Black and Audacious: Recent Episodes
Katrina & Jabari
Two Black activists in Vermont record their candid conversations about the struggle for life and liberation in these United States, and the audacity it takes to merely be Black in these wild times.
"It never stops being a lot."
If abolition is a destination, which road do we take to get there? Do we abolish the prisons 'and all the people inside of them?' What do we have the capacity to imagine, and what conditions shape that capacity? How do we restore right relationship when someone has done great wrong? How do we endure the hard, hard process of creating a world without prisons and police?
"Safety is not the absence of threat, it is the presence of connection." - Dr. Gabor Mate
Words and their meanings are up for grabs; Emancipation is not freedom; speaking your truth, even when it 'conflicts' with mine...
What we analyze and theorize in the shadows... "independence", freedom dreaming, the capacity of our containers...
Disillusionment, embodiment, contradictions, plot twists and 'mess' on the path of liberation.
Land, labor, liberation, how we define care, choices and the illusion of choice, interdependence...
Technological change, bridging the air gap between the generations, memory and representation of Black struggle, Judas and the Black Messiah vs. The Spook Who Sat By The Door, Ella Baker and Nap Ministry...
Where is your emotional security invested? What does it mean to center Black voices? Which Black voices, and in which rooms? Who 'shows up' and who disappears, and is this paradigm liberating anybody? We continue to process the theory and practice and logistics of being in the room of multiracial organizing in majority white Vermont.
Olufemi O. Taiwo's article, Being in the room privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/essay-taiwo
Lama Rod Owens' book Love and Rage, and other writings and teachings: https://www.lamarod.com/
'You can take the slaves outta Egypt, but...' Breaking the curses, invalidating the lies, It's been a while between chats so we get caught up.
In which Katrina and Jabari break down the "superhero expectations" and the struggle to express needs, and accept/offer help, on the journey of practical self-care practice. Why does it feel hard to ask for help?