Here are some notes from one of my reflection journals! All ideas are open to critique/refinement.
Note 1) Mainstream media is the most prolific serial killer of all time. It kills movements not with truth, but with racialised fabrications that maintain the pulse of nationalism and white supremacy.
Note 2) The current higher education space is a factory disguised in open planned atriums and five story buildings. However impressive these buildings are, the reality is often the same. Throughout the three or four years of study, a commodification process occurs whereby the initial passion for work a student enters their course with is converted into existential panic - “what does this all mean, if I don’t get paid X amount?". The student is taught to view themselves as a product, not a person. Self worth is not assigned to the depth and breadth of knowledge accumulated over a period of time, instead it is assigned to the hourly rate one earns or the company name added to their CV.
Note 3) Masculinity can’t flourish unless the harmful beliefs and self-concepts crafted through the lens of patriarchy and misogyny are contacted, confronted and metabolised.
Note 4) When we speak of “structure” or “the system”, we are speaking of a combination of thoughts, ideas and behaviors that compound to produce a way of living. Within Britain, lives a largely unchecked collective mind, produced from the romantic construction of colonialism, nationalism and ultimately, whiteness. When we speak of “Great Britain”, we attribute “greatness” to the enslavement and murder of Black and Brown communities, the modification of history and the fetishization of the Monarchy. We paint this “greatness” through our education system, give qualifications and social prestige to those that understand this particular version of history and discredit lived experiences that do not accommodate this particularly privileged conceptualization of existence.
Note 5) No person is truly "free". Our experience of life is largely defined and refined by state law and the social "contracts" it creates. Some people are privileged though, because their lived experience is birthed from the biases of the "structure" we live within. These human mirrors reflect back to the structure elements of itself, and because this structure we speak of is so narcissistic, so driven by ego, it will always be more lenient in its enforcing of "justice" to those that are constructed in line with its ethos.
Note 6) White people benefited most from the ethos of capitalism by literally enslaving and exploiting civilisations in the name of capital accumulation. As a result of this, Eurocentric ideologies and knowledge discourses became the building block for the self concept across the world; once the economic base of a land was ravaged and depleted of its identity and resources by colonial powers, it was “rebuilt” with an ideology that closely aligned with its abuser. It is the cognitive molding of colonialism that scares me most — it still exists. The same ideology that abused and killed my ancestors, abuses and kills people today.
Note 7) You are not an “ally” if you feel you deserve credit for doing the bare minimum.
Note 8) To deny and fabricate the expression of the oppressed is to acknowledge our system was built by the bourgeoise mind.
Note 9) Engaging young people in politics is not just about providing them with different lenses to see the world through; it is about developing the cognitive combat necessary to fight and eventually neutralize bodies of oppression and marginalization. To see and not do, is simply reproducing the ethos of the current political system.
Note 10) The lack of diversity in positions of power in institutions is not a product of unconscious bias. It is the product of the conscious maintenance of the white ideal that is fed deliberately into the minds and hearts of all children and adults within the British Zeitgeist.
For more of my thoughts:
