after Sharon Hurley Hall


is on trend

black people trend
when black people die
you have a black body
& it shows up in all
your feeds trending
images being shared

hashtag black death
hashtag black body
hashtag black trauma

black people are not trending
when we are calling out
white supremacy

black people are not trending
when we are calling out
discrimination in the system

black people are not trending
when we are calling out
injustices of racism, sexism, ableism,
hetrofuckingnormalcy

black peoples are only trending
when black people are dying
when black people are killed
for walking, running, driving,
dancing, breathing

black people trend
when black bodies are terrorised,
brutalised & dehumanised
black bodies trend

our trauma is a trend,
the black body as an object
is a trend

when black people try
to explain our situation,
explain the trauma,
try to explain, display,
plead how black lives matter,
then we do not tend,

black people are not a trend,
black people’s voices are hidden
by the algorithms,
black people are invisible, silenced,
shamed, disregarded, cancelled.

black people do not trend
when we make ourselves the subject,
when we take our agency back,
when we take our power back
when we take our stories back.

black people do not trend
when black people speak up
about touching our hair,
for the fetishisation of our bodies
for the raping, pillaging
& extraction of our souls

hashtag black death
is on trend

black people trend
when black people die.

1.
In the far-reaching twisted media archives,
they’ve glassed us up & our blackness in.
Our blackness is wholeness,
the whirling & worrying on water.

Our bodies light up the world,
our fighting flesh. & yet here,
we’re subdued to meat,
our humungous hearts trophies.

Every whiteman has stood on our backs.
Every child has suckled on our breasts.
Mighty arms which wrapped everyone together
are led to extinction in this humid hold.

In the dark, our magnitude is masked,
our monumental strengths redacted & erased.


2.
In pursuance of the powers vested in me by section 32 of the Police
Act 1964, I, Right Honourable William Whitelaw, one of Her
Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State, hereby appoint the Right
Honourable Lord Scarman to inquire urgently into the serious
disorder in Brixton on 10 to 12 April 1981 and to report, with the
power to make recommendations.

Stories keep being told; this is a tolerant country.
It’s official. Britain is tolerant, fair & just.

There isn’t a race problem. Never was. Never has been.
People who are different are treated the same.

Tolerated. As long as we don’t make a difference.
Small ‘minorities’ are accepted as long as we stay small.

Get to ‘swamping’ & then we become a threat.
We start to threaten the whole fabric of British superiority.

Tolerance, liberty & civic duty, such values go out
the window, when the nation’s anxieties are raised.

Fear. & the country’s doors are closed.
The drawbridge raised.

Their bulletproof shields driving us back.

3. History Repeating Itself
Black trauma is never given space to heal because we have to make sure
the white people who hurt us don’t feel too bad about it. Even as victims,
we’re told to care about the feelings of those who harm us.

the sky feeds us continuous greys & harsh words from ugly white
mouths,
& yet we enter the frame

clasped hands in lap or right hand on chest, like in allegiance, chin
forced
upwards as best clothes stiffen backs & resolve

a practiced pose, easy to send back home as proof of promises
made good,
mother country come good, it’s expected

the camera will point & lie for generations; the flash will blind us,
to our naivety, to their ungratefulness & their hate


4.
Atlantic Road, tight with heat,
round the rubble, the dying screams,
& pigeons, we wander.
A boy’s t-shirt clings to his back.
A woman’s shopping rumbles
over the cobbles & we,
the Black community, ready.

Your anniversary of our arrival
& you say not to bother.
Not to bother making a song & dance.
No heart felt effort here.
We push out, go back to the beginning
& wonder when our dreams of making
it good & sweet as honey died.

We roll with the flames, fear
bounces over the edges & we seize
our freedom: the spaces we’ve been denied.
Smelling of nutmeg & winter, any warmth
is just out of reach in our cramped rooms.
We take comfort in each other, rallying
ourselves before another layer of flesh
is skinned as we push against
this harsh, white-washed world.



5. we were born under a beautiful harvest moon
The evidence is a tumultuous, violent crowd determined to execute
and executing a common purpose to attack the police with
alarming and very dangerous missiles is too plain to be challenged.

we dance with the flames

our bodies slathered in light

years to come, we’ll be seen

in slow motion, again & again

arms raised, bricks in mid-air thrown

reaching for what was promised.

we are the sea – tides juicy with man’o wars

funny how much authority desire has over us

we want to be on the inside, wear the crown

instead, we’re always drowning in the shallows

trying to make something out of nothing

make tenderness towards the backs turned.

after Romare Bearden

‘Above all else, our politics sprang from the shared belief that Black
women are inherently valuable, that our liberation is a necessity.’
The Combahee River Collective

1.
Rain. Drizzle. That fine kind that can soaks right through. My
raincloak – turquoise, from Iceland, the island – with a big enough
hood to protect my hair.

Walking through the hustle of urban life, blossom stains the
pavement like little pink moons.

I see her walking towards me. Another Blackwoman. As we walk
past each other, we smile. In that split second,

our gaze says,
I see you; I value you; you are recognised.

We walk on through the rain, sparkling.


2.
You’ve got to respect racism. From centuries they’ve manufactured
lies. Backed up with scientific ‘evidence’ and disseminated to
justify the superiority of whiteness, it is truly remarkable. A great
feat of ingenuity. I wonder, within a few more centuries down the
line, if whiteness will still reign supreme or if with a loud bang
everything will plunge into darkness?


3.
The message read:
Apologies for the short notice
but this has been planned in a
deliberately spontaneous way.
This is a Black Feminist intervention
within the white cube.

We come to reclaim space.
We come to recover our rituals.
We come together as a collective.
Women only (children are welcome).




4.
Daily,
I walk into the sea.
Under her spell,
I release my pains,
& all identities.
Soothed
within her chilly embrace,
all ugliness thrown upon me
washes away.
It only takes a moment to escape,
to take flight through the waves.
To remember.
Afterwards, I can re-enter
the circus & continue
to pull magic
out of my arse.


5.
I stand here as a Black Feminist invited to talk about our activism
as cultural work, how the personal is always political and the
political always personal. What does it say about this conference
when the only Black faces, I see are the ones next to me on this
panel? Our stories blistering on our lips, we’re ready to testify
about our pains and our sufferings. But we’re sick and tired of
always having to go back to basics, as if you never listen, like you
never learn. Why do we have to educate you about us, when from
first sight we’ve had to learn about all your shit? How you like your
tea, why you need to keep the light on at night and how to make
you feel loved. We’re always searching for the right words to make
you listen, as our words are forever falling to the bottom of the
ocean. Words forever being lost in your handbag of white privilege
which you fail to check at the door, again and again.


6.
Oozing wounds, daily. Festering.
The tip of my tongue, my throat, my windpipe
thwarted.

Sometimes, my wounds twist like a tempest
through my ribcage, aching deep inside. Hidden.

Nourishing, healing vibes need to be fed along my blood
lines, pumped into the heart of my wounds
as it’s the body that remembers.



7.
Dialogue is good.
But we‘re hardly going to get anywhere
if you insist on casting me as the monster.

A beast is always going to be a beast, right?

Sing – bird – sing. Open your throat wide & sing.
Who cares if you’re all alone in your beauty?
– Sing.

Trying to fit my foot into someone else’s boot
distorts my whole body, my whole being, never mind my foot.

Pat – pit – Pat – pit. The rain falls.
The rain continues to fall on every shade of green.
Such a pleasant land indeed.

Indeed, I want to be purple. Maybe
sometimes shocking pink.