#KILLJOY CLUB PANIC MODE FULL#
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We might keep saying it because they keep doing it (though we are the ones who will be heard as repeating ourselves). Racismracismracismracismracismracismracismracismracismracismracismracismracismra Speaking of singularity, you just have to say the word racism and you are heard as always saying the word racism, as if you are a broken record, stuck on the same point, as if you canвЂ™t pause for breath, as if you canвЂ™t even punctuate your sentences with any other points. That melancholic migrant is exercised regularly, turning up whenever we bring racism up, as if to say, we talk about racism вЂњjust becauseвЂќ we have a chip on our shoulder, racism as how we instrumentalise, even weaponise, our individual or collective trauma. The melancholic migrant, like any other killjoy, is a useful figure, locating soreness at a certain point. To be a melancholic migrant is to say what I just said, or do what I just did, to use the languages of race, racialization or racism to make sense of who gets to reside here who decides who resides here. The migrant is already a racialised figure: you can be Brown or Black and born here and told to go back to where you came from or to go home.

When Black or Brown people refuse to make light of racism, we find ourselves turned into a ghostly figure, the melancholic migrant. Racism: a word we use because we refuse to make light of this history. There is a history to this making light of history. So much harm, so much history, can be turned into a slight. So often when we talk about racism we are heard as talking about something slight. Note as well how what was said is not only located in the past but is made singular, as if what was said was said once. Note the implication of the wording вЂњjust becauseвЂќ as if what you are doing now, the work you are doing now, perhaps the critiques you are offering now, are because вЂњor just becauseвЂќ you did not get over what someone once said to you in the past. The insult is firmly located in the past ( that distant decade) and attributed to another ( that someone) whilst being said, put into a message, put to a person, in the present. Before a long hate-filled preamble, it said вЂњjust because someone called you a P- in the 1980s.вЂќ Here a racist insult is repeated by saying that it was or had been said. As a lesbian feminist of colour from a Muslim background who writes on racism as well as other forms of power and oppression, albeit keeping my work as far away as I can from mainstream media, I know what I will receive is what I work on. It was a relatively mild message compared to some I have received. Whole buildings were up for auction.Not that long ago I received a message.

#KILLJOY CLUB PANIC MODE WINDOWS#

Right on the seafront, some of the older skyscrapers looked crammed in, lopsided, one with broken windows and needing paint.

#KILLJOY CLUB PANIC MODE FULL#

It was full of sculpture, lively signage, portraiture.Д®verywhere, there were signs that Durban had seen better days. Stephen took me on a tour of this arts centre. This is the north, by a harbour-front arts centre. I think I saw two different harbours, one at the north end of the bay and one further south. In the rain, old colonial Durban was full of haunted palaces. It was pouring with rain-something else I didnвЂ™t see in Cape Town.ДЄfter our interview, Stephen Embleton drove me through a storm around the sites of Durban.

Durban had been a centre of sugarcane production, and all along the coast there were still farms and swathes of greenery. Now itвЂ™s a strange mix of decaying luxury, a harbour, a city of arts, a university town, a colonial capital, and a market town for a huge agricultural surround.ДЇlying into the airport, I saw at once what I had been missing in Cape Town: green.

ItвЂ™s a resort town whose prosperity was in part based on sanctions-South Africans couldnвЂ™t travel so they went to the seaside in Durban. Contrast: wall of an arts centre next to Durban harbour

Killjoy club panic mode