Ra Malika Imhotep We Need More Fugitives
With The Movement for Black Lives and an international pandemic, 2020 has been a revolutionary year so far. Yet, these unprecedented experiences have also brought about inevitable mental consequences -- as Ra Malika calls them, "thoughtfeelings". Inspired by the words of Black feminist political theorist of abolition Dr. Jasmine Syedullah, Ra Malika writes on the psychological exhaustion and apathy that has accompanied her fiery fervor and intensity this year and the conclusions she has made from such experiences. From creative Black feminist study groups to the development of #LetsGetStupid2020, Ra Malika presents a new way of facing antiblackness in "We Need More Fugitives".
From the article:
"What we need now is not more freedoms, but more fugitives. We need more fugitives to find the loophole in our language of liberation. We need fugitives now to keep abolishing legacies of slavery, colonialism and genocide that persist in the present day. What the world needs now is a pursuit of freedom rooted not in the fear of someone taking what's ours but in a radical kind of love that refuses to settle formeanings of 'justice', 'safety' and 'independence' that recreate the shackles, borders, colorlines, and other punitive forms of policing and surveillance we just escaped to claim our freedom... [Freedom] as a practice of mutual respect, reconciliation and repair through which our communities might heal from the injury American freedoms have exacted upon our bodies. No, not just for one. What we need now are sweet ways for everyone to remain fugitive within the domain of state sanctioned violence and neglect that would otherwise render our lives immaterial."
This quote holds so much of what I have been thinkingfeeling lately about abolition and our collective survival. Each day, it becomes clearer and clearer that the tools we will need to bring about the new world required by a Black feminist orientation towards abolition are equal parts material, intellectual, emotional, metaphysical, and psychological. With this knowledge, I make the political decision to root myself in a mindfulness practice that I hope will bring me closer to this kind of fugitivity - an active embrace of freedom as interdependence. I also decide to root myself in the Black surrealist tactic of play.
Read the full article here!