Podcast Transcript: The Triple Cripples on a Bold, Black, British Future that includes Black disabled people

The Voice asked a diverse range of Black people what a bold, Black, British future looked like for Black History Month. This is a transcript of a conversation with Kym and Jumoke, from the Triple Cripples

Kym and Jumoke, from the Triple Cripples spoke to the Voice about a bold, Black British future
PICTURED: Kym and Jumoke, from the Triple Cripples spoke to the Voice about a bold, Black British future

THIS IS a transcript from a conversation that was had as part of our Bold, Black British Future campaign for Black History Month.

Kym and Jumoke from the Triple Cripples told us why we need to centre the most marginalised in our community, how ableism is linked to racism and why we all need each other.

Please note, the transcription is written as people spoke, and therefore may not always be grammatically correct.

You can listen to the podcast here.

Music plays

Izin: Good morning, good evening or good afternoon whenever you’re listening guys and welcome to the final installment of our Bold, Black British future series here at The Voice newspaper. I’m very excited because I am joined by two really, really lovely ladies. Would you guys like to introduce yourselves? 

Jumoke: Yes go ahead Kim

Kym: Go on Jumoke 

Izin: (Laughts) Not all at once

Jumoke: Ok, well I’ll introduce myself my name’s Jumoke, I’m one half of the Triple Cripples hailing from the nation of Nigeria, a true Yorubaddie in name and in lifestyle.

Izin: I love that, Yorubaddie,  I absolutely love that. I wish I was Yoruba just so I could say that, for those of you that don’t know, Yoruba is like a tribe in Nigeria 

Kym: Yeah, they’re a really cool ethnic group. I am unfortunately, only an honorary member of the Yoruba ethnic group. I live my Yoruba life vicariously through Jumoke. I’m Kym. I’m the other half of the dynamic duo, Triple Cripples. I am equally proud of my heritage as a Montserratian and Ghanaian, British-born woman of extreme height and excellence (laughs). So yeah, we are sisters in more than just a name, I think, Jumoke and I, though we’ve been born to different parental units and are very much connected in spirit.

Jumoke: Yes

Kym: Triple cripples would not be what it is if both of us were not joined umbilically in the spirit realm. Asè

Izin:I love that, also, I feel like if you’re an honorary, Yoruba person, it’s almost like being a VIP one. 

Kym: This is what I say. Jumoke has taught me like one or two phrases. And so when I used them around Yoruba people, they’re like: ‘Oh, well done!’ I feel like I’m in 

Izin: They give you, like a little round of applause. So thank you, I guess. First of all, thank you both of you for agreeing to speak to me today. And thank you also for bearing with me and my technical difficulties. I really, really appreciate that and you guys contributing to our series this month on and I guess we’ll get straight into it. But you guys feel free to like, lead the discussion. The first question I have really is as a community, as a Black community. What can we do to really immediately, be like better allies to Black disabled people.

Kym: Well, no I think it’s important that we preface it with the reason why Jumoke and I have had to create something like Triple Cripples right and it comes out, of a lack of representation and unaddressed discrimination that Black people and people of colour with disabilities face particularly Black people right. 

 We are a world majority. If we think about the population of human beings and let’s say about 20% or so of us do have a disability. We’re talking about the world majority, black and brown people around the world.

About 20% of us have a disability. Where are those people? We don’t see them. We may know them individually and little pocket than our families, but we don’t talk about it. We’re not represented in media, were not represented in educational spheres, were not represented even in kind of medical spheres  and so what impact does that have? Not only on our outcomes, but on the collective consciousness. Right? If I don’t see myself represented, I don’t know what’s possible for me, but also others who live outside of my experience don’t even know that I exist right and that’s the case for a lot of disabled Black people they are often isolated, they’re the only person usually in their circle in their family who has a disability.

But because of a combination of the, um, media suppression of black faces and Black diversity , um, and our inherent, you know, the taboo surrounding illness and disability. That’s, a lot of it is rooted in historical contexts, enslavement. Right. If you are ill, if you cannot do, if you’re not robust in the ways that will produce capitalist gain, if you cannot work from dawn to dusk, from sun up to sunset, if you perhaps have a weaker constitution, if you’re not built a certain way, all of these things for the men and women who were enslaved could mean that they were sold off.

Could mean abuse, could mean torture, could mean death. And so you want to avoid those things. And also, if you produce a child that they have any kind of anomaly in terms of when they’re born, what the medical terms birth defect. You do not necessarily want that to be found out, because that will mean that you can’t produce because we were being reared like cattle. You cannot produce good stock, and so you will be replaced. How do we replace someone who’s just supposed to be a womb?

Right? A production womb. There are many, multiple things that we shall leave to the imagination. But none of them are good. All of them are grim, all of them inhumane and entirely unfair. And those things, those ideas, those fears, those learned understandings that were there for hundreds of years. They don’t just go away overnight, right? And then you have to think about the socio economic situation that black people were left in. Not jus,  we talk about enslavement a lot without talking about the colonialism that was going on on the continent as well.

Right and so what does it mean for you not to be able to produce labour in a particular way? What does it mean for you not to be able to carry the group because our survival is literally tied to our ability to do, to produce. We are. We were like the foundation of capitalism in a lot of ways, right? That idea of just producing, producing, producing, producing without actually taking into consideration. Okay, How do we give back to those that produce things like capitalism is like a vampiric entity.

And so what does that? How does that then reflect on how we treat members of the group who cannot carry the load? What? How does it reflect on the members of the group who aren’t presenting us as the best so that we can have just that little bit more crumbs from the master? Right? And this is, it’s a reductive way of talking about it, but those ideas are very deeply ingrained and if you think about how many generations can pass in 500 years, how many generations will be born and die, and then you also add religion to it?

Yeah, the idea of, you know, for a lot of us, the religions that we follow are coloniser religions, they’re not necessarily the ones, if you won’t even say Oh, you know. But there was an original version of Christianity, or there was an original version of, you know, Islam That wasn’t A, B or C. The ones that we were given, the ones that have kind of overrun, um, the places that we are from, are the coloniser versions of things. Things have changed.  Things are adapted. But certain parts are focused on, the idea of wretchedness, the idea of God punishing people for things that perhaps they haven’t done in order to cover up the inhumane treatment that they were receiving.

And that was on purpose that was created by these enslavers, that was created by these oppressors. But they were dressing it up as God’s will, right? So then, you know, if we think about all of those things in context for hundreds of years and however many generations passed, we come to modern day and black people. We don’t talk about illness when we are ill. When we’re feeling pain, we mask it. We just keep on going because somehow you know we’re supposed to just get on with things.

If someone is ill, we hush hush it about. We don’t really talk about it too tough. There’s like embarrassment there. There’s shame, there’s, religious kind of indoctrination that tells us that there’s something evil about it. Someone is doing us harm because it’s wrong. It’s inherently wrong, and all of these things and these expectations of superhumanity from ourselves. It makes sense that there is the situation now where black distabled people, especially black disabled women. Because misogynoir is a real thing, are completely erased. So in order to talk about how we can be better allies, I think it’s important that we understand why we are where we are.

You cannot move forward without looking back. 

Jumoke: Yeah, what Kim said. 

Izin: Yeah, I was just, I was taking it all in and I think it was really, really,powerful. I think especially, you kind of really broke down why maybe a word like immediately is almost like a naive word to use in this case because we are confronting, um, such a deep and  long history of ableism in and of itself. And then it comes into contact with so many other legacies, whether it be of colonialism, and the enslavement as you’ve mentioned and these really strong capitalist ideas that, you know, if I’m not producing then somehow that, like defines my worth or my inherent value 

Kym: And shame, you know, because the joke is, like a lot of our ancestors would have been disabled, not by their own doing, but by the doing of those who were enslaving them right, there were all kinds of weird punishments that made and not just the punishments but the nature of the work they were doing.

The arduous toil, the labour. Just the things that they were expected to do and how they were expected to do them. Health and safety. What is that? Do you know what I mean? Could you actually think about it? People were having to make sugar from molasses. They were having to use mills and you know, all of those things and those things that they were doing in order to produce were also used against them to punish them. They were running their hands through the mills in order to punish them for things.

There were all sorts of they were cutting off their feet. They were doing all sorts of things. And so actually a large proportion of our ancestors would have become or been made or become disabled because of environmental factors, Right? Not to mention the conditions. I’m sure lots of things emerged from that, but the fact that that isn’t even something we think about or talk about shows just how deeply rooted the ableism is in the community. And we have to be very clear that that does not come from us, that depth of it, that trying to push it away, that definitely does not come from us.

And we need to put the onus at the feet of those who created it that’s my party line. I finished 

Jumoke: What I would add onto that  is not putting it on their feet, but, you know, as I mentioned, you know,Naija, Yoruba, put it on their head. 

Jumoke: Yeah, just put it on top of the head and I’m not gonna put it at your feet. No put it on their head.

Izin: I love that. I think that’s really interesting for me then because I guess it sounds to me as if,  and correct me if I’m wrong.

But it’s like, so then in times of, the black community, being better allies, to black disabled people it’s also a process that you’re saying that is kind of tied into, um, whiteness and how it kind of, um dictates value. And so it’s not a process that we as a community can undergo independently? Is that kind of, what I could be hearing something very wrong.

Kym:  I’m not saying that we can’t undergo things independently. Forget the White Gaze. You  know what you mean. But what I’m saying is that we have to have a firm understanding of what the situation is, right?

And so it’s not that we can’t undo these things. But these things, these issues are intertwined with the other issues wie’re facing. I think often we try and kind of separate the arm from the leg from the eye from the eyebrow like and deal with these things in compartments. But actually it’s all interlinked. All our liberation is interlinked right, so all of the issues that we’re basing it on. We’re talking about ableism, fundamentally we’re talking about fighting against white supremacist ideas of humanhood, white supremacist, ideas of beauty, white supremacist, ideas of value and all of these things tied into it, right?

And so it’s a question of Are we cognisant of the things that we’re dealing with? How many of us are cognisant of the things that we’re dealing with and then as we’re approaching it. We’re approaching it with these understandings, right? We’re approaching it, knowing that this is all part of the process towards liberation especially, and this is something Jumoke and I say alll the time about centering the most marginalised people. If you are trying to make any kind of tangible change in the world already community or any, um, system or whatever and in the black community, we need to be centering the most marginalised of us in order to create the kind of change that we would like to see happen.

Because if you look after the most marginalised, you know, everyone else benefits as Jumoke says, there is, no one is gonna pull through the gaps and so it’s recognising. And I don’t know what the answer to this particular thing is, but it, can we get to a place where we can recognise the humanity of those that we have been historically taught. To revile.  Can can we get there? Do we have the ability to unlearn the things that have been programmed in that respect? Can we unlearn that?

Because there’s a lot of anti blackness  and learned anti blackness and taught anti blackness internalised racism that we’re facting. And that is what a lot of the time makes us unable to, or unwilling to recognise the other within our community. And often we don’t recognise  that that rejection of the other, that rejection of people who, we say, don’t fit within what we know to be, quote unquote normal. Often that is directly a teaching of white supremacy. But it’s often dressed up.

Oh, it’s dressed up as religion. It’s  dressed up as respectability politics. It’s dressed up as, you know all sorts of other things, and it’s not recognised at its riot

Izin: I think that like what you said was so powerful, it made me think of a quote by Audre Lorde, which is like, I could be like saying it, not completely correct, but it’s like there’s no such thing as a single issue struggle because we don’t live like single issue lives, which I think is really relevant to what, you kind of said, Kim, did you have anything you wanted to add on that at all?

Jumoke: Anything to add, What I will say is, as Kim had mentioned, earlier, is that you know, all of our freedoms are tied in together so as to give a very recent and still ongoing example what’s happening in like our home nation, you and I Izin of Nigeria is that quite a number of disturbing tweets, disturbing but not surprising. Tweets that I’ve seen is that, yes, I want liberation for Nigerians. But I don’t want it for queer Nigerians. So there’s a sense of there’s a right way to be black and there’s a wrong way to be black.

And we cannot allow ourselves to for any moment, at any instance at any intersection side with the oppressors, because how can you be for the liberation of Nigerian people and  you’re not there for the liberation of Nigerians that happen to be queer. That happen to live life differently to you. And you can replace Nigerian with the global black nation. Shall we say it doesn’t matter, you know, like where they’re from, we cannot be for the whole. If we’re trying to exclude part of that, then we are only for a select few, and it’s like you are aiding this thing that you are trying to fight and For some, it’s a case of they would sooner, not be free than to allow those they feel are living life incorrectly or are born incorrectly or are whatever they feel to be incorrectly.

Than for them to be free also. And this is sometimes what’s said about disability those that are visibly disabled, right? It’s like, um okay, this and it’s Ah, of course, a very eugenicist view and standpoint that okay, we can cleanse ourselves almost of the sub par of us, of the not quite right of us, of the abnormal of us. And then we can get to this pure whole that we’re looking for, now if that’s a not a white supremacist, eugenicist view of something, do you get what I mean.

Within the Yoruba, 

traditional religion, I believe if I’m not incorrect that it’s Obatala that is the deity for those, for disabled people, like we literally have a deity for disabled people. And I’m sure this isn’t 

Izin: That so interesting, I’ve never heard of that before. 

Jumoke: Yeah, like it’s not. And this is to say that this isn’t something necessarily like Yoruba specific, because there’s so many instances in which our traditional religions, you know,  we have the same people.

But they’re called slightly different things, you know, and so being disabled is very much a part of the human experience as is. Being queer is very much a part of the human experience. So if we are to be for the liberation for you and I, we have to be for the liberation for you and I in whichever form, shape and lived experience that we happen to come in. 

Izin: I think that’s so powerful, I think, have you the things you guys have touched on in terms of, there are things I often think about a lot in terms of discrimination in that as a community, we can recognise that like we are disadvantaged in some ways. But then when we are called upon to recognise how we are, um ableist or homophobic to other black people, it’s like a cognitive dissonance that is difficult to understand and I think the way you guys have linked it with respectability politics and internalised white supremacist ways of thinking is really important. The next question I have for you guys is who are important black British disabled voices from history that you feel have been overlooked or forgotten

Kym: For me, I think, the important thing to mention is that every single, um, black disabled person in history is important, right?

Izin: 100% 

Kym: And should have been remembered and should be remembered, Um, a lot of our ancestors, had as I said before, been impacted severely by their environment. As well as probably had conditions and all sorts of things and some we will never know, right. And I think one of the things that I’m trying, in my later life to not do is feedinto exceptionalism.

Izin: Okay, I love that

Kym: Because yeah, because I feel like this idea of Oh, no. But you know, let’s point to these not to say that the input or the triumphs or the strides that certain individuals have made, often not by themselves, but because we’re all a community right, and it takes a whole load of people to make one thing happen

But not to say that their contributions aren’t noteworthy. But in order, at least for me in order to kind of combat the idea that: ‘Oh, look, here’s a token Good black, you know So we’re worthy because this person did this outstanding unbelievable thing in the face of all the adversity in the world, you know, therefore, they deserve accolades, therefore they deserve recognition. I think I’m trying to push back against that because it feeds into the idea that we need to prove our worthiness, and our value within this particular environment and system. 

But also, it means that those of us who made, it feeds  into the idea that those of us who may not have done A, B or C don’t necessarily have as much value or should not be remembered. Um, and so for me, like though there are, yes, of course there are people. You could mention. Um, I would definitely mention my grandparents because without them. I would not be here. Um, may their souls rest in peace and all of the, you know, elders, Um but I think for me that that’s where I sit, there are some amazing people and then on the other, on the extreme other end of it.

I’m also like give people their flowers while they’re alive. There are so many people alive right now. Who are doing amazing things whether that’s, I think her name is Julie Jacobs. Is it Julie Jacobs Jay? 

Jumoke: Julie J. Charles. She used to be part of the Equalities National Council, which, unfortunately is no more during the hit of COVID but has started a new organisation called Start Change which is good. 

Kym: So, even someone like them, Um, someone like Marsha De Cordova,  someone like there’s this amazing, amazing,woman that I know who is just, I don’t know anyone more phenomenal, actually, as a person who has the heart that they do for, um, not just disabled people, disabled black people, but for black people in general and the diaspora, and has a vision of pan-Africanism that rivals that of the forefathers who had their conference here back in the day, you know, their name is Jumoke Abdullahi. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them.

Jumoke: Oh my God. 

Izin: I love that. 

Kym: And it’s true. Give people their flowers. There are so many people we could name, you know, whether that’s Katouche Goll or whether that 

Izin: I love her, she’s incredible. 

Kym: she’s phenomenal right

Jumoke: We love her 

Kym: Whenever Katouche speaks, whenever she writes something, it will always be not only informative and thought provoking, but it’s always challenging. It’s always a challenge. It always forces you to expand. Um, and the level of kind of intellect and reasoning skill that she has and her ability to convey concepts is like it’s to me. I haven’t encountered many people who have an ability and have that skill and with such poise and calm. You know, she’s quite phenomenal. But yeah, there are so many people we could name right and maybe that naming is also important because disabled people are erased,  disabled Black people 

have been arranged historically. Perhaps it is necessary to mention their names in that way. Vanessa Wallace. She’s the Paralympian. She’s also an amazing, um, Jamaican baby girl like there are people we can mention 

Jumoke: Caroline Nelson. 

Kym: Yeah, so it’s important. Yes, I guess, to contradict my own philosophy in this respect because of And that’s the thing about nuance, right? Because we’ve been historically erased and often where we do exist, our disabilities, if someone is excellent at something and they’re black.

Their disability is often hidden in order to fit in with the respectability politics of presenting themselves as the best kind of black. You know, the untainted black, the black that is palatable, to  whiteness and meets the standards 

of what white people think an excellent black buck or an excellent black sow  should be right, Um, and so they’re if they do have disabilities, it’s hidden, or it’s hush hush or whatever. If they’re a single parent, it’s hush hush 

 You know, all those things. Um, so I think, yes, perhaps we do need to just have a list and name and say the names of all of the disabled black people in Britain who have made inroads.

And maybe that’s something that we can work on collating that list and kind of making it, um, a known thing. 

Kym: Yeah, and that’s something we’re trying to do with the Triple Cripples as well. Like it’s a lifelong, you know, goal and dream of ours just to have this body of work almost like this quite literal living archive. To give people their flowers, you know, while they’re,  while they’re here and also just have it be something beautiful, you know, because so often, whenever blackness is discussed whenever black people are discussed there is so much pain, there’s just so much hurt

There’s so much blood. There’s just so much anguish so to have this body of work that is beautiful that you know, centres black disability in the ways that we should feel that it should be celebrated and honoured and have its place, you know, within the legacies of disability and also within the legacies of, you know, blackness within black history. Because it is a part of that and we have to, we have to recognise that. 

Izin: Oh, I think of what was said in terms of that tension between, like the violence, that black excellence or this like um, but I think the term you used was black exceptionalism. Yeah, does to us  as individuals in terms of… well, no, it would be wrong of me to centre myself here, but does to people in general and I guess particularly black marginalised communities such as disabled black people. The violence that that does,  is important to recognise. And there is not perhaps a tension but at the same time it is important to, to give people their flowers while they’re here. Because so often, people are doing amazing things and it’s not until they go or something that everyone’s like.

It was amazing, but yeah, I think those are all like, all really, really interesting points. I guess the next question I have is what is needed So that –  it might be that this might lead to a similar response to my last question and if so, like please, go ahead. But what is needed other than a real need to recognise what we are up against in terms of history. An intense and heavy history of Um ableism that is linked to white supremacy and capitalism

What is needed. So a bold black British future includes the black disabled community? 

Jumoke: Well, definitely you have to start it by including disabled black people. I think that’s that’s the best place to start because so often, and for so long as Kim has mentioned, it’s just kind of like being black and being disabled is, you know, so often seen as the antithesis to black excellence,  because this is not excellence. This is what we are trying to do away with, to come away from on and I think I was on Twitter.

I mean, I live on Twitter, so this should be unsurprising to nobody. 

Izin: I also live on the Internet, you know, it’s quite unhealthy 

Jumoke: And I believe Tobi the wonderful baby girl from Black Ballad, had been I believe joining in a conversation, talking about how we should as much as we can try to edge away and kind of like remove ourselves away from trying to be the very first of something because that is another tool of white supremacy. It’s the case of, like Oh the very first black person to do this, the very first black person to do that.

The very first, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And as Kym had rightly mentioned earlier like no man is an island, we do nothing by ourselves. We are aided. We are assisted. We are helped by, you know, those that are around us and so often just because we proclaim somebody to be the first doesn’t necessarily mean that they were the first. I mean, Chris Columbus, you know, claimed that you know he had discovered America. You can’t discover a place where there are already people there. So it’s another tool,  White supremacy has lots and lots of tools, which is why, in order to fight white supremacy, we have to fight it with absolutely everything we have.

We have to be creative and ingenious as well, because you cannot fight this behemoth at just one angle. You have to fight at all angles at all times and it’s a case of we have to relish and celebrate the fact that we are interdependent. We need one another and especially, you know, as black people. We have a gruesome, unfortunately shared history brought about through colonialism. But it’s a case of we are each other’s keeper. We need to look after each other if we are to make it essentially and by make it I don’t mean just surviving.

I mean to actually thrive, and I don’t mean to thrive, to be considered excellent in terms of how much money we have in our bank account or how many baskets we can make, which are all well and good. But it’s a case of we can just be like we can just be black and that would be okay. That would be enough. And it’s something that’s been said that we should also be able, to you know, like celebrate black mediocrity. For me, no black person is mediocre. I mean, except for Black Tories

But anyway,

Izin: The shade was just peppered in there, just a little bit of a garnish. It was like salt bae.  I felt that. That was very eloquently done. 

Jumoke: Let me add a little bit more garnish. The amount of these cats that are Yoruba – be sensible. Anyway, it’s a case of we need to celebrate, 

you know, the fact that we are each other and it’s like I am because we are. We cannot do this alone. We have to lean into one another and pool our resources together and take comfort and joy in one another so we can cry together and we can laugh together and we can win together. And there won’t be any division because I am not Ibo. You’re not Yoruba. This person is not Ghanaian. That one isn’t this. It’s like, no, we’re all in this together because we are all black. 

Kym: No, no, no. I was just going to stay like Jumoke for President. 

Izin : Absolutely. 

Kym: And it is that right? It’s rejecting this me, myself thing

And I think that is very, very pervasive in our culture. Yeah, and it’s a Western thing, though. Like it’s a very Western thing, we’re not, we’re a community raises a child People. These people are a nuclear family kind of thing. Like we are a people who is like, Okay, if something’s going wrong in the community, let’s all go and have a community meeting like first of all The first thing I’d be thinking as a modern day black person

 is I don’t want  everybody in my business, you know what I mean? But the way in which that understanding that if a discord in one house could be a problem for everyone in the community that even that concept, right, like being able to just grab back onto that and kind of.

And it’s not to say that things should be the same, because I very much believe that in advancement, I very much believe that we should learn from our ancestors and adapt so that we can make their systems better. You are supposed to be an improvement on your ancestor, right? You’re not supposed to go and say Okay, well, this because with this, the way things have always been done and every time we do this, something breaks. But you know what? It’s always been done this way so we’ll do it.

You’re supposed to say, Okay. How do we stop that thing from breaking? Because this other part of it is really good. So how do we adapt this or make it more expansive or make it so that there is something to catch the thing that breaks? And then the next generation will be like. Okay, how about we create the thing out of something that won’t break when it drops, and then the next generation will be like, Oh, but we can just replace that thing altogether or skip that step and we’ll still have this amazing result.

And I think that what it’s supposed to be like and to Jumoke’s point about us seeing each other as one, um, some of that and some of that in terms of, um and I guess to answer some of your question as well Izin is us being able to – Toni Morrison talked about the white gaze right and I feel like a lot of us are so tied into it. Our perceptions not just of self but each other are so tied into whiteness. This perception of us right and this comparison, this comparison thing that happens not just of how, us comparing ourselves to white people in terms of an inferiority thing and what they’ve achieved and what they, what they have, despite the fact that what they have has been built quite literally upon our backs, using our blood and sweat as mortar.

And our tears, you know, to drink there is, there is also the element of us kind of trying to see what they might see in us and trying to meet these expectations that they might have right. True black autonomy would mean freeing ourselves from those shackles. It means being able to imagine ourselves as diverse, and wonderful and beautiful in and of ourselves, by our own definition, right, And by our own definition, being able to see ourselves as beautiful and wonderful by our own definition would also mean healing the wounds that have caused us to see ourselves as the less than beautiful, to see those of us who don’t fit white supremacist body ideals, um, you know, as undeserving and undesirable and therefore should not be seen or heard like it would, it would counteract all of those things if you’re able to heal those wounds, because those wounds also fuel this kind of being very aware of the white gaze and kind of catering towards whiteness in that way.

And so, if we’re able to heal that, we’ll move automatically into a place of black autonomy that is, that defines itself, that recognises itself for the first time, we’ll be able to see each other, really see each other. Um, I feel like sometimes right now we can’t see one another. We understand the idea of the other as a concept through these lines of divide that were created for us by whiteness. Oh, I know that person is another black person because their skin is dark, and I know that they’re from this place called Nigeria.

Or they’re from this place called Angola or from this place called Jamaica or whatever. And we’ve got all of these. We’ve got all of this terminology that isn’t even our own not even our own 

Izin: Because we didn’t even choose the names of these places. You’re so right it goes so deep 

Kym: Yeah, and so we’re not defining ourselves in almost all the ways that are necessary. Even the words and the language that we use to describe our features and our hair and all of these things. It’s not even, we’re not even speaking our own languages

So there is so much work to be done. But if we start removing the idea of, and maybe it’s the respectability politics thing, I don’t know, maybe it’s that idea of Okay, what would white people think about this situation? And therefore that dictating our level of shame or our level of comfort or our  level of pride or our level of whatever? Because that is, I think, a guiding principle for most of us like, and that’s why we allow white supremacy to tell us that one black person doing something or 10 black people doing something is an indictment upon all black people.

It’s because we are constantly not only is that portrayed to us that somehow that’s the truth. But we also perpetuate, believe it, imbue it, perpetuate it right we go. Okay. Well, you know. Oh, don’t do that. You’re  letting the side  down son,  you’re letting the side down and it’s like we are so diverse and I’m not. This is not me discounting the fact that what you see you become in the sense that if you see enough of one particular type of thing, you feel that’s all you’re capable of.

If you, it’s also not me discounting the programming and the social engineering that goes into funnelling black Children and black people into particular avenues, it’s not me discounting the school to prison pipeline, which is very real. It’s not me discounting any of those other factors that cause us to go. Ah please don’t do that so that because we know how white people are going to react to it. But  it’s me saying that instead of saying, Ah, we know how white people are gonna feel, it should be okay.

This isn’t good for us, Let’s fix this for us and it’s It’s a slight shift, but it means everything because all of a sudden your worry, your care, your concern is not for that of your oppressor. It’s big, it’s for you. It’s for each other. And to that thing that Jumoke is talking about right that we are not islands. It’s suddenly, suddenly instead of me thinking about how something is going to look, I’m going to be thinking about how something is going to feel and how it’s going to affect us, how it’s going to affect our family because we are family.

And that shift will make me think of different solutions for the problems that exist, as opposed to the ones that we have created. The solutions we’ve created that really remedy the perception of us from others. That’s not our problem. What someone thinks about you is not your problem. 

Izin; Oh, if you would like to preach today. 

Jumoke: People’s opinions of you are not your business.

Izin: The choir said Amen. 

Kym: It’s really not. And so I guess, and it’s like ok Kim but what are the practical things. That’s the practical thing.

The practical thing is definitely being like okay, and no swearing allowed. But, you know, forget what these man think in any kind of situation

Forsake  the white supremacist gaze because that that that is, that is the key to not only our liberation but our unification because then when we’re looking at other black people we’ll be looking at them with eyes of compassion and eyes of understanding. We won’t be looking at a black person who might, may be not dressed the way we think they should dress or you know,  you could make an effort.

All of this kind of, all of these ideas. Why do they need to make an effort to leave the house? Why and what what does… What does effort mean? And what  does looking. What does looking presentable mean? And why and why should that affect and why do you and it feeds into, you know, everything? And instead of looking at them like that, we’ll, just see them Just see a person as opposed to see a representative to the audience of whiteness that we all leave. We all leave our houses every single day in white majority nations with the heavy burden, of performing for this invisible, vast audience and If we were able to imagine, can you imagine the freedom and the lightness and the space in your mind and your heart and your spirit that you would have if you weren’t constantly, always hyper aware of every single move you make or everything you say how you say it where you go the type of education you have, what you wear, how your hair needs to be, all of these things in order to, you know, amuse or cater to this audience.

Like if you weren’t dedicating so much space to that, what could you be doing? What could we be doing? What could you be creating? What could you be achieving? And I don’t mean achieving as in capitalist gain. I just mean achieving, learning about yourself is achieving all of that brain space could be dedicated to becoming a better person. Becoming less ableist, becoming, but we’re so consumed with the performance of selfl right in the world. 

Izin: I think I feel like my questions were like, um how can the black community be less ableist

I feel like you girls, you women. Sorry, I didn’t mean that in a derogatory way. 

Jumoke: It’s okay. We baby girls

Kym:  I still want to be a girl, as long as I 

Izin: Girls, women, incredible 

Kym: Infant. Please. let’s also

Jumoke: Kym said it;s me, your favorite zygote.

Izin: Yes, for everyone But I feel like you have come with, like more than that you’ve come with, like, almost a manifesto for freedom, for liberation. It makes me think so much of the quote that I’ve kind of, It’s a quite from Audre Lorde, because for me, like I’m completely in awe of her, it’s like there is no liberation without community and this idea of all of our freedom being tied up in each other’s freedom.

And yes, so I just I feel like my questions were like how can black people be less ableist and you guys have responded just completely, thought bigger and widened the scope in a really beautiful way that has really made me think and reflect, because you really are saying that you really have demonstrated how ableism is just really tied into oppression on a, on a larger scale and so it’s not as simple as that step. It’s like you have to almost zoom out and think bigger in order to tackle those steps because I think sometimes as well, like, you can perform inclusiveness, but not fundamentally, really.

I don’t know if I’m making sense. Maybe I’m just waffling 

Kym: No you’re not

Jumoke: You’re making sense. I was ready to, like, pick up the gems you’re gonna drop us, like go for it Izin. 

Izin: Yeah, it’s like you can perform inclusivity, but it’s still it’s still performing, it’s still like it looks good to be inclusive, but it’s like you still, at the end of the day, kind of go home and are like quite cruel to yourself, quite cruel to others. And I can’t link it to a specific thing. But as you guys were speaking.

I just came back to like it’s grace, it’s grace for ourselves, it’s grace for each other. Just grace. So yeah, thank you so much, I think I mean,  I expected to learn so much from both of you and have learned infinitely so much that I will have to listen again. And rethink cos even being here once is not enough. There is another question, but I wonder again, if  it’s from my small scale thinking. 

Jumoke: But what I will say, actually to thinking about small scale thinking, big scale thinking, Kym and I had the pleasure and the honour, I think a couple of months ago or something to have a conversation with a wonderful baby girl Diamond Styles from Marsha’s Plate.

And it was a case of talking about thinking bigger so for those within the margins. So for those that have been pushed completely out, to the edge, those that are queer, those that are fat, those that are disabled, those that are dark skin, those that are pushed to the sides because of their religion, whatever it might be that, of course, you think bigger. Of course, you look at the bigger picture because you’ve been so far removed from the centre, you can see the whole actual thing. So it’s not a case of disabled people or like trans people.

Queer people having to figure out and like fight for the crumbs of maybe trying to get housing, trying to get this whatever. It’s like no let’s build. Let’s build homes for one another. Let’s build spaces that are filled with love and compassion and acceptance and just all of these wonderful things for one another. And it’s only those within the margins that can actually see that big. So it’s not a case of you are thinking small because it’s just kind of: ‘Oh you just need to do better.’ But the further you are away from the centre, the bigger the picture gets and how vast and huge that you can think.

Like these things can actually be changed on a grand scale. Which is why you’re not going to get the best ideas from those that are non-disabled from those are white, from those that are men, from those that are cisgendered because they’ve never needed to concern themselves with these things, you have to ask the people that are so often at the point of violence, that are so often like it’s not a case of you. People are falling through the cracks. I promise you this right here, right now, you are being pushed.

It is not an accident. So we need to talk to and include and centre those at the margins to actually get the full picture, to get the brightest picture and to actually live vibrant lives that we are all deserving of. 

Kym: Yeah. Yeah. 

Izin: I love that, that’s so beautiful. 

Kym: That’s why I said what I said about her, you know, Izin

Izin:  You were right. You were spitting facts both of you. Preaching. You lot came to preach this evening and I’m here with my Bible taking notes. Honestly, it’s incredible I think and like, it resonates so deeply.

And I think it’s so true in terms of our best ideas, our best hopes for us as an entire community, it’s not a benevolent thing to include the most marginalised because the most marginalised have vision and insight 

Jumoke: Yes beyond what we could even imagine 

Izin: It’s the only way that we can be our richest as a community. It’s not like a benevolent being, like these people have been marginalised, so let’s include them or let’s ask them, it’s not a case of that. It’s, this is where the hope of our community lies.

Yeah, with the people with the widest vision, because I often feel like  just being a black woman that, like wanting anything for myself, often is audacious, you know? I mean, just just like, usual things. It feels audacious just by virtue of being black and a woman. So the more marginalised 

Jumoke: You should be audacious. We need audacity  

Izin: But yeah, no, really, really, really, really powerful stuff. Thank you again. Um I guess the last question I had,  was just something that I think is in general has been because I mean, 2020 has been a year where, unfortunately I feel like police brutality or brutality against black people has really been, you know, at the forefront, has really been so, so present and felt, I think very painful for a lot of us.

Um, even here in the UK and I think something that is not really mentioned in that discussion is, um, again, like how? How disproportionately disabled people are victims of police brutality and I don’t really think that there have been and I guess it’s always dangerous to say that like nobody has been thinking about it because there will always be organisations that have been doing incredible work that I just won’t know about. I don’t think in mainstream, we’ve really considered, um, specifically how the violence that police do towards disabled people due to lack of training and lack of knowledge.

And I guess maybe it’s a silly question, but does that surprise you that that conversation, as far as I’m aware anyway, hasn’t been had, um, in the mainstream. 

Kym: I’m not surprised for all of the reasons that we started off talking about right, about the active erasure of Black disabled people from any narrative, but also black people aren’t… so disabled people. Sorry, are generally in these societies, not cared about in any way, shape or form though there are, people say, Oh, no. But there are things in place to help them.

And there are things in place to, assuage the guilt of the well meaning masses. You know  there are things in place to allow these poor cripples to survive. You know, at least you have some food on your table. Be it little, albeit breadcrumbs. You know, it’s that kind of They’ve got that kind of attitude towards them: ‘Oh look at them, they’re allowed, they can get onto one of them, can get onto the bus at a time. That’s wonderful for them. Hope you’re having a nice day out,’ that kind of thing that they extend to people.

Izin: Patronising. 

Kym: Yeah, because they’re not necessarily seen as people, right, as whole individuals who deserve to experience the full array of life and emotions and participate as equal members of society, right? So if that’s already the case for disabled people in general and this puts white disabled people, those who are not born into the seat of privilege. I don’t know what the experience is for those who are born in the seat of privilege, though they will probably have access to more things that allow them to participate in life.

But for the majority of disabled people, that is, the reality is that they are expected to survive, not thrive, not live, not enjoy. And so that’s why when they do, it’s like an anomaly like: ‘Oh wow, what are you doing? Clever monkey!’ Like it, that kind of attitude, when you see a monkey playing an instrument that someone’s kind of abused in order to get it to do so, like it’s that kind of reaction as opposed to Well, no, of course, that’s supposed to be normal.

Of course, you’re supposed to experience the fullness of life and of course, you’re supposed to experience, also the hardships that we all experience as well. You’re supposed to be an equal participant. No one’s saying that disabled people are supposed to be living lives of luxury, though I feel like for some of us, like the experiences that we have with our illnesses alone, please just let us live, but in the sense that that is the case for the general disabled populace. Um, and it’s not long ago that disabled people were institutionalised people forget this, that it’s not long ago in British history.

That’s not far away ,where they were locked away and put in institutions. Okay, what does that mean? If you add the intersection of blackness. Immediately, it means less visibility. So if we, if you know a disabled person who got attacked or happened to be in the fray when something went on between law enforcement, there might be some, because they’re kind of disabled lobbying groups and all these kinds of things. I don’t about lobbying groups but disabled organisations that are there to kind of represent disabled people and their needs and kind of advocate on their behalf

Um, there might be some kind of uproar. There might be some kind of, you know, media coverage or something, bearing in mind that most the people on the boards for all of these kind of disability organisations are white.  For a black disabled person, most the time, you’re not necessarily connected to any of those organisations because access isn’t just about being able to get into a room. It’s also about who you know and the services you’re connected to and the opportunities you have. Black people in general, are information, there’s an information deficit amongst people of colour but particularly black people. There’s an information and access deficit when it comes to social mobility and all of those things that there are so many things that we are not included in or aware of and information that is gatekept from us, purposefully, even that which is supposed to help us, that we are deserving of. And by the way we are deserving of everything, because my ancestors didn’t come and suffer for their fatigue to still be in my bones.

For you to say to me, I don’t deserve something anyway, so there’s already that right. And then you’ve got to think ok so there’s no representation in terms of someone’s not going to necessarily come to the aid of a disabled black person who’s in the fray. But their blackness also makes them, it criminalises them right, because there’s the stereotype of black criminality that has been orchestrated and kind of perpetuated for years and years and years in the media. Media, powerful tool, right? And then, if you even add femmehood or being perceived as a woman to it, well, black women are supposed to be able to bear the brunt of life’s ills and shut their mouths and get on with it and look after master’s children and look and carry on doing their jobs and their work and any pain they feel.

Of course, they don’t feel pain, they’re animals, right? Because we used to operate on them without anaesthesia. And that’s how we got our whole gynaecological medical theory because we used to operate on these wombs without anaesthesia because they don’t feel pain cos they’re akin to animals. But animals feel pain because we have whole organisations dedicated to protecting animals. So if you think about it like that, of course they’re not necessarily going to think there is any importance in covering black disabled people being brutalised at the hands of police, and so that’s from the system and white folks and everything. 

But from our side of things, based on everything we’ve talked about, even the kind of embarrassment about you know, and the shame and the taboo surrounding disability drawing attention to that thing, drawing attention to that incident. We’re still thinking about the white gaze and how this disabled black person makes us look, because what we want is to have an Oxford student male, well-dressed, heading to a first class degree, been given a scholarship for a doctorate already before he even finished his first class degree who got stopped by the police when he was wearing a suit and tie and was on his way to his part time job as an investment banker who the police brutalised with his lovely 2.4 children. Perhaps, hopefully the woman is an exotical…and then, you know, we want, we want that image because that in itself will make us all even though, like the situation is janky, it’ll make us all look better because we need, we don’t want someone to make us look bad because they already think badly of us. What does it mean if we’re now in the corner of this kind of disabled person who, you know, perhaps isn’t doing all of those things that we consider to be advancement, we considered to be respectable.

We consider to be successful, we consider to be a good representation of us as a whole because one person represents us all. Right, and we’ve bought into that tokenism so no, we’re not necessarily going to rally behind them as hard as we would a non-disabled black person. And what we might even rally behind, a non-disabled black male who, perhaps is from the inner city who, I mean, aren’t we all from the inner city, anyway, who perhaps is from what we can, what in the media is called the inner city who may not have had the right opportunities who we know is affected by the, um, school to prison pipeline, might rally behind them because they represent an image of this hard done by black man that we can stand by as well.

How often do you hear people rallying around black women like full stop? Forget disability. That very rarely happens because women… Yeah, black women aren’t rally behindable. Do you know what I mean? They’re not… We’re not even counted like, and there’s even within our ranks, there is this idea that black men are the victims of all white supremacy. Black women are not. And so if we are talking about black issues, we need to centre black men, despite the fact that black women are experiencing higher rates of domestic violence and femicide than any of their counterparts.

And it’s not at the hands of white supremacists, it’s at the hands of black men that one in three black girls before they are 18 or something like that, has experienced, has been sexually assaulted, most of the assault we experience is intra racial, those things in addition. And it’s not just that, because the fact that you are not cared about within your own kind of, um, community gives other communities licence to disrespect and line step because they know no one is coming to back you. So then you’re also going to experience high rates of abuse outside of your race as well.

Yes, race is a construct, but we all know what it means, right? We have been using these terms. We understand what they mean. So as a black woman, those are the things, and then you add disability to it. Disabled people are five times more, disabled femmes are five times more likely to experience sexual violence and domestic abuse. But if we already do not consider disabled people and we imbue the culture that we live in, right, we adapt and assimilate to some of the cultural ideas that exist in our environment.

And if we know disabled people, A) aren’t good enough based on what white supremacists are practising and what whiteness is practising and what the West is practising, we already know, they’re not good enough and then we’ve got our own issues associated with that. And then we also know that women are second class citizens and kind of have it coming for them when it comes to certain things like domestic violence and rape and abuse. And maybe they should dress better. And then we’re also now adding blackness to it, which we know is reviled globally, like Well, of course, you’re not gonna hear about anything.

A lie? What are you gonna hear about? When? And who is gonna care and why would you? How do you? How do you expect for like, and even our perceptions of feminism even if let’s say there’s a black feminist organisation that wants to talk about it. I’ve already told you that black women are belligerent and crazy, so even if they’re talking about it, they’re just loud and, you know, just making themselves victims even though they’re not because they can’t feel any pain and they’re just aggressive for no reason.

Um and so, like, all of these things play into the reasons why we don’t hear about disabled people experiencing brutality and violence at the hands of authority figures not just police because it’s not just police. 

Izin: Um, yeah. No, I think you’re absolutely right. I think, Yeah, who do we see as human? Who do we see as feeling pain? Who do we see? Full stop. I think, all of those questions kind of tie into why that is upsetting and terrible, but not surprising. Did you wanna add anything?

Jumoke: Na my baby said it all

Izin: Thank you so much, both of you, for your precious time. I really, really appreciate it. And I really, really appreciate also the way that you have  so, I don’t know whether to say pertistently, eloquently, convincingly, although it’s not like I needed convincing but just explained how our freedom is tied up in all of each other. And it’s not, it’s not, ableism is a manifestation in that there are many manifestations of the way that we are cruel to each other and cruel to, and also the way that we are cruel to ourselves.

I think that is something that’s really resonated with me during this conversation and definitely something that I’m gonna go away on reflect on very, very deeply. 

Jumoke: Well we’re glad. 

Izin:  Thank you so, so much. I don’t know if any, I don’t know if either of you had any closing thoughts or things you wanted to add. 

Jumoke: Let me have a think.

Kym:  I just want to say this has been a great conversation. I realised that we’ve said a lot of stuff. I think it’s very important to just state that Kym is not an expert on the solutions for black issues, Jumoke is not an expert on the solutions black issues, but what we can do is all of us together, collectively, collaboratively work together to make our environment and our community better. You have to start from the corner where you are, right? We don’t presume to have all the answers for anything. But what we can do is share what we have and you can share what you have and someone else shares what they have and then we’re able to collate things and work together and move slowly and look, it didn’t take us overnight to get here, So it’s gonna take us a long time to get to where we’d like to be.

And there is no destination, by the way. Like improvement and progression is a  continuum. It’s not a, there’s no finish line. 

Izin: Tom Tom doesn’t say you have now arrived. 

Kym: Yeah, thank you. There’s no final line and new, you know, I was talking to someone today and they said to me new solutions or new states of being create new problems, right? So we’re always gonna have to be working on something, But it’s very important that we recognise how far we’ve come. I think there’s a lot of, people are very despondent and feeling, especially with everything going on in the world, feeling the weight of it and feeling like God when you know?

Why? Always, forever? Like my parents were talking about these issues, my grandparents talking about these issues, I’ve read about these issues but what we fail to recognise, it’s like if you spend a month with yourself and you’re eating, I don’t know McDonald’s five times a day. You might not recognise it apart from your clothes that you’re putting on weight. Do you know what I mean? Because you see yourself every day, and it’s the same with the kind of idea of us making changes like when we’re making changes, the changes feel tiny.

It feels super slow. But if I actually think about the fact that it’s just slavery is not more than a few generations away from me. I dare say three maximum. And so if I think about that situation and I always, you know, slavery isn’t that far away in general, I think they try to make it seem like it’s prehistoric time, but it’s really not. But if I think about the fact that we’re even here able to have this conversation, if I think about the situations that perhaps some of my ancestors had never envisioned or imagined.

This is very much progress and black people have made exponential progress in the shortest amount of time because it took hundreds of years to uncivilise us, right, because we were civilised before people found us like they came to learn from us in order to civilise themselves. We civilised them and then they came…Now they came and scattered the place that they learned from because they recognised the power there right. And so we have to, look a lot has happened in a short space of time because if everything that, even the fact that we even know anything about our history or our cultures is  a miraculous thing because there was a  time when we were being prevented from learning, from from reading, from talking to each other if we shared the same language, like there are so many things that were obstacles.

We’ve been prevented from accessing health, prevented from accessing even leisure activities, prevented from walking in certain places, prevented from even forming proper relationships with each other, deprived of resources, whether that’s human resources, whether that’s economic resources, even forgetting economy, even agricultural resources being able to own anything like there are so many things that we’ve been deprived of. But look at where we are now, and I’m not talking about black billionaires. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about even being cognizant of self and being able to recognise each other.

And even, you know that spud, that one where you see a black person, you raise your head, all of that, even being able to acknowledge each other in some senses without fear, being able to stay: ‘You know what? Let me go back home.’ That’s privilege talking. But even some of that, you know, and being able to be like: ‘You know what? Let me try and reclaim what has been stolen and taken.’ Being able to eat each other’s food and recognise each other’s cultures like we have.

And that is just in the space of the last 100 years. Maximum what? It took them hundreds of years to try and take this out of us and look where we are. Please don’t tell me anything. You know no one could tell me anything. Black people are amazing. We are wonderful. We are wonderful. 

Izin: Period. 

Jumoke: Yes. Amen. And I’ve had a chance to think now, and here’s what I have. It’s not going to be quite as wonderful and powerful as Kim but I’ll do my best. I think the takeaway is that we cannot discount the supreme power of community.

Actually, I will give myself and Triple Cripples as an example, like for so long, Kim and I had lived very separate lives, but we’d found each other and createdTriple Cripples and created this platform and created this community. And it’s a case of I can, you know wholeheartedly say that my life has certainly been enriched by knowing and, you know, forming a sisterhood with Kim. It’s and it’s in these, it’s in these relationships that we form. And in these communities that we build, that you are actually able to continue because what’s going on in the world right now, here in the UK, where they refuse, are refusing essentially, to feed the poorest children. In Nigeria trying to End SARS and SWOT and generally just stop being killed in Namibia, in Cameroon, in Congo, Congo is bleeding, and so many other places around the world we need our communities to keep us going because these battles that we are trying to face, they are they are humongous, they are arduous and they are very long and they will require so much of us. But if we have, if we can find home in one another, if we can find home in our communities, it gives us that boost that we require to keep going and it’s like Kym said, there is not a destination, it will continue, it will continue and it is a continuum.

But it’s a case of, do we have enough energy? Enough love, enough compassion for one another, to keep going, and we can only find that in our communities, that’s been shown by Marcus Rashford and all the people you know, up and down the country that have said: ‘No, we’re going to feed the children.’ It’s been shown by the youth in Nigeria, by those that have essentially created a government in what was, what was, it like two weeks or something? It’s been created by so many people all around the world that you have these communities that are able to keep you going because that’s the only way that we can push forward.

We need each other and we can rely on each other and yeah, don’t discount community. 

Izin: 100%. I think community is something that’s really key. And yeah, it is only through each other really? That that we can, we can, strive together towards any semblance of freedom. Yeah. Again, I just want to say thank you so much. I have been so enriched by this conversation and I’m so thankful to both of you for your, for your time and for your contribution to what it means, what it means to strive towards a bold black British future for all of us.

So thank you. 

Jumoke and Kym: Thank you. 

Izin: And thank you  to everyone who has listened to this episode. I really appreciate you. For this month, we have spoken to, a range of voices from different communities and asked them what it means for us to really embrace a bold black British future. We’ve had things come up around spatial justice. We’ve had things come up about community building twice, actually. So I think there’s something really important to be said in that. We’ve had things come up about looking to our ancestors, and not forgetting the greatness that has come before us.

So I’m thankful to every single person that has contributed. And I hope that in some small way, listening to people’s contributions will help you to, feel comfortable,  to step into a bold future for yourself, whatever that entails and whatever that means. But I think what I’ve learned personally anyway, is for myself, that is so tied up into us, into we, and into community. So thank you and goodbye.

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