Podcasts about black out uk

This is episode 100 of Busy Being Black. To honour this milestone, my friend DYLEMA takes my seat to interview me. Busy Being Black emerged four years ago at a time of great personal distress – and transformation. I am unendingly grateful that you all keep showing up, tuning in and talking back. Busy Being Black returns on Saturday, 1 October, for what I'm calling Busy Being Black version four.  About DYLEMA DYLEMA is an acronym: Do You and Let Every Man Adapt. She is an artist, musician and spoken word poet, whose life and spiritual guidance continue to enrich and inspire my own. You may remember her voice from our soaring conversation in 2019, "When I Named Myself, I Became a Poet", which I encourage you all to revisit.  The voice notes included in this episode are (in order of inclusion): Max and Freya Powers, Lerone Clarke-Oliver, Adrian Jönsson-Iseni and Pádraig Ó Tuama. The poem included in this episode, "The Dancing Boy", was written and performed by Josh Rivers, includes vocals by Lazarus Lynch and was scored by Joshua Pleeter. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary extraordinaire, for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm in conversation with Rico Norwood, who opens our conversation with a beautiful and important introduction to Isaac Julien's seminal film Looking for Langston. As well as doing more justice to Looking for Langston's importance than I could, we open with this introduction because Rico flags an important word “quare”, which – as some of you already know – I have tattooed right across my throat. “Quare” was put forward by E. Patrick Johnson, the fairy godfather of Black queer studies, in his 2001 essay, “Quare studies, or (almost) everything I know about queer studies I learned from my grandmother”. Part of what animates Johnson's theoretical intervention is an understanding that Black queer people and the non-queer people who birth, nurture and raise us, often have much more to offer the world than we're given credit for.  It is a “quareness” that energises my own cultural and intellectual inquiry and which brings me and Rico together, both as friends and conversation partners. Today we explore Looking for Langston's ongoing importance, the role cultural institutions like the BFI play in either gatekeeping or providing access to our quare cultural canons and how politics of respectability and representation continue to hinder our collective cultural memory. And together we attempt to answer an enduring question, one addressed often on Busy Being Black, how do we ensure that work that could be so important to our liberation isn't so continually withheld from us?  About Rico Norwood Rico Norwood (they/them) is an American Film and Video Game researcher out of the University of Southampton, who currently resides in London and Berlin. They hail from Houston, Texas but received their undergraduate degree in Mass Communications from Xavier University of New Orleans and their M.A. in Media Studies at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus. Their primary academic concerns are Black Queer Art and historical narratives through films, as well as Video Game studies with regards to race, gender, sexuality, and their development. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary extraordinaire based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My admiration of Travis Alabanza runs deep. They were one of the first people to say yes to me and Busy Being Black at a time of tremendous uncertainty for me, and our 2018 conversation remains a firm favourite with listeners. The wisdom and insights Travis shared on art, gender, race and self-awareness are as relevant and salient today as then. I find them refreshing, not least for the ways they engage with the spectacle of curiosity that confronts them and trans folks daily. Travis reproaches with sass, or critique or silence: a questioning back that asks, ultimately, whether the rest of us know the role we play in the ongoing hostilities facing trans people. But Travis' work is not only, always or forever work about their experience as a trans person in a transphobic world, nor do they create to explain; which is perhaps most beautifully expressed in a statement made to Travis by writer and friend Kuchenga: "This is for us, baby, not for them." At the heart of Travis' new book, None of the Above, is a call to keep questioning who we are when no one is watching.  None of the Above is available to pre-order from Gays the Word, the UK's oldest LGBTQ bookshop. This conversation was recorded live at Shoreditch House in East London in May 2022, in front of an audience of friends, family and Busy Being Black listeners. A special thank you to Khaleel Johnson at Soho House, and to Matt Noades and his team at Anvil Audio. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary extraordinaire based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2015 and 2016 were big years for me: in April 2015, I was shocked into my political awakening by the Baltimore riots, which erupted after the funeral of Freddie Gray. The rage and grief expressed through the riots inspired me to action: how might I be part of a solution? And a year later, in 2016, I stumbled on No Tea, No Shade, an anthology of nineteen essays from scholars, activists, and community leaders doing work on black gender and sexuality. No Tea, No Shade helped focus the fire stoked by the riots towards something generative, rigorous and tender. Busy Being Black is a product of these two events — and a life of searching and questioning before, during and since. So, you can imagine how honoured I am to be in conversation with Dr Jafari S. Allen, whose essay "Black/Queer Rhizomatics" opens No Tea, No Shade and was the first piece of Black queer theory I ever read. We discuss his latest book, There's a Disco Ball Between Us, a sweeping and lively ethnographic and intellectual history of what he calls “Black gay habits of mind.” We explore the impact of the church and Black folk on his lyric use of language, tussling with the wisdom offered by our ancestors and forebears, his beautiful friendship with freedom fighter Sister Nehanda and how inhabiting or embodying a Black fullness can make space for all the ways we've decided to, or need to, show up in the world – for protection, survival and thriving. About Jafari S. Allen Jafari S. Allen is the Director of Africana Studies, Inaugural Co-Director of the Centre for Global Black Studies and Associate Professor of Anthropology at University of Miami. Dr. Allen's scholarship and teaching has opened new lines of inquiry and offered re-invigorated methods of Black feminist narrative theorising in anthropology, Black studies and queer studies. His latest book, There's a Disco Ball Between Us, was released on 1 March by Duke University Press. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary extraordinaire based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I've long admired the work of Da'Shaun L. Harrison. Like many of those I've come to encounter and adore over the past few years, Da'Shaun's work came across my timeline on social media and their incisive and invigorating intellectual offerings have had me hooked since. Da'Shaun is a Black, fat, queer and trans theorist and abolitionist, and in their debut book, Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-fatness as Anti-Blackness, they argue that to live in a body that is both fat and Black is to exist at the margins of a society that limits us in ways we may have never considered. In our conversation today, Da'Shaun expands on the connection between anti-fatness and anti-Blackness, explains how diet culture persists as a tool of social control and offers up ways of thinking about how the policing each of us might do of our own bodies invariably impacts how we interact with – and even judge – those around us. Like all of the best intellectual work, Da'Shaun's intervention is grounded in a political awakening that took place at the community-level, where they say they felt safe and brave enough to explore who they wanted to be in the world; and so we also discuss how community-building has shown them what the future – or, a beyond as they call it – could look like, and they make a compelling case for the power of our imaginations to help us think beyond what we know. About Da'Shaun L. Harrison Da'Shaun L. Harrison is a Black, fat, queer and trans theorist and abolitionist in Atlanta. Harrison is the author of Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness, and a public speaker who often gives talks and leads workshops on Blackness, queerness, gender, fatness, disabilities and their intersections. Da'Shaun currently serves as the Editor-at-Large for Scalawag Magazine and is the co-host of the podcast Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary extraordinaire based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the face of the ongoing and various violences experienced by Black women in the UK and across the world, Zinzi Minott wonders why more people don't ask, “What do Black women's bodies need?” It's a question I've been sitting with since we recorded our conversation, which includes us exploring what our duty of care is to each other. Zinzi is a dancer, artist and filmmaker and she's interested in ideas of broken narrative, disturbed lineage and how the use of the "glitch" can help us to consider notions of racism one experiences through their life. She is specifically interested in telling Caribbean stories, highlighting the histories of those enslaved and the resulting migration of the Windrush Generation. In this sweeping conversation, we explore her work commemorating the Windrush Generation, how we might show up better and more meaningfully for Black women and how her queerness kicked the doors open to her acceptance of what she calls her weirdness. Zinzi also explores her rearing in both the Pan Africanist and Black Radical traditions, and credits her belief in abolition with helping her hold space for those she encounters among her archival work and artistic practice. As she makes clear, the generations who came before us may not have had the attitudes or the language to hold who we have become in the world, but no one is to be discarded. About Zinzi Minott Zinzi Minott's work focuses on the relationship between dance, bodies and politics. Zinzi explores how dance is perceived through the prisms of race, queer culture, gender and class. As a dancer and filmmaker, she seeks to complicate the boundaries of dance, and sees her live performance, filmic explorations and made-objects as different but connected manifestations of dance and body-based outcomes and inquiry. ​​BLOODSOUND is Zinzi's latest work and features newly commissioned prints, moving image, sound and sculpture and expands on her durational film work(s) FI DEM, released annually on 22 June to commemorate the Windrush Generation. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary extraordinaire based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The late Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, “Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country. Why did we look up for blessing – instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there.” And it is down there, among roots and earth, that Black trans gaming designer, archivist and artist Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley is looking for our Black trans ancestors—those whose lives and stories have been lost to history and thus our collective memory.  Danielle believes we are each responsible for someone in the earth, and through her work, calls us to interrogate the roles we play in the ongoing violence directed towards our trans siblings. Her approach to this interrogation brings together AI and game design, and places us in situations where we have to make choices—choices that can feel impossible. And that is the point.  In our conversation today, we explore how she provides space and means for the expression of multiple Black trans essences; disrupting ideas about what an archive is, what we think it should do and who it should serve, by centring those whose lives and stories have been erased; how her residency at Serpentine, one of the UK's most important contemporary art galleries, is helping shape her understanding of the potential of humanity; and her ongoing research into and fascination with creating a Black trans AI that speaks back to us and makes decisions for itself. About Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley is an artist living and working in London. She creates work that seeks to archive Black trans experience, and uses technology to imagine Black trans lives in environments that centre their bodies – those living, those that have passed and those that have been forgotten. About Serpentine Danielle has long been part of Serpentine's network and last year contributed to their Future Art Ecosystems: Arts x Metaverse report, which analysed what the metaverse means for the future of art, artists and cultural institutions. In particular, how real change and collaboration is vital to support the ever-growing number of artists, like Danielle, who work with advanced technologies and use the virtual space as a site of social liberation and resistance. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary extraordinaire based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I met Raven Gill in March 2020 at the Equality and Justice Alliance convening in Saint Lucia, just before our countries went into their respective lockdowns. We became fast friends. She is an outspoken and forthright activist, who does essential and life-sustaining work with trans and non binary Bajans through the civil society organisation she founded, Butterfly Barbados. In our conversation, we explore how she and the communities she fights for have navigated the challenges of Covid-19, the toll the weight of responsibility has taken on her over the past two years and how the positive image Barbados has earned on the global stage recently obscures some harsher realities for trans and non-binary Bajans. And she shares some of her more personal reckonings, including learning what she needs from her friendships, the chosen family she has gathered around her, and what — or rather who — is bringing her joy. About Raven Gill Raven Gill is a community organiser and activist and the founder of Butterfly Barbados, which advocates for transgender and non-binary Bajans. She works with the Barbados Family Planning Association, the Ministry of Health and with organisations regionally and internationally in order to redress and address the erasure of issues impacting trans people. Barbados is one of 54 countries in the Commonwealth, many of which still have colonial-era laws on their books that enable the discrimination against and persecution of LGBTQ people. And Butterfly Barbados is a member of The Commonwealth Equality Network is a network of 60-plus organisations working to uphold the human rights of LGBTQ people across the Commonwealth. UK-based charity Kaleidoscope Trust is host to the Network's Secretariat. Kaleidoscope Trust believes the UK has an important role to play in redressing colonial era wrongs and works with partner organisations across the Commonwealth to provide funding for programmes to both sustain and liberate LGBTQ communities. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary extraordinaire based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Tiny resistances were a kind of healing in a weeping place” is just one of the many powerful and lyric aphorisms that ennoble The Prophets, the New York Times best-selling debut novel from Robert Jones, Jr. – a story about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other and a betrayal that threatens their existence. Robert Jones, Jr. is a writer and thinker, and the creator and curator of the social-justice social media community Son of Baldwin. He has written for numerous publications, including the New York Times, Essence and the Paris Review. Today, in a far reaching conversation, we explore how The Prophets came to life and why he felt it so important to ensure queer Black love was neither denigrated nor ignored within it, his desire to correct the historical record, learning rebellion from his mother and making sure that queer Black people know they are loved, valued and have a purposeful place in the world. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary extraordinaire based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, I'm in conversation with Robert Jones, Jr., author of The Prophets – his New York Times best-selling debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men. In this bonus episode, Robert reads an excerpt The Prophets, entitled “New Covenant”. Robert Jones, Jr. is a writer and thinker, and the creator and curator of the social-justice social media community Son of Baldwin. He has written for numerous publications, including the New York Times, Essence and the Paris Review. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary extraordinaire based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Edafe Okporo is an author and activist, who successfully sought asylum in the United States after years of violent persecution in Nigeria because of his sexuality. Since then, he's made it his mission to not only speak out against the ongoing violence faced by LGBTQ people in Nigeria, but to help those displaced by violence build new lives as close to the American Dream as possible. We explore his relationship to the idea and the reality of America, the importance of pleasure in our understanding of freedom, his refusal to participate in the spectacle of Black death and trauma, making space for his hopes, dreams and desires, and his complicated and evolving understanding of what it means to be a Black African man in America.  About Edafe Okporo Edafe Okporo is an author and activist. He currently serves as the Mobilisation Director at Talent Beyond Boundaries, and in 2022, Simon and Schuster will publish Edafe's first book, ASYLUM, a Memoir & Manifesto. He is also among the inaugural winners of the David Prize, which is modeled on the Macarthur Genius Grant and celebrates individuals and ideas that create a better, brighter New York City. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Phyll Opoku-Gyimah and Frank Mugisha are two powerhouse LGBTQ human rights activists. Phyll, who has been a guest on the show before, is the co-founder and executive director of UK Black Pride, Europe's largest pride celebration for LGBTQ people of colour, and the executive director of Kaleidoscope Trust, the UK-based charity working to uphold the human rights of LGBTQ people across the Commonwealth. She became widely known as Lady Phyll, after she turned down an MBE from the Queen, to protest the UK's colonial impact and legacies.  Frank Mugisha is a Ugandan LGBTQ activist. He's the founder of Icebreakers Uganda, a support network for LGBTQ Ugandans, and is the executive director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, or SMUG, an alliance of eighteen organisations supporting and advocating for the Ugandan LGBTQ community. Frank is a recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, the Rafto Prize, the International Human Rights Film Award at Cinema for Peace, and has been recognised by the United Nations as a human rights defender. In 2014, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. We came together for Black Tech Fest 2021 to discuss the many and varied ways social media platforms are used to connect those fighting for their human rights, the impact of Covid-19 on their respective organisations and work in community and what they have to say to tech leaders at platforms like Facebook, who continue to overlook important insights from marginalised communities about how tech can be utilised for more good.  About Black Tech Fest Black Tech Fest takes place annually during Black History Month here in the UK and exists to inspire and create space for powerful conversations around technology, inclusion and innovation. #BTF21 About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to a new episode of Change It Up! This week Sara sits down with the incredible founder and CEO of the MinuteShorts; Janvier Wete. MinuteShorts is a shortfall platform - think Sportify for shortfilms - featuring films created by diverse young voices combining powerful narratives and storytelling that leaves you with food for thought. Through partnerships with companies like Samsung, Spindle, Black Out Uk and Girls in Film they are bringing a positive change to the filmmaking industry by highlighting the power of young voices. Tag along for this real, funny and openhearted interview on the behind the scenes of Janvier's journey with MinuteShorts and the intersection between art and activism. Get in touch with Janvier: MinuteShorts Instagram MinuteShorts Website Janvier's InstagramWant more from the Humanity Up Fam? Follow Humanity Up on Insta here Head to our website here Follow Sara on Insta hereThis podcast was brought to you by Humanity Up and hosted and produced by Sara Gustafson#changeitup Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“A part of each of us, our essence, is timeless, has never been harmed, and carries a dream it is waiting for us to bring into the world.” These are words from my guest today, Langston Kahn, whose new book, Deep Liberation, brings together the shamanic wisdom of ancient spirituality with the needs and demands of modern-day life— he wants to help us transform the emotional patterns that hold us back from healing.  Langston is a queer Black teacher and shamanic practitioner who specialises in radical human transformation. We began our conversation in the usual way, with me asking how his heart is, but for all the wonder of technology in the 21st century, we experienced some digital interference. So, we jump right into the meat of our conversation which explores grief, his journey towards Shamanic healing, connecting with our felt sense, our individual purpose as contribution to the fabric of the universe and using our voice in service of our vision. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr Francesca Sobande is an author and academic whose book, The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain, explores the myriad ways Black women in Britain thrive, influence and are erased as they navigate social media platforms. We discuss disentangling a distinct digital experience for Black women in Britain, her ongoing interest in borders, citizenship and diaspora, and whether expressions of Black women's interior lives are possible on platforms designed for public performance. She cautions against a limited understanding of Black women's digital lives as always and only subversive and she reflects on the role poetry played in helping navigate, inform and shape her work—both as personal journal and vehicle for collaborative dialogue. About Dr Sobande Dr Francesca Sobande is a Lecturer in Digital Media Studies at the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University, where she is Director of the BA Media, Journalism and Culture programme. She is the author of The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain, and To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu wants us to unleash our imaginations. A playwright, actor and director of Ghanaian heritage and raised in South London, he's committed to telling stories that are wild, seasoned and passionate. He's the director of a new play, For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy, in which six young Black men meet for group therapy, and let their hearts – and imaginations – run wild.  Our conversation explores the limitations put on expressions of our anger, building support for mental and emotional health in the process of theatre-making, exercising the muscle our imagination, a limitless Black Britishness and what he hopes we take away from the work he puts out into the world. About Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu is a playwright, actor and director. He's written for The Royal Court, directed at The Young Vic and performed at The National Theatre. He's received awards from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and Roehampton University.  For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy is a new show from Nouveau Riche, written by Ryan Calais Cameron and directed by Tristan. The play runs from 12 October – 6 November, and tickets can be bought here. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lazarus Lynch is the multi-hyphenate artist behind Busy Being Black's theme music. He's a dear friend and someone I share a spiritual connection with, and I admire so much his ability to harness his creativity to create spaces, moments and music in the world that nourish, heal, provoke and soothe. Our conversation is a meditative exploration of our shared histories in the Black Church, the pursuit and expression of our individual songs, unlocking our hearts, building community, faith in ourselves and in others and the bravery and vulnerability it takes to kneel before someone else and wash their feet. About Lazarus Lynch Lazarus Lynch is an entrepreneur, author, musician and multimedia host. He is a two-time Chopped champion and the host of Snapchat's first-ever cooking show, Chopped U, and the Food Network digital series Comfort Nation. This year, he's one of the chefs selected to cater Vogue's 2021 Met Gala. He's the creator of Busy Being Black's theme music and his new album, Sanctuary, is released later this year. The song, Busy Being Black, was released by Lazarus in February 2021 and is accompanied by a music video, created by and starring a global cohort of Black creatives coming together to express, celebrate and centre our love for each other and our cultures. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Content warning: This episode explores imprisonment, police brutality, homicide, sexual violence and mental illness. Please listen with care.  I believe in the abolition of prisons, and while I'm still learning about imagining and building societies that prioritise care, restorative justice, and people over profit-making, I know that we should not be locking people up in cages.  Michael Tenneson, Kevin Woodley, Dane “Zealot” Newton, Phillip “Archi” Archuleta, Gilbert “Lefty” Pacheco, Jose “8Bizz” Talamantes and Frankie Domenico are seven men imprisoned at Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility in Canon City, Colorado. They are the musicians, from completely different walks of life and serving differing sentences, who make up the band Territorial.  Their new album, TLAXIHUIQUI (Tla-She-Wiki), is the first recorded music to make it outside the forbidding walls of Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility into the free world since it was founded 150 years ago. TLAXIHUIQUI (which translates to “the calling of the spirits” in the Uto-Aztecan language of Nahuatl) takes listeners on a visceral journey through violence and heartache to catharsis and hope. With these deeply personal songs, Territorial shines a light on the enduring human spirit in a divided country – and asks us all to consider whether or not we are prepared to heal the societies in which we so regularly put behind bars and walls those we are unprepared to properly care for. For those who are at the start of their journey in understanding prison abolition, like myself, there are a number of places to start. There's a wonderful TedTalk by Deanna Van Buren called “What a world without prisons could look like”. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, who has long served as a prison abolitionist, is the feature of a profile in the New York Times, “Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind”; and Angela Davis' book Are Prisons Obsolete? is serving as a reference point and learning for my own understanding of abolition. About Die Jim Crow Records Die Jim Crow Records is the first record label in the United States for formerly and currently incarcerated musicians. Their mission is to provide artists with a high-quality platform for their voices to be heard. A special thank you to Royal Young for his help in making this special episode a reality. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ted Brown is one of our most important and formidable elders. He's an activist and change maker, who's been fighting for the rights of black and LGBTQ people for over 50 years. An original member of the Gay Liberation Front, Ted was instrumental in organising the UK's first pride March through London. He's been at the forefront of campaigns to demand better treatment of LGBTQ people in the media and he's been a vocal advocate for addressing homophobia within Black communities and racism in the LGBTQ community. Ted and I sat down for a live conversation at UK Black Pride's 2021 virtual pride celebration, Love and Rage, to explore the sparks that ignited his activism, our shared connection to Bayard Rustin, what he's learned about love and rage, and his advice to a new generation of activists and change makers. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn't cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black's artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’m in conversation today with Shiloh Coke, a composer, musician, actor and writer who stars in a new audio play called recognition. In it, she voices Song, a Black woman composer who stumbles upon the work of Afro-English composer and conductor Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. The play, and their conversation across space and time, asks important questions like: How do we honour the forgotten whose work was once celebrated, and who gets to decide which work stands the test of time?  In our conversation, Shiloh and I explore how she’s carving her own space in industries dominated by white people, her close relationship with her grandmother, coming into herself as a queer Black woman and how music offers her space for safety, joy and love. We discuss the importance of orienting ourselves and our work in our purpose, pursuing impact over recognition, and the conversation she hopes a queer Black woman will have with her work in the future, long after she’s gone. About Shiloh Coke Shiloh Coke is a composer, musician, actress and writer. She stars as Song in a new audio play called recognition. This episode features a clip from ‘Myoho’, which Shiloh composed to accompany a short film written by Pamela Nomvete, called Sisterhood for the Sake of Happiness. The film symbolises five generations of buddhists and artists from the African diaspora. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn’t cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black’s artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of my favourite quotes is from Civil Rights icon Bayard Rustin, who said the proof that one truly believes is in action — and there are few who embody Bayard’s words as wholly and unapologetically as Abdul-Aliy Muhammad (they/them).  An organiser and activist born and raised in West Philadelphia, Abdul-Aliy has grown into a firebrand. Whether standing up for queer Black and brown communities in the face of systemic violence, or holding leaders in politics and at not-for-profits to account, Abdul-Aliy’s work is loud, considered and high-impact.  Today we discuss the on-going impact of the 1985 bombing of the MOVE headquarters in West Philadelphia, the moments they were radicalised, what they learned about how people view those living with HIV, after they went on a medication strike as part of their organising action — and learning to trust when their body tells them what to do in defence of what’s right. About Abdul-Aliy Muhammad Abdul-Aliy Muhammad is a "Magical Black Queer", organiser, activist, writer and poet based in Philadelphia. They are one of the co-founders of the Black and Brown Workers Co-operative, a labor organising cooperative fighting contemporary forms of subjugation and dehumanisation in workplaces, classrooms and communities by expanding democracy and agency. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn’t cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black’s artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Content warning: Today’s conversation includes references to sexual violence. Please listen with care.  I caught up with Taitu Heron in December 2020, as a way of bringing to a close a difficult year with one of my favourite people. Taitu is a development specialist, human rights advocate, scholar and performance poet and we first met in St Lucia in February 2020, on the eve of the onset of the global pandemic. In St Lucia, we spent long nights righting the worlds wrongs and she offered wisdom and insight that would prove so helpful as 2020 unraveled around us. She shares her thoughts on leaving behind those people and habits who no longer serve us, creating more space for ourselves and those we care about to thrive and to breathe, and how we balance our professional, personal and creative obligations.  We dive into the complexities of silence, including her thoughts on what Audre Lorde meant when she wrote Your Silence Will Not Protect You. We discuss what it means have personal power, how we get it and keep it and whether or not it can be taken; and how we bring ourselves back from the brink after traumatic experiences. We touch on the uses of the erotic, the different and important forms of intimacy and how we find and even lose ourselves in the pursuit of our desires. About Taitu Heron Taitu Heron is Head of the Women and Development Unit at the University of the West Indies Open Campus and her publications and poetry focus on the girl child, gender based violence, the Divine Feminine and women’s sexual and reproductive health rights in the Caribbean. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn’t cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black’s artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Inspired by the American direct action group of the same name, Queer Nation was a club night that started in London in 1990 and quickly built a reputation as an attitude free, affordable and welcoming night that played the best in soulful house. And my guest this week is the activist, health promoter, and mentor Marc Thompson, who tells me why the night is so dear to his heart. As well as being an absolute sweetheart Marc has an incredibly impressive CV and I'm just going to break down a few of his accomplishments. He is: Co-director of The Love Tank (http://thelovetank.info/), a community interest company that promotes health and wellbeing of under-served communities through education, capacity building and research, Co-founder of Prepster.info (https://prepster.info/), a community based intervention that aims to educate and agitate for PreP access in England and beyond. Co-founder of Blackout UK (https://blkoutuk.com/about/) a movement dedicated to working with and building safe spaces for Black gay men. Key to all of this work is a focus on Black and queer communities, sexual health and HIV, and he is particularly interested in the intersection of race, sexuality and HIV. Ah, and a quick note - the club got around, having been hosted in venues including Fire, Crash, and Barcode, but the era that we focus on in our conversation is in its early days at Gardening Club, where it first started, and Substation South. Follow Marc on Twitter - https://twitter.com/marct_01

“Let yourself unlearn everything you thought you knew about yourself” is one of the many important life lessons George M. Johnson shares with young readers in their new book, All Boys Aren’t Blue. George calls the book a memoir-manifesto and in it, they grapple with sexuality, gender identity, assault, consent and Black joy – and I found it to be an utterly invigorating read.  We discuss the lessons we are being called to learn and to metabolise from our journey through an immensely challenging year, the important work of making ourselves whole and love as the starting point for friendship. George shares their thoughts on vulnerability as a necessity for storytelling (and how in doing so we let other people know they’re not alone), and why they felt it so important to open the book with a rather bold affirmation: I want to be immortalised. About George M. Johnson George M. Johnson is a writer and activist based in New York. They have written on race, gender, sex, and culture for Essence, the Advocate, BuzzFeed News and Teen Vogue. Their memoir-manifesto, All Boys Aren't Blue, is available wherever books are sold. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn’t cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black’s artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I have fallen in love with the poetry of Jubi Arriola-Headley. Exploring themes of manhood, vulnerability, rage, tenderness and joy, his work speaks such truth to those of us reckoning with who we’ve been and who we want to be. Jubi is a queer Black poet and storyteller and his debut collection is called original kink. Our conversation explores his relationship with his late father and his intimate and profound friendship with the late and great Craig G Harris. We discuss carrying on a legacy, gifts and grief, how we create the thing we wish we had, and Jubi’s coming-of-age during the AIDS crisis. And in a moment of particular resonance for me, Jubi talks about what it means to bear witness to our own failures. Jubi opens our conversation with his poem Peacocking. "I want to live the rest of my life with an energy that ignites and irritates, burns and bubbles, soothes and inspires until it bursts from the atmosphere, dissipating into the cosmos." – Craig G Harris About Jubi Arriola-Headley Jubi Arriola-Headley is a queer Black poet and storyteller. He’s a 2018 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow and holds an MFA from the University of Miami. His work explores themes of manhood, vulnerability, rage, tenderness and joy – and his debut collection of poems, original kink, is available now from Sibling Rivalry Press.  About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn’t cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black’s artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My conversation this week is with queer Black poet and storyteller Jubi Arriola-Headley. Among his altogether brilliant debut collection of poetry is the tremendous "Every God Is a Slowly Dying Sun" — a heartbreaking reflection on Jubi’s relationship with the late poet Craig G Harris.  original kink is available now from Sibling Rivalry Press. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn’t cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Busy Being Black’s artwork was photographed by queer Black photographer and filmmaker Dwayne Black. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I’m in conversation with one of our elders, Jeffrey Pickering. Born and raised in Barbados, he moved to the UK at 16 to pursue further education. He went on to become a nurse and cardiologist and shared his life with his partner Michael for 36 years, until Michael’s passing in 2011. Jeffrey spoke to me about his reverence for his mother, his first love, his career, his assiduous pursuit of culture and education and the moment, in 1974, he first laid on eyes on Michael. About Opening Doors London A survey on the impact of Covid-19 on older LGBTQ people reveals some startling and heartbreaking insights: 37% of older LGBTQ people feel more lonely than usual and 27% say they hardly ever or never have someone to talk to. Opening Doors London is the leading charity offering support to our LGBTQ elders. They run a number of essential interventions to combat loneliness and isolation, and the charity needs our help to keep their vital services running. Please join me in letting our elders know that we care by setting up a regular donation to Opening Doors London. Please donate whatever you can.  openingdoorslondon.org.uk About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn’t cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout.

Professor Therí Alyce Pickens is Full Professor of English at Bates College, and her newest book, Black Madness :: Mad Blackness, has done nothing short of set me alight. In it, she explores the relationship between Blackness and disability, showing how Black speculative and science fiction authors craft new worlds that reimagine the intersection of Blackness and madness.  We spoke just before Christmas about her book, which led to a really enlightening conversation about analysing the spaces between what happens and what we can know; intersectionality; the trouble with allies; the multiple purposes of silence; and ghosting as a form of discipline. And before we begin, I want to send a very special thank you to my friend and co-conspirator, Lazarus Lynch, for reimagining the Busy Being Black theme music, which makes its debut today. About Professor Pickens Professor Pickens is Full Professor of English at Bates College, specialising in African American, Arab American and disability literatures and theories. She is the author of two books: New Body Politics and Black Madness :: Mad Blackness. You can find more about Professor Pickens and her work at tpickens.org About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth, Schools Out and to you the listeners. Remember this, your support doesn’t cost any money: retweets, ratings, reviews and shares all help so please keep the support coming.  Thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to Lazarus Lynch – a queer Black musician and culinary mastermind based in New York City – for the triumphant and ancestral Busy Being Black theme music. The Busy Being Black theme music was mixed and mastered by Joshua Pleeter. Join the conversation on Twitter and Instagram #busybeingblack Busy Being Black listeners have an exclusive discount at my favourite publisher, Pluto Press. Enter BUSY50 at checkout.

For our first official episode back, we wanted to highlight the importance of community, especially during this unbelievably trying time. More specifically, we focus on the LGBTQ community and how we see ourselves within this. Rob Berkeley from BlackOut UK joins us to talk about the importance of seeing a future for yourself and connecting the older and younger generations of Black queer men. We also speak with Michael Edward Stevens and Maylis Djikalou from We Create Space who walk us through their own journeys to setting up their collective and the benefits of online connection.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/bottomingpodcast. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this final episode in this series supported by the European Cultural Foundation, I'm in conversation with Dr S Chelvan, a globally recognised legal expert on refugee and human rights claims based on sexual or gender identity and expression. His Difference, Stigma, Shame and Harm (‘DSSH’) model is a positive tool to determine an LGBTQ asylum claim, which is now used globally and is endorsed by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. In 2014, Newsweek Europe described the DSSH model as ‘a simple starting point that cuts across borders’. We explore Dr Chelvan’s entry point into the UK and into law, and he shares with us his motivations for defending the human rights of LGBTQ asylum-seekers. He discusses his adolescence – a young brown man encountering his sexuality in the age of Section 28, his role as storyteller and translator, the development and importance of the DSSH model and how he’s learned to be human from those he empowers and serves. This conversation forms part of and concludes a special series funded by the European Cultural Foundation to explore queer Black solidarity across Europe during the Covid-19 crisis. Thank you for investing in our stories. A special thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to our community partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK,

Professor Fatima El-Tayeb is professor of Literature and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Her work deconstructs structural racism in “colorblind” Europe and centers strategies of resistance among racialized communities. She’s the author of three books, was active in Black feminist, migrant and queer of colour organisations in Germany and the Netherlands and was one of the co-founders of the Black European Studies Project. Today, she expands upon the connection between Black uprisings in Germany in the 80s and the movement for Black lives now; the differences between European and American racism; the moments she was radicalised and the importance of correcting the historical record. She explains the importance of a queer of colour critique in our thinking, organising and action; sheds light on the construction and function of Islamophobia in Europe; and shares a story about meeting and turning down a dinner invitation from the late and great Audre Lorde. This conversation forms part of a special series funded by the European Cultural Foundation to explore queer Black solidarity across Europe during the Covid-19 crisis. A special thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to our community partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK,

Today’s conversation is with iki azaid funes, a Venezuelan migrant and anti-racist activist currently seeking international protection in Spain. She’s a survivor of Covid-19, and her experience fighting Covid-19 and the regime of white supremacy in Europe offers important insights to help us all understand how people like iki, and many in our communities, so often fall outside the bounds of what is considered human and thus protection, solidarity and citizenship. She describes her experience in Europe so far as existing within a plantation reloaded and says that the notion of human rights is a fiction reserved for white people. She suggests the pandemic we’re living through now began with the voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492, pushes back against assumptions of the inherent radicality of Black trans bodies and says that pursuing love and pleasure is an essential part of her resistance. Throughout this conversation, iki and I speak in both English and Spanish, a testament to our communities’ on-going commitment to communicate across borders, language and experience. Read iki's essay, "Nosotrxs no escogimos este futuro", here. For those with the means, please consider donating to her PayPal. This conversation forms part of a special series funded by the European Cultural Foundation to explore queer Black solidarity across Europe during the Covid-19 crisis. A special thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to our community partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK,

My conversation today is with artist, author, legal scholar and activist Olave Nduwanje. Working across anti-racism, LGBTQ rights, anti-capitalism and disability movements, Olave brings to this conversation a wonderfully expansive understanding of Blackness, queerness and trans identities. Olave calls us to an understanding of Blackness that is capacious, that contains within it the possibilities of everything we are and can be – and she offers that so many of the ideas we’ve internalised about our Blackness are inherently anti-Black. Olave discusses how her trans body is read by white and Black people alike, as an indication of some promised future; how she’s using her artistic practice to explore intra-communal conversations about intimacy and race; and why solidarity isn’t solidarity, unless you’re willing to give something up. Olave suggests that when we die, we’ll care more about whether we showed up for people than the things we surrounded ourselves with. Be sure to check out "Olave Talks". This conversation forms part of a special series funded by the European Cultural Foundation to explore queer Black solidarity across Europe during the Covid-19 crisis. A special thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to our community partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK,

Adeola Aderemi is a multilingual Afro-Greek and multi format artist, scholar, activist and healer, who spends a great deal of time amplifying the voices of and fighting for marginalised women. She is the editor in chief of Distinguished Diva – a community of Black women storytellers – and is currently working on raising awareness among the general public on issues such as human trafficking, gender equality, women's health and equal representation for Black women in media. We discuss her research on violence against women, her key learnings during her John Lewis Fellowship in Atlanta and the moment she became Black. Adeola is now based in Brussels and pushes back against the narrative of Europe as a post-racial project. She suggests that Europe does its Black citizens a disservice by pointing to problems abroad it has yet to address at home. As well as her insights about fighting for and defending the Afro-Greek identity and the ways conversations about citizenship and representation differ in England and in Greece, she also calls us to ancestral healing and to realise that our softness is our birthright.---This conversation forms part of a special series funded by the European Cultural Foundation and exploring queer Black solidarity across Europe during Covid-19.---A special thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to our community partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK,

Liz Fekete is the Director of the Institute of Race Relations and head of its European research program. She has worked with the Institute since 1982 and specializes in contemporary racism, refugee rights, far-right extremism and Islamophobia across Europe. She is advisory editor of the Institute’s journal Race & Class and is the author of A Suitable Enemy: Racism, Migration and Islamophobia in Europe and Europe’s Fault Lines: Racism and the Rise of the Right. We discuss her nearly 40 years working for the UK’s leading race relations educational charity, her mentorship under the late and great A Sivanandan and how the anti-racism movement here in the UK has changed since the 1980s. Importantly, she provides some necessary historical and sociopolitical context for our current moment, including how the rise of the far-right in Europe over the last 30 years has made our communities more vulnerable to Covid-19 today.---This conversation forms part of a special series funded by the European Cultural Foundation and exploring queer Black solidarity across Europe during Covid-19.---Thank you to our partners, UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth and Schools Out.

Dr Eddie Bruce-Jones is a legal academic and anthropologist, based in London. He is the Deputy Dean at Birkbeck School of Law, the author of Race in the Shadow of Law: State Violence in Contemporary Europe (Routledge, 2016) and serves on the Board of Directors of the Institute of Race Relations and the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group. He’s on the advisory board of the Centre for Intersectional Justice in Berlin, and the Editorial Board of the Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law. And he’s an Essays Editor at the literary magazine, The Offing. His research, writing and our conversation focuses on migration, racism, sexuality, colonialism, state violence and citizenship.---Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe; doing so lets others like us hear the voices amplified here.---Thank you to our partners, UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK and Schools Out.

BL Shirelle is a hip-hop artist and activist who uses her music to share her experiences with police violence, addiction and the realities of prison for Black women. Her debut album, Assata Troi – which translates to “she who struggles is a warrior” – is described as a timeless hip hop classic that speaks of hope in our era of mass incarceration and systemic racism. In addition to her own music, BL is the Deputy Director of Die Jim Crow Records – the first record label in the United States for formerly and currently incarcerated musicians. We explore how 20 years in and out of prison has shaped her identity and informed her activism, and the lessons she’s learned from her elders within the prison system, who helped inspire and nurture her throughout her adolescence.---Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe; doing so lets others like us hear the voices amplified here.---Thank you to our partners, UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK and Schools Out.

A self-titled bad Buddhist, Lama Rod Owens is an author, activist and authorised Lama (Buddhist Teacher) in the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism. He's a comforting, honest and straight-talking queer Black man, who’s considered one of the leaders of his generation of Buddhist teachers. His new book is Love and Rage: The Path to Liberation through Anger – and he opens the first chapter like this: “Since the 2016 presidential election, shit has been hard for some of us. For the rest of us, shit has been hard for a while.” From his rearing in the Black Church to his self-discovery through Buddhism, our conversation is one of deep reflection and a frank exploration of the ways in which our unaddressed anger prevents us from not only a psychic and physical liberation, but from connecting meaningfully to ourselves and to others in every imaginable part of our lives.---Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe; doing so lets others like us hear the voices amplified here.---Thank you to our partners, UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK and Schools Out.

For the sixth and final episode of Theory in the Flesh, I’m in conversation with Dr Oni Blackstock, the Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau of HIV at the New York City Department of Health. In 2018, doctors diagnosed 1,917 people with HIV – a 67% decline from the number of diagnoses in 2001.---I reached out to Dr Blackstock to understand what precipitated such a historic drop in new HIV diagnoses in New York City and how she and her colleagues at the Bureau of HIV have been able to intervene so successfully in the lives of those disproportionately impacted by HIV. We discuss the years-long work of building trust among marginalised communities, the many ways the city addresses and accounts for structural inequalities and disparities in HIV outreach, and the parallels between Covid-19 and the ongoing HIV epidemic. Dr Blackstock makes clear that it takes large teams working at the city level, substantive funding at all levels of government and consistent engagement with and funding of grassroots and community organisations to deliver health interventions that work for all.---Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives and Theory in the Flesh is made possible with funding from the British Podcast Awards fund and Wellcome Trust. Please show your support for Busy Being Black, by taking a few minutes to share your feedback at podcastviews.com.---Thank you to our partners, UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK and Schools Out.

Bakita Kasadha is a writer, researcher and poet. She is a Black woman living with HIV and as a health activist holds different national and international advisory roles. Her recently completed dissertation critiques and challenges knowledge production at the research level, and asks important questions about who is and is not involved in research that aims to uplift and support at-risk and marginalised communities.---We explore the problematising of Blackness, the laziness of those who call Black and other marginalised communities hard to reach and how top-down approaches to health research, that do not contextualise lived experiences, limit the success of interventions and can even cost lives. She believes health researchers, medical practitioners and funding bodies should be ethically engaging communities in the shaping, delivery and involvement of healthcare initiatives.---We open with Bakita’s reading of her poem, Numbers Game.---Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives and Theory in the Flesh is made possible with funding from the British Podcast Awards fund and Wellcome Trust. Please show your support for Busy Being Black, by taking a few minutes to share your feedback at podcastviews.com.---Thank you to our partners, UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK and Schools Out.

In a powerhouse TedTalk, The Problem with Race-based Medicine, social justice advocate and law scholar Dorothy E Roberts says: “Race is not a biological category that naturally produces health disparities because of genetic difference. Race is a social category that has staggering biological consequences, but because of the impact of social inequality on people's health.”The novel coronavirus, COVID19, is not racist. It is a highly contagious virus that moves with ease from person-to-person and which takes advantage of compromised immune systems. COVID19 is hitting Black and Minority Ethnic communities the hardest because of racism. As long as medical institutions, scientists, researchers and the public continue to ignore the institutionalised, structural and everyday racism that makes us vulnerable to ill health in the first place, our communities will continue to be disproportionately impacted - as we have been historically - time and time again.Today, I’m in conversation with Camille St. Omer and Martha Awojobi, two of the ten team members leading Charity So White. The organisation was founded in 2019 to call attention to the racism in the charity sector and to provide a pathway to a sector representative of the vulnerable and at-risk communities it exists to serve and support. Charity So White has issued a live position paper, which is being updated every week, that offers not only crucial insight into the disproportionate impact of COVID19 on Black and Minority Ethnic communities, but practical and important suggestions for the necessary way forward. Camille and Martha remind us that in the midst of a crisis, we have an opportunity to redress the systemic injustices that continue to leave so many of our people behind.---Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives and Theory in the Flesh is made possible with funding from the British Podcast Awards fund and Wellcome Trust. Please show your support for Busy Being Black, by taking a few minutes to share your feedback at podcastviews.com.---Thank you to our partners, UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK and Schools Out.

In countries like England, where young Black boys - irregardless of sexuality - are disproportionately impacted by school exclusions, where the prison population is full of Black men and where mental health services for Black people are increasingly rare, how are we as queer Black people and queer people of colour acknowledging and showing solidarity with our presumably heterosexual Black brothers?Cathy J. Cohen’s seminal essay “Punks, Bulldaggers and Welfare Queens” cautions us against a queer politics that does not include those whose sexuality may be different to ours. She writes, “My concern is centred on those individuals who consistently activate only one characteristic of their identity, or a single perspective of consciousness, to organise their politics, rejecting any recognition of the multiple and intersecting systems of power that largely dictate our life chances.”And so my conversation today is with Ben Hurst, who is doing transformative work with men and boys around the country, helping them understand feminism, intersectionality and masculinity. We discuss our friendship as an example of coalition-building across sexual identities, embracing emotional literacy as Black men, and the patience and understanding required to show men and boys a different, positive version of masculinity.--Ben Hurst is the Head of Facilitation and Training at the Good Lad Initiative, an organisation teaching young men and boys about gender equality, feminism and intersectionality.--@_busybeingblack is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Theory in the Flesh is made possible with funding from the British Podcast Awards Fund and Wellcome Trust. Find out more at: busybeingblack.com.--Thank you to our partners, UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK and Schools Out.

On the 26th of March, Frances Webber, the Vice-chair of the Institute of Race Relations’ Council of Management and a former barrister specialising in immigration, and refugee and human rights law, wrote of the self-isolation required to prevent the spread of COVID-19: “Those without homes or privacy cannot distance or self-isolate; nor can they observe strict hygiene, without access to hot water and soap. For homeless people in night shelters or on the streets, for prisoners and immigration detainees sharing overcrowded cells or rooms, toilets and communal canteens, and for asylum seekers living in destitution there is no escape from the infection.”Today, I’m in conversation with Moud Goba of Micro Rainbow, the charity working in service of LGBTQ asylum seekers and refugees in the UK. From a culture of disbelief at the Home Office to having to survive on £37 per week, Moud takes us through the many hurdles our LGBTQ siblings encounter when they come to England seeking refuge. Moud discusses her own experience as an asylum seeker, how Micro Rainbow helps combat economic disempowerment, homelessness and isolation, and the work we must all do in looking after the most vulnerable in our society. And a trigger warning: the conversation today includes mentions of both sexual and physical violence. Please listen with care.--Moud Goba is a project manager for Micro Rainbow and one of the founders of UK Black Pride.The impact of COVID-19 and the attendant lockdowns and isolation is especially difficult for our siblings seeking asylum in the UK. Micro Rainbow has a wish list on Amazon, which allows those who can to send food to Micro Rainbow’s safe houses.--Thank you to our partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK and Schools Out.

When Lady Phyll and a busload of Black lesbians travelled down to Southend-on-Sea in 2005, they couldn't have imagined what UK Black Pride would become. I called Lady Phyll, the executive director and co-founder of UK Black Pride, to understand how she's feeling after the recent announcement that UK Black Pride 2020 is postponed.--@_busybeingblack is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives, If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe; doing so lets others like us hear the voices amplified here. #busybeingblackThank you to our partners, UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK and our newest partner, Schools Out.

Much is researched, written and said about sexual racism in our communities. "No Blacks, no fats, no femmes, no Asians" are all terms any of us who’ve used dating apps have seen and those of us caught in the racist, fat- and femme-phobic crosshairs, we feel the pain acutely. My guest today, Professor Rusi Jaspal, is finding that what has become an ostensibly casual digital discrimination has real world implications on the lives of those that discrimination impacts.Professor Rusi Jaspal began his research career trying to understand how British Pakistani Muslim men reconcile their religion and their sexuality, and has since gone on to lead the way in the UK on research specific to the lives of LGB BAME people. Professor Jaspal is truly unmatched, both in the scope of his research and the depth of his understanding of what it means to live - and oftentimes be invisible - as queer people of colour in Britain.Among much else, his research finds that Black and Minority Ethnic men who have sex with men, who experience rejection from those they love, respect or admire, then enter into a gay scene that does not recognise or validate their lived experience, which makes them more prone to depression. That depression, in turn, makes those men more vulnerable to sexual risk-taking, like chemsex and condomless sex.This conversation is big and rich and eye-opening. It adds some much needed context and texture to the conversations we have about the importance of coming out in our communities. Namely, that we have to create around queer people the environments, the societies and the cultures that accept them for who they are.--@_busybeingblack is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives and Theory in the Flesh is made possible with funding from the British Podcast Awards Fund and Wellcome Trust.Thank you to our partners, UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK and Schools Out.

In their poem Misogynoir, Sea Sharp writes, Maybe mama knows I’d rather burn my leather / than wear it another day for her, would rather / slice this skin in slivers, rip off my flesh like a grapefruit peel. In this poem, which explores a contentious relationship between mother and child, between Black skin and freedom, Sea touches upon one of the profound conflicts queer Black people can contend with when confronted with the trumpeting of the importance of coming out and LGBTQ pride: telling the world we’re queer hardly helps us if we don’t even want to live in our Black skin. Sea Sharp is a Pushcart Prize-winning poet whose latest collection of poems, Black Cotton, is a powerful interrogation and soaring exploration of the wild and vast interior of a queer Black person coming to terms with their identity, sexuality and race, against a backdrop of rural Kansas and south England. Sea’s work is emotionally-charged, confrontational and humorous, gut-wrenching and healing - all at the same - and while reading through their work, I found myself on the verge of tears or laughing in recognition or just pausing to catch my breath. I cannot recommend their work highly enough. We sat down at the Charleston Trust in Lewes on the invitation of OUTing the Past to add some much-needed visibility for queer Black people within British LGBTQ history. We open the show with a graphic account of violence against enslaved people, which some may find hard to hear, so please listen with care.--@_busybeingblack is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe; doing so lets others like us hear the voices amplified here. #busybeingblackThank you to our partners, UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK and our newest partner, Schools Out".--OUTing the Past: The International Festivals of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans History is an international celebration through a series of events throughout the year and around the world, and a conference and gathering for academics and activists once a year in February.

After our conversation on stage at OUTing the Past exploring queer Black histories, Sea Sharp and I took a walk through the countryside to continue our conversation. I had a particular question about themes in their work that speak to a desire for invisibility, but as we approached a group of fenced-in and curious cows, our conversation took quite a turn.--@_busybeingblack is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe; doing so lets others like us hear the voices amplified here. #busybeingblackThank you to our partners, UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK and our newest partner, Schools Out".--OUTing the Past: The International Festivals of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans History is an international celebration through a series of events throughout the year and around the world, and a conference and gathering for academics and activists once a year in February.

How do we have more nuanced conversations about being mixed race that account for more than an internal struggle with the binary Black and white? Chantelle Lewis is an activist, researcher, sociologist and podcaster based at Goldsmiths – and this her beat. Chantelle’s work is focused on structural racism, accountability, and class inequality and her doctoral research explores Black mixed race families in a predominantly white town in the Midlands. She takes us through some of the initial findings in her research, including how a lack of racial literacy in these families results in children who don’t speak about the racism they encounter in the world. We discuss what led her to this research, what she’s learned about how she navigates the world as a mixed-Black woman and names the people and comrades who have helped expand her understanding and her scholarship. She says that we must look beyond our individual identities to understand what our mixed-race identities afford us, what our proximity to whiteness subjects us to and her thoughts on why it’s important that we mixed Black people reflect and think critically about our mixed-ness.https://discoversociety.org/2019/08/23/please-can-we-stop-talking-about-mixed-race-identity-on-its-own/https://leadingroutes.org/--@_busybeingblack is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe; doing so lets others like us hear the voices amplified here. #busybeingblackThank you to our partners, UK Black Pride and BlackOut UK.

In my conversation with Chantelle Lewis, she shares with us some of the initial findings in her doctoral research into Black mixed race families in the midlands. I thought it a great opportunity to sit down with my mum, Josephine, to find out more about her experience married to a Black man and raising mixed race children. She discusses her first encounters with racism, the moment she realised what her children would contend with and the parallel journeys we've been on to understand our responsibilities in the world more fully. --@_busybeingblack is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe; doing so lets others like us hear the voices amplified here. #busybeingblackThank you to our partners, UK Black Pride and BlackOut UK.

Liv Little is the founder and tour-de-force behind gal-dem, an online and print magazine written by women of colour and non-binary people of colour for all to explore. Today we’re in conversation to discuss the genesis of gal-dem and how she’s learned to separate herself from the business she’s built. We explore how gal-dem is helping women and non-binary people of colour navigate our fraught political moment, and why she and the team at gal-dem published I Will Not Be Erased, a project offering words of wisdom to their teenage selves. Liv discusses baking, feeding people she cares for and falling in love with writing again, and how she stays focused on gal-dem’s ultimate mission of revolutionising the publishing industry. She also discusses living life unafraid to love, and how she’s unlocked the little box she put away when she was sixteen after having her heart broken.--@_busybeingblack is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe; doing so lets others like us hear the voices amplified here. #busybeingblackThank you to our partners, UK Black Pride and BlackOut UK.