not a lightie

When I was little I noticed that white people’s houses all smelt the same. That familiar, faintly soapy smell permeated every single one of my white friends’ homes whenever I went to stay. My sister and I called it ‘the white smell.’

We agreed it was a good smell. Envied it even. Wished our house smelled the same. I could never smell our house, but it definitely didn’t smell like that.

A decade or so later my sister and I stayed in an Airbnb on our trip to Vancouver, Canada. It was located on the ground floor of a nice white lady’s house, converted to make a small apartment.

Lo and behold, the white smell reigned supreme. We looked at each other after our first night there. We had been smothered by the white smell all night as it covered all of the sheets, wove its way through all of the towels, snaked through the fibres of the cushions on the couch.

I’m fuming

but this isn’t about me

this is about the wet wipes and the brown nosers

forgive my Americanisms,

but this movement did start largely because of Americanism.

this isn’t about that

this is about the fashionable non-fascists

the neo-revolutionaries with their metre-deep activism

the bandanna wearing, intellectual sign waving

black boots for stomping

and big mouths to eat the establishment

type

motherfuckers.

I

see

you

because

you

want

to

be

seen.

but this movement is not about you !

it’s not even about me

and shit, I am Black !

this is about US.

this is about the millions of voices muffled under centuries of soil and sea

this is about the million roads to freedom, and their tall walls at the end

this is about being thrown into the circus and becoming the clown

this is about fighting and dying and fighting and dying and breaking the cycle

for good.

your thirst for constant visibility

is symptomatic of the sickness that has never known invisibility before

you are blocking the sun and we have grown weary of your long shadows.

this is about “I love my Black women”

but when push comes to shove,

Black means add a little milk and dilute it some.

this is about being taught that skin bleaching

and success in life

possess a positive correlation

this is about the relaxers and the texturisers they be selling

trying to sell us the Ultimate Black Girl

who, by the way, is actually Armenian

this is about your lip fillers

and your gym booties

and the criminal amount of fake tan you wear.

this is about assimilation

about laughing with Dan in the office that your home-cooked lunch really does smell bad

because the way it works is you need to stamp on the hands that brought you into the world

in order to ascend within it

this is about chicken thighs being delicious,

but chicken feet absolutely abhorrent.

this is about wondering if he is trying to be flattering or genuinely thinks of you as an exotic conquest into a foreign land

just like his ancestors did it

this is about wide-eyed stares in the lecture theatres because the wind and your hair got a little too friendly

and paying hundreds that you can’t really afford

so that no one gives you any shit for your hair.

this is about being asked about your passport in an ordinary conversation, as if you’re talking to undercover immigration police

this is about realising that the circus never really closed down

it just reopened under a different alias

this is about I don’t want to sign any more fucking petitions,

I petition you to fix the thing that I keep petitioning about

this is about knowing that decolonisation is a life’s work

and many came before us and were not finished

so we cannot be finished

so this is about getting your head out of your ass and getting tf up off the couch

this is about you doing more than taking to the streets

(yes, there is MUCH more to do than that !)

this is about you asking yourself the most difficult questions

this is about you having the most difficult conversations

this is about you reading the most difficult books

this is about recognising that Blackness is a limitless construct,

and that within that deep vortex are a multitude of voices that are all shouting the same thing

and have been shouting it since the days of white Adam and white Eve

this is about not clapping for yourself because you finally cleaned the wax out of your ear

to hear us.

this is about hashtags and Black fist emojis

which I sincerely hope you use to fuck yourself if you don’t dedicate every single day to becoming an amplifier

through which Black voices ring louder and clearer

this is about knowing that these acts can be as small as reading one more page of Fanon or Davis.

this is about Black people not having to think about being Black every fucking second

of every fucking day