I have asked myself recently: what if writing about transgressions like this—in this case, the linguistic co-option of blackness by cultures with anti-blackness in their foundations—by using terms too sociological, or being so diagnostic, is in itself is a sort of death?

It feels like it. The truth is: it makes me angry to see the language of my black american kin co-opted and recalled “Gen Z slang”. It makes me angry that british linguists have decided that black british english is “Multicultural London English.” The more subtle ways blackness is appropriated are particularly angering because they are so small that they become plausibly deniable (cc: microaggressions). The consequences of Fred Moten’s quote: “black cultural production can be stolen but it cannot be owned”, means existing under a paradigm where what we make is “for everyone” but what everyone else allows exclusivity, it is a consistent imbalance and you can’t help and you feel every trespass, even the small ones.

But the thing I’ve been reflecting on is: if one properly wants writes about this, one must put intellect before the rage. The very foundation of academia/western intellectual production means that success can only be earned by transmuting this rage into something else: a business, an academic thesis, a piece of art. In some ways, these cheapen that rage. Or maybe that isn’t quite correct—perhaps a better way to describe it is dilute it, soften its edges. I cannot speak for any other marginalised group but I imagine the same is for them. But I do it here, in essay and review form. If I wanted to be a serious scholar, I would have I’d have to do the same thing with my rage, albeit more thoroughly and to the approval of people who will only ever look at what I am saying zoologically. It is a natural momentum dispeller, it concentrates everything to one’s intellect and reduces the emotion. I wrestle with this constantly in my writing. I want you to feel the rage and urgency. I understand that this world is set up in a way where the pathways are carved and people are used to those carvings. We are used to essays giving us a certain feeling, like we learned something, or we enjoyed it, or whatever. I wonder what it means to just be, to just say plainly, to not editorialise or refract one’s thoughts through the prism of passion, or capitalistic gain, or art, or intellect. Idk. The thing I’m trying to say is always feels like its the tip of my tongue. I’m going to let it dance there—maybe one of you lovely people can make more sense of it than I.