ann daramola

Meanwhile, COVID protections are running out, Black folx are alarmingly underemployed, and hospitals are killing us with impunity.

This is life or death and we’re running out of time.

It literally does not matter that white people did the reading. Things are already in motion.

You move different when you know the war is coming. You fight different when you know you are already dead.

Prepare yourself and your people by: 1) Collectivizing resources. Land. Food. Water. Shelter. Weapons. Medical supplies.

2a) Educating each other about each other. We know enough about whiteness to predict their next moves. We don't know enough about each other to move with power. Too many Black folx are STILL homo and transphobic. Too many Black men are STILL misogynistic.

2b) Educating each other about the work. We're literally not new to this. Across the entire Black diaspora, in every colonizer's language, we have done the work of resistance. Unearthing our historical ongoing work will get us farther faster sooner.

3) Keep the center Black. I see so many dear white people tweets and IG stories upandan the timelines. The good white people are still white and are not targets for what the system will weaponize. Meanwhile, Black folx are dyyying. We are dying y'all.

Octavia Butler didn't try to tell us. She told us. She wrote a whole series of books on what it would take to get free. We're not doomed to apocalyptic endings if we can collectivize.

All oppression is connected, but Blackness remains the fulcrum. If we keep the center Black we stand a chance. Keep the center Black.

We have an incredible amount of political education to do on multiple fronts. As long as Black trans people are being killed within our community, we cannot fight well. As long as queer Black folx are being killed with in our community, we can't fight well.

As long as we remain ignorant of non-USian Black struggles, we can't fight well. As long as we mythologize the Africas instead of learning about anticolonial struggles, we can't fight well.

We need every Black person prepared and able to bring this Black future to this Black present. And let me tell you. Whiteness will do everything in its power to stop it from happening. But as long as our centers remain Black, we will win.

Keep the center on Black life. Black living and material experience. There's nothing of Black life to be found in whiteness. Not in its legal, education, medical, financial, or spiritual system. There is an infinity of Black life to be found in Blackness. Keep the center Black.

I yell this every time I come #onhere and read folx "dragging" white people and writing essays⁠—ESSAYS!⁠—about what white-owned corporate employers need to do to recognize their humanity. Girl. You are not a human in this world order. That's the only way this world exists.

KEEP THE CENTERS BLACK.