Media Diversified

The Poetics of Fragility: a conversation with writer and filmmaker Lata Mani

Yasmin Gunaratnam talks to Indian historian, writer and filmmaker, Lata Mani Lata Mani is a feminist historian, writer and filmmaker based in Bangalore. She has authored several books, including Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India (1998) and The Integral Nature of Things: Critical Reflections on the Present (2013). In more recent years, Mani’s work has grown to include…

Spurs and Soho, the perils and pleasures of being a gay football fan

Darryl Telles describes the joy and jeopardy of being gay black football fan in the 1980s. There are three things that really get me interested in life: football, sex and politics. They’re what I know, what I love and what define me. I’ve been a Spurs fan for as long as I can imagine, and I’ve known that I prefer men sexually for probably the same period of time. I couldn’t imagine life without…

What Usain Bolt Meant To Us

Shane Thomas explains why icons like sprint legend Bolt are so important to the entire diaspora. If life is a series of moments, then life can be defined as a series of endings. Think of an old job, or an old relationship. Often your overriding memory will be weighted towards how it ended. However, in London’s Olympic Stadium on Saturday (I refuse to call it the London Stadium on general…

Escaping the harem: postcolonial explorations of Algerian women in art

Barâa Arar explores how Algerian woman can emerge ‘mischievous and dancing’ using postcolonial analysis to deconstruct 19th-century portrayals of the imagined harem in art In Women in their Apartment in Algiers, Assia Djebar, a feminist Algerian writer, imagines the reconstruction and reinterpretation of the Algerian woman in contemporary visual culture. She hopes for the “glorious liberation of…

by Aisha Josiah Recently, I’ve heard an interesting refrain from male friends who have seen the newly released Wonder Woman film. It sounds something like: “After watching those fight scenes, I kinda wish I was a girl.” To be clear, they aren’t saying, “I wish I was a bad-ass Amazonian demi-goddess”, nor, “I wish I was a ridiculously attractive actor like Gal Gadot”. No, these men are openly…

The Rise of Pussy Envy

by Aisha Josiah Recently, I’ve heard an interesting refrain from male friends who have seen the newly released Wonder Woman film. It sounds something like: “After watching those fight scenes, I kinda wish I was a girl.” To be clear, they aren’t saying, “I wish I was a bad-ass Amazonian demi-goddess”, nor, “I wish I was a ridiculously attractive actor like Gal Gadot”. No, these men are openly…

Waiting for body parts: 22 years after the Srebrenica genocide, families still seek loved ones to bury

by Mo Saqib Follow @mo_saqib I spent an evening with 31-year-old Ahmed Hrustanovic, an imam at Srebrenica’s main mosque. We sat with our iced teas on the balcony of Hotel Alic next door, with a lovely view of the surrounding hills and overlooking the town. Ahmed had earlier that day received a phone call from a friend.”They found my brother’s hand and my other brother’s skull. Should I bury them…

A crisis of definition, re-humanising the refugee

by Olivia Woldemikael The label of refugee is deceptive—it often hides more about a person than it reveals. In particular, when we refer to the ‘21 million refugees’ or ‘the refugee crisis’, we inadvertently strip people of their individuality and reduce their diverse lived experiences to the single narrative of displacement. Refugees, as a whole, have been so dehumanised that it is palatable to…

My grandfather, the migrant patriot

By Sudip Bhattacharya Follow @ResistRun My mom screamed, and I jumped to my feet. My grandfather, who was just moments ago, talking to us, had stopped breathing and was slumped over on the couch. My dad called 911 and was instructed to lay my grandfather on the ground, and to rub his feet. My aunt and I helped lower my grandfather onto the carpet, and rubbed as fast and as hard as we could with…

White Men Dancing the Podcast E5: Grenfell, GE17 and the cult of Corbyn

Jessica Straker from Grime4Corbyn and Tory activist and mentor Walaa Idris join MD hosts Kiri Kankwhende and Maurice Mcleod for this special post-election double episode. We talk about: – the general election campaign and its outcomes – the aftermath of the Grenfell disaster – Brexit negotiations – the cult of Jeremy Corbyn [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/330915017"…

“Nigerian food belongs to the Nigerian”: in conversation with Yemisi Aribisala

by Henna Zamurd-Butt Follow @hennazb “Nigerians don’t talk about their food” states Yemisi Aribisala, the delightfully stern cook-writer of The Longthroat Memoirs. Elsewhere she expands “there is no cultural reference point for being sentimental about food”. This makes her somewhat a novelty so she must often hold back her gourmand excitement lest she be labelled a “crazewoman” at the market. The…

British Muslims and the need for safe spaces

by Zain Dada and Zainab Rahim You got a lot of societies and governments/ Tryin’ to be God, wishing that they were God. – Mos Def We emerge from within the fumes of a burning London building which has ripped into our sense of home. The criminal state neglect that led to the Grenfell Tower disaster last Wednesday and the post-traumatic aftermath have re-defined what it means to live in safety, to…

Grenfell Tower: ‘there are only the deliberately silent, or the preferably unheard’

by Divya Ghelani Follow @DivyaGhelani The Grenfell Tower deaths were a failure of listening. They demonstrate a refusal on behalf of government to hear poor communities, particularly communities of colour, and to take their concerns seriously. I didn’t grow up in a London tower block but on a council estate in Loughborough. We were housed there in 1985, seven months after my family arrived in…

Not talking to white people about race doesn’t mean withdrawing

by Huma Munshi Follow @huma101 “White privilege is one of the reasons why I stopped talking to white people about race…the idea of white privilege forces white people who aren’t actively racist to confront their own complicity in its continuing existence”. This quote from Reni’s book captures the struggle many people of colour have experienced. Talking about race and racism in white spaces can…

Limit(less) – a queerAfrican journey to self-love

Limit(less) is a  photography project documenting the lives of African LGBTQ people in the diaspora. Christina Fonthes speaks to photographer and writer Mikael Owunna themind behind Limit(less) as he joins the new wave of African creatives who have rejected invisibility. Mikael identifies as a queer Nigerian-American and says the project has been part of his personal healing journey. “I was outed…

Brainchild 2017 – giving you what you’ve been hungry for

by Zahra Dalilah Follow @zahradalilah1 An interdisciplinary festival which welcomes a community of young artists and thinkers to come together yearly, Brainchild has unearthed something that its participants have long been hungry for. A music festival which “strips it back to basics [with] excellent music, a space where you can meet excellent people and excellent food,” according to one speaker…

It’s Grime Wot (nearly) Won It

By Maurice Mcleod  Follow @mowords Just two months ago, the PM Theresa May had approval ratings to rival Thatcher at her pomp and her party was on for a Blair-like majority of 150+ seats. Theresa May decided to go back on her 5 promises not to call a snap election and move to ‘strengthen her hand’ and destroy Labour once and for all. Corbyn supporters were quietly dismayed. I had written, just a…