she created. It is why she consistently employed the racist language of “bullying” or “attacking,” she was trying dissolve herself of responsibility and re-centre herself as the victim, she was crying electronical white tears.

“Sisterhood” as white women’s defence

Another strategy Daniela to tried to use was “sisterhood” and how Black and Women of Colour were being un-feminist. white women weaponise “sisterhood” as a tactic to tone police us. This imaginary “sisterhood” that Daniela believes to exist between Black and Women of Colour, functions on white woman speaking and Black and Women of Colour being silent. It is a “sisterhood” that replicates the racial hierarchy between white and bodies of Colour. It is a “sisterhood” that that upholds white supremacy which white women are invested in. It is a “sisterhood” that is for white membership only. Since I and many other Black and Women of Colour challenged her visioning of this “sisterhood” by speaking, she had to put us back in our places. This would also explain her racialising us as “bullies” and “attackers,” and more personally, tweeting me to “shut up.”

This history runs deep from Audre Lorde critiquing second wave white feminists right back to Sojourner Truths “Ain’t I a Woman” speech to the white suffragettes. There has never been any “sisterhood” between Black and white women, not when they were slave owners, complicit in upholding Apartheid and Jim Crow laws and more recently being the 50% who voted for Trump. “Sisterhood” is a myth-making project for white women to exert white supremacy. Daniela demonstrated this “sisterhood” when levelling threats to report Black and Women of Colour to their respective instiutions. We all know how scarcely absent Black and Women of Colour are within the academy, so why would she try to jeopardise our positions? She was pulling on a lever.

An “Apology” without Accountability

Daniela has issued an apology that I do not accept. Firstly, it is an awful apology that does not even begin to recognise the psychic harm she has directly (and indirectly) caused on to me and the other BIPOC. I personally do not believe she is genuinely sorry, she might be sorry for getting caught and for being so public, but it is likely she will do this again, privately. Secondly, she is an academic whose field is in Human Rights, Gender and Social Justice, one would pressume she would have better access to the vocabulary and frameworks to truly reflect on her accountability and reparative actions. The problem here is there are many white academics who are masquerading their racism within social justice discourse where much of this labour and criticality are produced by BIPOCs who are also shut out from the academy. The recolonisation of decolonial discourse by white academics is not only testimony to this but is the face of this cannibalistic culture white supremacist capitalist patriarchy creates. I demand that Oxford Brookes investigates what took place because I and many others were deeply harmed by Daniela’s conduct. More importantly, I have access to recourses of power to raise my concerns about her, this is something many BIPOC students at Oxford Brookes do not have.

I look forward to being updated about upon your outcomes

Signed

Janine Francois, Academic, Activist and Agitator

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GUTS Gallery Interview

In January 2020, I met with Ellie Pennick, Gallerist and Founder of GUTS Gallery to discuss how my varied communities has been adversely affected by Tory Cuts. Click on the link below to find out what I had to say.

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Can the subaltern speak? Why AHRC needs decolonising

ILLUSTRATION BY BRAD AMOROSINO

Last week, I created a twitter thread critiquing the Arts Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the BBC’s,’ ‘Next Generation of Thinkers’ schemes, where Black academics are strikingly absent. A person whose job title is ‘Programme Director’ emailed me the usual script of the AHRC being committed to diversity and so I decided to reply back.

Dear [x]

Whilst I understanding the AHRC is committed to issues of equality, diversity and inclusion, although admittedly this is a legal obligation for this body to do so, it does worries me that even on this strand some of the actions you have highlighted still seem to be very superficial. Therefore deeper conversations and more importantly actions clearly needs to be had, to address structural, systemic and institutional racism within AHRC. I often wonder if the right people are currently employed to do so? Take a look around your office, how ethnically diverse is it? How are different knowledges and points of view sought on a day to day basis without special consultants, working groups or think tanks? Lets look higher up the organisation, how many People of Colour (especially Black people) are in positions of power and or are in decision making roles, please tell me how all of this does not relate to some of the issues I intend to raise below?

Regarding my tweets that were 1) specifically how Black applicants are disproportionately turned down for funding and 2) the lack of infrastructure in place for Black Ph.D students navigating the academy which is, if you do not know already a very racist environment for us. My tweets were highlighting that as funders to various universities across the UK,  you are complicit in funding institutions that continue to reinforce structural and individual racism? A conversation regarding your financial accountability really needs to be addressed here, as funders you have the power to hold universities to account to ensure they are working beyond the superficiality of inclusion, equality and diversity and that are truly addressing the structural violence that racism creates for staff, academics and students of Colour. Therefore, one must ask, what is AHRC’s position on the decolonisation of universities? How do we decolonise AHRC? How do we decolonise public funding in order to achieve racial justice?

I am sure these issue are not new to you, I am a 31-year-old-Black-Woman and they are not new to me,  yet here I am already burnt out, having to take 9 months of my Ph.D studies to rebuild myself because of the racial stress I have had to endure. It was so unbearable, I was left with no other choice but to take time off from my studies. The University of Bedfordshire, Tate and my AHRC reps and other members of staff within AHRC are aware of my experiences, which for the most part is not unique to me. As funders you need to know the breadth of the racial violence Black Ph.D students like me must face and we need to know of the intended actions you are going to take against institutions who continue to perpetuate this racial violence against us. Black students and other students of Colour for that matter, need to be informed of the specific support you are going to offer us in order for us to make it through? What we truly need from you as Black students is for the AHRC to not act benevolently but to be allies who are proactive in the fight against racial injustice. As  a body that currently holds the purse strings, we need you to flex your muscles, presumming you want more Ph.D students of Colour coming through the academy of course. What side of history do you want the AHRC to be on, those in alignment with the oppressor or in solidarity with the oppressed? We need you to help commit to the similar actions put forward by the student activists of colour (and their white allies) at Goldsmiths who forced the institution to address issues of structural racism: their action only took 4 months. And so one has to ask in the spirit of the late and great James Baldwin, how much time do you need until I can see these changes happen within my life time? This is a question I often ask myself, who does the work whilst white people think about race?

The above context greatly informs the tweets I sent yesterday and abstracting my own application, my tweets are not personal but more representative of how Black academics are continuously denied entry within and are discarded by white academia. Seeing how scarily absent Black applicants continuously appear to be within this scheme, (I am happy to be corrected here), but there seems to be only 2 Black candidates (based on your online publicity) who have ever made it in to the final 10 throughout the entire history of this scheme. This greatly worries me as it further perpetuates the white space that academia already is and what types of people who will always be considered the UK’s next generation of thinkers. Whilst this is a supposedly a rigorous process within a supposedly competitive scheme, please do explain to how the disproportionate entries of white people (especially men) making up the final 10 do not: 

1)  Coincide with the disproportionate numbers of white men and women who are completing and or have already received their Ph.Ds or are already working within academia, which we both know is an incredibly white sector? 

 2) Please tell how effective this ‘blind’ decision making process really is when considering point 1 and who the final 10 applicants will more than likely end up being ? Please explain to me how this not a flawed process that systemically shuts out Black and People of Colour from ever making it into the final 10? A ‘blind’ scheme can only be truly function within an equal society, this is clearly not the case here within the UK. 

3) Has no one at AHRC or BBC asked why do we every year have a visible lack of Black applicants, is there something wrong with our process? 

With this evidence before me as well as my own experiences, why would I want to reapply, when the chances of someone like me getting through is very, very slim. Your process and decision making symbolically and literally tells us that you do not consider Black academics to be the UK’s Next Generation of thinkers. 

I will end with this, until you: 1) have more diverse staff, especially those within positions of power,  2) a decision making process that recognises these racial imbalances and thus acknowledges a blind system will only reinforce these racial inequities, 3) actions and directives that seek to address these very deep rooted issues, I will apply for this scheme. Until then, this scheme will always remain exclusively white perpetuating the racist and toxic cycle that gate keeps Black Ph.D students and scholars out of academia.

 
Regards,
Janine Francois 

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Who does the work, whilst white people think about race?

The below piece of writing was originally intended as an email to my academic supervisors, but it is now a reflective essay about the impacts of whiteness within the academic and cultural sector . 

Illustration by Hanna Barczyk

Dear _____, _______ and ______,

I have now entered the last year of my PhD program and my future beholds! During this time I have taught at a university on topics I enjoy; but being the only Black person / not white anything in my department has been absolutely soul destroying. I no longer want to teach.

I have also had the opportunity to present at a number of conferences over the past few months, and produced public papers about my research which has been well received. I realised that, again, I was the only Black person/ not white anything in the room. And I no longer want to speak. 

More recently, I attended a conference in Oxford organised by the Arts Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP)  students like myself. I was again the only Black person/ not white anything in the room. I no longer want to attend things.

Can you see a pattern emerging here? Why am I always the sole Black person/ not white anything in the room? It is incredibly boring, are you not bored too? This reality: a lonely and mundane one, of being the Black stain against the white backdrop is not a source of  joy for me, quite far from it actually. I do not enjoy occupying both hyper visibility and invisibility, it is quite confusing and crazy-making. It always makes me want to retreat, to pack up my metaphysical cavalry of excellence and retreat. Retreat to where, I don’t quite know. Retreat in to myself? Retreat beyond the borders of whiteness? Retreat somewhere safe, somewhere I am seen, acknowledged and valued? Perhaps somewhere where I am not mistaken for the help, (not that there is anything wrong in that); or someone who is lost and has clearly walked into the wrong room, oblivious to the fact that they quite frankly do not belong there. I don’t know where, but somewhere…

So Oxford, my most recent experience of being the only Black person/ not white anything in the room, I didn’t actually consider that I would really be the only Black person/ not white anything in the room. I did not mentally prepare myself for that role, I assumed due to the title of the conference, ‘challenging histories’ it would have attracted other students of Colour. I was wrong. So perhaps unlike those other moments of being the only Black person / not white anything in the room, it felt even more rude; as if someone had abruptly woken me up from a sleep that I was pleasantly enjoying. When I walked in to the room surveying the contours of faces, textures of hair and pigmentations of skin and then being violently confronted with this overwhelmingly stark white room; to say I was disappointed would have been an understatement. I felt my being collapse into myself.  I was a paradox: both hyper-visible and invisible. Then it all came. All of  those memories of being the only Black person/ not white anything in room came. They arrived punctual and orderly, each ready and waiting to give their perfectly rehearsed testimonies of when I was the only Black person / not white anything in the room. They all spoke loudly in perfectly pitched chorus, ‘why are you surprised Janine? You know this routine Janine.’ It is true, I do know this routine, for it is a dance that was choregraphed before many of  us could even walk. We were only ever expected to do add-libs, there was never an expectation to make it our ‘own,’ or worse, lead the dance.

So here I am in Oxford, in this the conference drowning in whiteness, aimlessly splashing around and trying my best to keep afloat, trying not fall under the tide of hostilities that whiteness creates. Catching the eyes of my fellow white students who would either look past me or grimace,  but the corners of their mouths never reaches their eyes, ‘that’s not a proper smile’ my great aunt would say ‘a sign of disingenuousness,’ I say. Having only 7 white people, (yes I counted) who felt moved enough to talk to me, after bravely disclosing how anxious I felt about being the only Black person/ not white anything in the room, in a conference about ‘challenging histories,’ over the course of 2 days, out of a cohort of 30 people was unsurprising to say the least. As mentioned, I did not mentally prepare myself for this…. (do white people “mentally prepare” themselves for  such mundane things?) I always like to think my mental preparations as mini psychic versions of me dressed in riot gear, armed with a full arsenal of weapons ready to battle whiteness. Instead my mini psychic versions of me were dressed ready for a night out with their pals, no proper coat, scarf or hat; ignoring their mother’s warnings about catching a cold. I caught pneumonia that day. 

 Whilst I spent most of the day with my fellow white CDP students with them either not talking to me, looking past or through me, I wondered what was so fundamentally different about me to my white peers? After all, I was wearing African print headscarf, Black lipstick, a leopard print dress and was the only Black person/ not white anything in the room. I was completely incognito.  When I did engage in a conversation with one of my white peers who asked what university I attended and I replied the University of Bedfordshire. They felt it was completely necessary to make an off-hand remark, which meant that I felt it was completely necessary to give them a full read for reproducing elitism. And then sauntered off, channelling my best Destiny’s Child strut (imagine the closing sequence of the ‘lose my breath’ video) mimicking every gesture and flick I had to hand, reminding her that I had the moral upper hand. But did I really? 

Later that evening I sunk into the gap that forms when two-single beds are pushed together and I realised that I wanted to cry. Like really cry. Like hysterically over the top cry. The kind of cry with salty tears that burns your eyes, streams down your face, drips in to your mouth; and you can taste every last piece of strength you had that day cry. The kind of cry that makes you look really, really ugly, cry. The kind of cry that promises you false hope, that tomorrow will be better cry,  all is going to be okay cry,  you just need to get it out of your system cry; this is an emotionally healthy cry. The kind of cry where you convince yourself it is not your fault cry. It is their fault cry. They are to blame cry. The cry that is full of, anger, astonishment and admiration that you made it this far cry. The type of cry you cry, because you know there will be future cries and this will not be your last cry, cry. As they (whiteness) have already conspired to remind you about this cry. That lingering  cry, that doesn’t quite make it out, cry. I-just-wanted-to -cry. However, the thought of having to reapply my make-up and rebuild myself all before dinner felt far too indulgent. And besides, I am not a white woman, I cannot cry on demand.  

When I arrived for dinner, I sat alone the entire time, I watched new friendships and even lovers form. I watched from afar how white people affirm each other, with small sneaky smiles and scrunched up eyes, careless giggles and bellowing laughter, I watched wine being poured, spaces being made they were happy with and amongst each other. They were with their kind.  I sat alone the entire time and watched. I can only describe it as racially bizarre because they (the white CDP students) knew exactly who I was, because when the waiter called my name to serve me my meal, they gestured at me. Whilst eating my starter, I pointed this out to the CDP coordinator (who is white), my loneliness, I did so, because I knew she could see it, what was happening before her very eyes. But this is how whiteness works you see,  because instead of asking if I’m ok? she asked if I felt that BAME people felt like PhDs were not for them? I became the problem.  I, laughed, because what a funny thing to say to a Black PhD student sitting right before you. My laughter was punctuated with her silence. I sighed and rolled my eyes and I answered, ‘we are not the problem, you (all white female administration teams in the cultural/academic sector) are the problem, this room (disproportionate number of white students getting full scholarships) is the problem, you (overwhelmingly white, statistically regressed cultural and academic sector) not seeing our intelligence, our value and our credibility is the problem. You (white middle-class decision makers) not giving us scholarships or there being so few academics of colour is the problem. I know of people  (of Colour) dropping out because navigating racism became too much to bear. And they had went far beyond their breaking point.  Oh we deserve to be here, I deserve to be here, but you (whiteness/ white people) are robbing us of our place.’She responded by addressing an email enquiry I had sent her a few weeks back, completely unrelated to her question and my response. Afterwards, I got up and left the restaurant. I couldn’t take it anymore. One of my main regrets of that evening was not finishing my dessert. 

Later that evening I became seriously ill. Now, I am not saying that the food made me ill, neither am I saying the days event made me ill. But I was disgusted with both and I did become ill when encountering both. But anyway, I digress, I was still ill the following day and so I missed most of the conference. But arrived with just enough energy, patience and will to complete my presentation (which was really for my CV anyway). I spoke about my research, white people asked questions, I answered and I reminded them about their behaviour from yesterday. I gave a full glorious shade as if one was lounging under a parasol on a Caribbean beach somewhere. Yet after academically labouring and literally spelling out the impacts of coloniality, white supremacy and begging for specificity when discussing race; I clearly must have been speaking alien for about 30 minutes, because why would my fellow white student ask ‘how do we bring ‘challenging histories’ to our audiences‘ right after my presentation? (Or something along those lines).  Other than they were not listening and dismissed my entire presentation. So imagine my dismay. Was he not listening? (Clearly he was not l-i-s-t-e-n-i-n-g). So I asked, (mainly for false clarification sake) what ‘audiences’ (obviously white) are you referring too? Do you mean white audiences? (Of course he meant white audiences, otherwise he would have used something like ‘diverse,’ ‘non-traditional,’ ‘inclusive’ or ‘non-conventional’ audiences to describe us not white anythings. The only people without racial description are white people because they are always the norm).  It was a question I repeated several times, mainly because I wanted to confirm what I already knew. I didn’t receive a direct answer…Whenever I experience racism, I see myself as this statue, there sits this hunched over little white man on a stool, chisel in hand, who eagerly awaits to chip away at each encounter. Sometimes because racism is tiring work of course, he takes a break and sometimes an equally hunched over white woman replaces him, and sometimes they are both there together chipping away at me. Sometimes, I stand afar watching them chip away and then watch fragments of myself float away into an abyss,  that lays with the chippings of others. Sometimes, I wonder if this is what whiteness and white supremacy does when it chips away at us, we lose fragment of ourselves. Is it trying to harm our essence?  Disconnect us from ourselves? Is it trying to erase our existence?

I often watch Black people (and People of Colour), practice the dance of whiteness, sometimes they do so until their toes bleed like a ballerinas, who contort their bodies in unnatural positions. You see their congealed blood beaming through their shoes and hunched backs under jackets- who too learn the art of chipping away at others.  Sometimes they rehearse so intently, so vigorously that they injure themselves, but still continuing to dance on that dislocated knee, until they know every beat, step, tilt and  gesture by heart; even taking the time to learn the part that white people perform. But this choreography, this dance we are forced to learn but not participate in, was always intended for them, right. They were expected to be the dancers, both leading and supporting, they were the rhythm, the steps, the auditorium and the audience; it was all made for them. Whiteness is their source of entertainment. We were there only to be spectators and to provide add-libs when called upon and discarded once our cameo appearance was done. And sometimes if we were lucky, our cameos might last that little bit longer, especially if we could convince them that it was all the same dance and the Black dancer was just a  technical glitch. (It is always a ‘technical glitch’ when we are the only Black / not white anythings present).  These Black performers, so skilled, so talented, always graceful and gentle in their movements, never aggressive, kind, palatable but the most of all understanding. The good ones. I envy them. You see constantly performing and giving away their essence is their dance, they were never really dancing to whiteness though. But do not tell them that.  As someone with two left feet who finds learning dance routines quite stressful and chaotic, I no longer envy them. I pity them. For I know this is not my dance, so why bother to try in the first place?

So, imagine how relieved I felt when I arrived back in London to then experience an anxiety attack. Having to allow an hour to past, whilst I sat in Paddington station calming myself  down before travelling on the underground. The number of times I’ve experienced these anxiety attacks after racism is un-telling. There always an interesting correlation between my anxiety attacks and racism. Now I am not saying that racism causes me anxiety, I’m just say that its interesting they both always happen at the same time. The last time I experienced anxiety, a  white female middle-class senior member of staff at Tate felt it necessary to correct my speech and pronunciation of words. For a good while afterwards, I pestered people asking if my speech was clear. I am just trying to connect the dots.  You know, like the ones you did as a child  in those drawing pages that formed a name, or shape, but in my case it was that I clearly do not belong in these spaces. That whilst I am clearly academically gifted, it is unlikely that I will ever get a job in academia or the cultural sector. Although this would be a great shame, because the ‘world’ needs to know, that I, Janine exist. However, I know that I do not want to experience a mental breakdown of some kind which is very possible being both a PhD student and a Black Woman navigating this crazy-making world. I know that whiteness is a psychosis, a dis-ease, a poison for me and others. I know that white people find my intelligence intimidating and my outspokenness aggressive. I know they will (because they do) un/consciously draw on  white supremacist behaviours to remind me of my place; you are the help who wandered into the wrong room, remember?! I know that this is not unique to me. So after knowing all of this, why bother work in a sector that is not mentally and emotionally safe for me to simply be me?

I remember before the conference ended, one of the (many) white female coordinators shared there was a lot to think to close the day? I noticed that white people fear racial conflict – even in the abstract. And so I end with this last thought, if white people are ‘thinking’ about race, who is doing the work?

Words: It Janine BTW!

Subediting: Monique Francois

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