The answer comes or is dragged kicking and screaming from the realms of vulnerability, peeled out of dimensions of reluctance. From worlds of anxiety, lands where imposters dwell in self-loathing captivity and crashing out of seas where dreams dive deep, so to tell the world of secrets you all hate to keep – you know that secret internal racist – well I hope some of you do, anyway.
I wonder what my research: An autoethnographic narrative of ‘My Black male experience would look like from a non-Black gaze. Can you imagine – strolling with an African Jamaican bop – through – dissociation – desensitisation to, and then the embodiment of trauma. lashed among and within windy baron fields of – then, in and out of typhoons from seas engulfed with, grief – to a horizon of love’.
“I wonder what it would sound like coming from a non-Black discourse haze. Do you think you could embody a Black experience – a Black male experience?”
Before you contemplate an answer (if you can even answer this at all) I invite you to consider the following – I do not mean the swagger, rhythm, or electro-magnetic skin conducting crepuscular rays like harp strings plucked by Francis Johnson. I mean: The 400 or so, years of perpetual systematic oppression, overt, direct, blatant, physical and/ or verbally violent, microaggression, gaslighting racism. Sounds extreme, right? That is my research – that has been and is my life and I assume the life of most Black people/ men. The only difference in this repetition is that I was nurtured in a pro-Black/African/Jamaican community which was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing for the glistening gift, of a shiny bronze and Black knight armour deflecting the contagious crepuscular encroaching rays of racism, with a Malcolm X response. Whereas, in comparison, some Black people/men accept and/ or cannot/ do not recognise the British cloak of politeness, dressed as guileful smiles of racism. A curse cast over us as we were, and some still are under the spell of what Fanon calls the ‘Colonial mindset’ – having the oppressor’s ideals.
I assume you/ the prompt require me/ the text to be more, prescriptive, descriptive, detailed – structured with an answer like: “My preferred mode is social media, you know like Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram, and I go about preparing by first organising this….then researching that… oh and not forgetting to really promote myself and the change I hope to make….”. Although, “As he scurries down from his sarcastic perch” I have actually utilised LinkedIn albeit, for a brief moment. The soul I am within this eternal now… typing for you…the reader…and for the vessel the ‘I’ that types currently occupies… as trouble being (in) the centre of attention – to me it is like being in the eye of a storm. As it feels like a naval gazing vortex, so albeit problematic I have refrained from communicating my research on social media. The ‘I’ that types, values interpersonal human/hu-being/non-human/non-hu-being connections so conferences, workshops, and in-person PowerPoint presentations will be a preferred choice. That being said, I feel that we have abseiled down the side of this text only dipping our toe in the crevices between hard body paragraphs and sentences. Let us climb back to the top, so to finish off – complete this attempted answer for you.
To communicate my research regardless of mode, locality, delivery, and/ or audience is, and will continue to be, like swiftly ripping open a scab, callous an old wound, “Drawing blood”. Yet, regardless of the spillage, the discourse carnage, my bellows still scarper out from the realms of vulnerability, because academia needs the life stories and lived experiences of Black men thus, academia needs – albeit doesn’t want – me. Therefore, to communicate my research in the spaces that require my token for entry will evidence, speak through, and re-narrate the false caricatures, negative stereotypes, inhuman discourses, debunking the Black male hyper-sexual – masculine – criminal, and self-nurture away from the blistering heat of the gaslight. And all by being dragged kicking and screaming from the realms of vulnerability, unpeeling reluctancy from adjacent dimensions. Conquering worlds of anxiety, freeing imposters from lands of captivity and surfing the crashing seas where dreams dive deep. So, we can all nurture each other within our oppressed states – destroying – dismantling – restructuring these colonial mind traits – and tell the world of secrets you all hate to keep – the secrets that bubble deep.
I will stand tall – yet feel small – I will attempt to speak clear from a void – an unheard silenced space – of experiences which I hold dear – close – deep, so those behind me can follow in sequence embracing and speaking their trauma – truth – experience – story – to be the best they can be.
*The author is using a pen name and is wishing to remain anonymous.*
If you need support, here are some services and organisations, you can contact:
- The School of Health in Social Science Support Team, Email: studentsupport-health@ed.ac.uk
Support offered by the University of Edinburgh:
- The Student Association Advice Place
- Chaplaincy Listening Service
- Silvercloud
- Student Counselling Service
- Togetherall
- Health & Wellbeing
- Wellbeing Workshops
Support offered by external charities:
- Nightline, Tel: 0131 557 4444 (8pm –8am)
- Samaritans, Free call: 116 123, Text message: 07725 90 90 90, Email: jo@samaritans.org
- Breathing Space, Tel: 0800 838587 (Mon –Thu 6pm –2am, Fri –Mon 6pm –6am)
- Mind
- iThrive
- Edinburgh Crisis Centre
