Representation + Appropriation of Joy
*transcript cleaned by Kaitlyn Gastineau


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what actually in practice are you doing
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to be anti-racist because I said that
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represent representational practice
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if you want to use that language right a
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slave ship is anti-racist
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because there's more Black folks on the
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ship
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than others you know where is a place
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that
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is reflective and and productive
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for marginalized communities to be
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creative innovative and thoughtful that
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is not responding to
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the continual appropriation
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of
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marginalized communities
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love appreciation and joy
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of their lives
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or do you just need to say that you know
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I'm here to have this conversation
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but this is not for you
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and maybe you can
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experience this and get a perspective on
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that maybe you can experience it
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voyeuristically but
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this is not for you
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Black joy often gets taken
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out of context
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even though it draws upon that argument
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that Afropessimism has that that
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Blackness is incommensurable with white
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Western techno culture
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right because the black is never meant
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to be the human it's only meant to be an
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object or to be acted upon and nothing
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that the black outputs is
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belongs to the black it always belongs
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to the human which is not the black
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right so the commensurability question
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comes up over and over again for me as I
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think through it uh in part because of
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the stubborn resistance I had I get
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when I mention Black joy because they
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immediately want to convert joy to an
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exchange value
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so the you say enjoy as resistance no I'm
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saying joy as existence
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not resistance right and I think that's
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that's kind of going where you the
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incommensurability is that people
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struggle so much
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to figure out where to fit joy into a
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political economic or even a capitalist
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or modern right
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system where we're so structured by
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having to do something to live