I just wanted to share some words about Jason Arday written from a place of sorrow and sadness.

Also grief, also rage.

I first encountered Jason Arday when he asked me to contribute to this book, Dismantling Race in Higher Education: Racism, Whiteness and Decolonizing the Academy, which he was editing with my dear friend, Heidi Mirza. We met in person for the first at the launch for that book - it was a joyous occasion, the kind of joy that did not shy away from the hard stuff.

Jason was deeply committed to collaboration, working especially with Black feminists and feminists of colour, to do the work of dismantling and building institutions that could give more room to more people.

Who otherwise would not fit.

I didn’t feel I could say anything publicly to protest Jason being hounded in the way he was because so much of the racism and ableism and sheer cruelty of it was in the volume of it as much as the content and I could not think of a way of saying anything publicly, even about the volume of it, without adding to the volume.

Because there wasn’t a way.

Many people I know are deep in grief and broken with shock right now and I send all my love to you all especially to Jason’s family and close friends.

I thought of the first time I read these sentences out in public.

“To survive institutions, we need to transform them. But we still need to survive the institutions we are trying to transform.”

Like most sentences I’ve written since I left the academy, these were inspired by listening to other people talk about their work.

Collaboration: how we hear each other in the work.

When I read these words out loud for the first time, I felt a wave of grief so strong, it felt like I was about to topple over. I kept myself up to get the words out.

Grief for all those who did not survive.

Who will not survive.

For you.

We will keep doing the work for you.

Solidarity and love xxx