Emails to Abiola

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Southern trees bear strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

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to sense and be sensed in that space of no space, though refused sentiment, history and home, we feel (for) each other.

‘The Undercommons’, Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, 2013

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From ‘In The Break’ by Fred Moten, 2003

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parsing - the exercise of dis-membering language into fragmentary cells that forget to re-member

From ‘She tries her tongue, her silence softly breaks’ by M. NourbeSe Philip

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If they cannot speak to each other, they cannot then foment rebellion and revolution.

‘She tries her tongue, her silence softly breaks’ by M. NourbeSe Philip

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Voice new futures together

Utilising film as strategy to propose a future not that different ‘from that which we now know’, Born in Flames, 1983 is a documentary style feminist science fiction ‘successful film about a failed revolution’. Unscripted and shot over a period of four years it presents us with a series of montages that come together to form a story of women from different walks of life trying to figure out how to work together to fight the oppressive forces that be, not always successfully.

Most chillingly compelling about the film is the story of Adelaide Norris, a young black lesbian and founder of the Women’s Army, who is found dead in a police cell, after having been arrested at the airport for conspiring to transport arms into the US. News reports present her death as suicide but the Socialist Youth Review and remaining members of the Women’s Army are certain she was murdered. ‘As editors of the Socialist Youth Review, we have been troubled by the official reports on the death of Adelaide Norris, the founder of the Women’s Army. Grave inconsistencies in the coroner’s report have led us to believe that Norris did not commit suicide but was murdered -- assassinated, if you will, for political reasons.’ This story is all too similar to that of Sandra Bland in the US and Sarah Reed in the UK, to name but two. Young black women dying in police cells under suspicious circumstances is not just the stuff of fiction, it is a reality.

As a result of Norris’ death, members of the Socialist Youth Review who had previously seen the Women’s Army approach as too aggressive become radicalised and consider the printing and disseminating of the image of Norris’ dead body.

“If we print it, we’ll only be sensationalising it.”

“...we don’t need to fetishize a dead body, we can mobilize in other ways.”

“...We could use those images to mobilize women.”

Isabel, lead singer of the band The Bloods and presenter on Radio Regazza had earlier said “I don’t want to be part of the Women’s Army: it’s all talk and no action. It’s all rhetoric. I’ve checked it out and we’re doing enough in the community with our music.” But on hearing news of Norris’ death, Isabel is compelled to into action, and takes to the airwaves to express her concerns.

“Wake up! We’re being murdered out there in the streets. And if you’re going to sit by and watch it happen, Sister, all your babies, and yourselves, you’re going to be cleaned out, we ain’t going to be around no more! Now get it together. It’s time to fight! This is for all the dead heroes out there… This is a message to the Women’s Army and to women everywhere. Wake up! This is station 2016 on your dial. If you can’t find it, then you’re in trouble, Sister.”

Later, after stealing trucks and equipment, Isabel and women from the Phoenix and Regazza radio stations come together to form a new mobile radio coalition. Although not apparently in opposition, we had not seen any indication of them working together before this point in the film. By taking over a news broadcast and coming together to form Phoenix-Regazza Radio they put aside their racial and class differences. In another sequence, we see an image of the World Trade Centre being blown up… another eery premonition. Are we humans really that predictable? Although we don’t see a ‘happy’ ending to the film, the coming together of the various women’s groups and radio stations demonstrates a disruption to the flow of oppressive action, challenging the apparently predetermined sequence of events.  

We have come to occupy your frequencies

Women temporally take control of the language that contributes to their oppression through the airwaves - over the radio and on tv. This ‘[s]peculative, aggressive, essayist..’ film demonstrates the potentiality of power and agency contained within the female voice. It also shows what can happen when we ‘coalesce around (an) image [rather] than an abstraction’. The martyred sister of the struggle Adelaide Norris, in her death as image, becomes for some, a rallying point. This is much like the image of Escrava Anastacia, which is still yet to come into full focus on this blog.

With the various groups, factions and individuals that made up ‘Born in Flames’, their differences - what they didn’t know or understand about each other acted as a barrier. Norris’ image provided the necessary prop, a tool, that allowed for the thing-ness of categorisation that had negatively impinged on the potentiality of their friendship to now emerge.

 To feel in solidarity with her or to build with her or to like what she does, it is not necessary for me to grasp her. It is not necessary to try to become the other (to become other) nor to "make" her in my image.

- ‘Poetics Of Relation’ by Édouard Glissant, 1977. The male subject, ‘he’ is replaced for a female one ‘she’.

‘Born in Flames’, directed by Lizzie Borden, 1983 ‘Born In Flames’, publication by Lizzie Borden (Occasional Papers) 2011 ‘Born In Flames’, review for Film Quarterly by Karen Jaehne, 1984

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A. Voice. Like. Caramel.

Sometime around 1999,

When I was in secondary school, probably in year 8, I was told that I had a voice like caramel.

A. Voice. Like. Caramel.

In that moment, taking this remark at face value I didn’t ask my teacher, who was white and female what she meant by the statement. Despite this, the words have stayed with me. You have a voice like caramel. Looking back, I can’t help but wonder what she meant by this.

Caramel is a substance which comes in varying degrees of brown, made by heating up sugars to a temperature of around 170 °C. It is a sweet and sensual food that can be served soft and viscous or hard and brittle. An adaptable food, it can be served on and with various things like ice cream, chocolate or in crème brulee. It should be enjoyed in small doses as a treat. Too much of it can be bad for you.

Your voice is a sweet and sensual object.

Caramel, subject to multiple interpretations and states is flexible in form. What does caramel sound like and what qualities does my voice share with it? Might it be that the sound resonates on the ears like caramel melts on the tongue?

Was she referring to it’s sticky glutinous nature or how on heating up it becomes smooth in texture and glides easily across the mouth, slippery.

Caramel has its own erotic qualities.

I did a google search for ‘voice like caramel’. Its the name of a voice over company, ‘Caramel Voices’. It also appears, in a more elaborate form in the book ’50 Shades of Grey’, “His voice is warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge caramel... or something”. Your voice is a sweet and sensual object.

Around the same time at school, I am sent out of class frequently. At a girls school, with a group of friends we occupy our time in lessons gossiping rather than studying. Talking as part of a group, yet somehow my voice, more distinctive, leads to me being called out and made an example of. Many lessons during secondary school were spent outside the headmistress’s office for ‘distracting other students’. ‘If only she would concentrate, she would surely reach her full potential…’  From a young age, it was made clear to me that my voice it both a blessing and a curse.

Your voice is a sweet and sensual object, but too much of it can be bad for you, them, us.

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The ability to respond is what is meant by responsibility

‘Borderlands’ Gloria Anzaldúa, 1987

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Becau_she    [be-co-she]

Because of her I will… Because of her I must … Because of her we can …

“Her image instills in me a feeling of becau_she”

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Norifowonira [n’ori-fọwọ-nira ] = no sense feel freedom

Freedom to feel and not make sense Freedom to not make sense in anger

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‘Passion: Discourses on Blackwomen’s Creativity’, edited by Maud Sulter, Urban Fox Press, 1990.  

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“Balling, balling, balling…”

“I hope you won’t give in to despair”

“It’s so easy to become confused, it’s so hard to love ourselves and find what’s good for our lives”

“happiness, friendship, the sun setting...they’re all here for you as much as for anyone else in the world”

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Family life can be alienating and strange. Forced to wear a dress at a family wedding. “Its lovely but this is not me”. All that brings comfort is is the endless supply of jollof, fried chicken and chin chin on the table.

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Kitty mastered the route by subway and returned with mangoes, yams, cho-cho, saltfish, plantains, callaloo, goat-meat, and Jamaican curry to rub it with. She came home with these things laden in her arms, as if to say, Family, this is for you. In these shops she broke her silence, here she felt most the loss of home, of voice, even as she brushed the loose dirt off the yam-skin, .. . resisting a desire to rub the sharp stickiness into her nostrils and around her mouth.

‘No Telephone To Heaven’ by Michelle Cliff, 1987