Ensconced in Western historical narratives
Frustrated by the Western
historical narrative
like it’s the only
historical narrative
Is fuckery
I play the game, I know I play
the game, aware. Aware I play myself – Rrrrepresennnnnnnt!
Representation is problematic
The notion of representation
The notion of problematic
Both more fuckery from the
‘woke’ western narrative
The very conditions within
which exist the notions of having to represent are
Represent yourself
I’ll represent myself*
*My selves
My two, three, four, infinite
multiple selves
I represent my twoness
When there are words for
colours, like fuchsia and cerulean and
vermilion
Reduced to such a mouthful
– mixed race: White British and Black Caribbean, or, that outdated: half-cast:
being half and half… to not be whole is to not exist.
Maybe I don’t exist.
I’m two not zero point 5
You keep your fuckrous
fuckrous terms
The colour of my skin tells a biological, ideological, philosophical, political,
cultural story, albeit within this trashy godawful western narrative
Therein lies a spectre of
white supremacy that has designs on my chronology
Telling me where I’m from,
what I am, and what I can achieve
I have a dream and I want to
believe
I have been, I can be, all of
me that is me
But sometimes, I feel my
entire existence as a bit of an afterthought
I don’t often see people like
me doing the things I want to do and I am afraid
When I receive equal ops
forms, to try and prove to whoever that whoever whatever wherever I am, is an
“inclusive arts organisation”, just by me being able to be there in some
capacity, does not make it so: I will always answer ‘prefer not to say’.
There should be a box to tick
that says prefer non fuckrous terms.
It will cost whoever whatever
you are to use me for your funding bids kmt like you’re doing me some kinda favour please
Some people think all black
people are afraid of dogs. I saw a black woman at Oval
station
graze against the wall coming down the stairs to avoid an owner with her pet.
Some scientists say behaviours
can be inherited through genetics
Stands to reason black people
running for their lives for years being hunted by white people with dogs
across the ages might add some validity to the latter correlating with the
former, perhaps. I am not afraid of dogs. But they will not sleep in my bed
with me.
—
Taking a breath, to absorb, letting this
sink in, letting myself sink down in these sinking feelings,
my attitudes transform. My anxiety, layers and layers, triggering as I go, peeling away as I sink in this unsticking
Moving in, moving with, cutting through;
moving on but not moving on from.
Stuck and sticking inside this sticky
state
These high stakes get high
So high and so mighty
Self historicise a journey through a
world of pirated and plundered attitudes, Pop Culture, and Pop Propaganda
Where almost impossible collaborations,
personal, political and social constellations.
Tentacular. And sprawling.
Self historicise my movements, movings,
being moved
Finding some fluidity in the concrete of
the narratives I’ve had foisted upon me day in and day out
Fuckery
Moving physically. Moving emotionally.
Get gripping, get slipping.
Where almost impossible tasks of finding
a shifting position and balancing in relation to the tensions
Reliability, embodied memories, oral
histories, works to be repeated
Not reproducing faithfully national
processes of memorialisation,
Nor British values nor National
Identities
Makes me feel like I’m always late to
the party
Belated to the narrative
Bartering and flaunting my ‘twoness’
I keep bouncing between being angry
about lots of inconsequential things that seem consequential at the time
Angry because I feel and experience the
restraints that I am living in
The legacy of fuckry
Knowing everyone wants to be fucking
woke but like, do you really? Do you really want to be?
And like, so what if you are, what are you
going to do with that?
And my own contradictions fucking choke
the joy right out of me sometimes till all I can feel is a hot sticky fury and dull thudding confusion
But I find, that in moving to this, toward this, letting this move me
and moving within this complexity and inaccuracy
Something happens far superior
to
the
intellectual and ineffectual discourse of problematizing and politicising I’ve inherited that now seems to be so treasured and that seems to span the entire western world so that I can’t even open my mouth without someone jumping right
down
my
throat I cant breathe
Something unexpected happens
The upwelling that I know
I know what to do, what I bring, what I outbody into the world and embody in my being
And wonder if this mystical and
mythical immaterial unsticking can materialise in other ways
A glance, a touch, an embrace, a
knowing, a trusting,
beyond my learned catastrophizing, my
ignorance, my rights, my self preservation, my failings to understand my anxieties and my bright ideas
Something gentle and patient and faithful
congruent, aligned, uninhibited
Something that neither disregards, nor
blames, nor acuses, nor neglects
But accepts and holds lightly
And quietly fortifies
softly boundaries me
and gurgles in my marrow, in my bones in blood in my guts in my mouth in my breath
I’m not deluding myself
For full interviews type into google:
M.I.A: I can’t find
anything negative about multiculturalism
Al Jazeera English
Published on 14 Jan 2016
4.42
MIA: Sri Lanka has
‘same government with a different face’ | Channel 4 News
Channel 4 News Published on 13 Jan 2015
12.48
M.I.A. talks about her
music video “Borders” on Al Jazeera
M.I.A. Published on 14 Jan 2016
3.38
M.I.A. opens up about
her feud with The New York Times
Strombo Published on 18
Jan 2011
3.20
Azealia Banks Goes Off
on TI, Iggy + Black Music Being Smudged Out
HOT 97 Published on 18 Dec 2014
47.30
Ta Nehisi Coates:
“We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy” (10/18/17 – ETHS)
Family Action Network
Published on 19 Oct 2017
38.24
This was going to be a
dance but unfortunately I haven’t spent much time moving
In the studio
So I made these signs
There is virtue
in the knowing — what I’ve lived, and I
feel a magnitude of thankfulness
The smells, the particular
shape of an eye, the lips, the rough stubble, the accents, the joy in meeting
meeting someone, not being able to make a good guess at what part of the world they’re from
London, in its glory, is
truly glorious
I can see why those who
wanted to leave wanted to leave
They don’t get the joy of having open borders, open arms, embraces from around the world that
have travelled afar, that bring warmth
I smile when I see a child, like
me, one of my kind
Perhaps wondering if they think we’re
related. I give them a knowing glint of the sparkling eyes we share, I could
be your brother. I am your brother.
I look at their parents or
whoever they’re with whether its a woman or a man and smile and wonder if
they’re wondering if this child will look like me when they grow up
I feel a solidarity and I am
glad to be something familiar for them
We recognise each other in
the streets
I think of my parents, mother and my father, both wondrous, both beauties, my heroine and hero, my baby makers, my flesh is their flesh, my eyes and my lips and
my nose and my voice, their voices, their warm naked arms resting on each other
The fair partners I’ve loved
and how our skin contrasts and how pretty that makes me feel that we
are so different and so vulnerable and playful and at ease with each other
And I feel love about that.
it’s
beautiful we can be here. I wake up and go to bed
thanking God for the experience. Thank you thank you thank you. That’s how I
feel and I think that is good.
I think of the art that I
make and who it is for and what it should say and how I think I have it, think
I get it and then never really do, and I become judgemental of it, and think of
scrapping it, then realise how important it is to get it all out, out in the
open, the good and the bad and the mediocre, regardless, and stop myself from
trying to explain away, disclaim or apologise for it and just let it be what it
is. I think of the art that I make and who it is for and I feel proud. Because
it’s for me. And it’s for everyone.