blackgirl on mars: notes on a life in copenhagen (or how my alienation brings me closer to people).

This whole world is in need of some healing. I am so sad about this. But I see an opportunity. I see an opportunity for Nate Parker to truly show that he understands the severity of the situation. How? By supporting victims of sexual violence. As stats go - sexual violence and Black womanhood unfortunately, have a long history (read: slavery. I could go on here, but I won't.) Most women currently imprisoned in the US have had a history of sexual violence. This is not about the fact that he got off and so is "innocent"- this could have easily been the case even if he wasn't innocent. It would be great if courts worked that way. But we know better. This is about a young woman whose life after the attack took the usual road of self-destruction many victims of sexual violence exhibit. We need to all honor her life, and the millions others, who have lived and continue to live with the debilitating effects of sexual violence. This conversation needs to be shifted - ins...

The life of a warrior writer is not easy. Its success lies in the messages I spin between this world and me. Here is my last performance, my debut of   'C O U N T R Y - the map to liberation': a word performance in Duisburg for the Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research. 

As many of you know - I've been teaching for many years. Nothing however, can ever compare to my four years at a small private school in Copenhagen - where I taught for 4 years. I miss the kids everyday - BUT every so often I have moments like this: a feeling of pride as they step into the future, fulfilling what they have so longed for. Such a former student is Zanubia Omar. Zanubia was in my first ever homeroom class- and that class - man, we had a ball. We went to Amsterdam together and I had a couple of the best years of my life teaching this class of motley kids whose background hails from Lebanon, Palestine, Somalia, Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq...I could go on, but trust me when I tell you the representation was not only broad, but soo enriching. I learned so much from these kids. Here's a taste of Zanubia's writing - published on Exile - which is an initiative started by Farhiya Khalid, a Somali writer here in Denmark. Somalis make up the biggest group of people of...

The people of Copenhagen turned out to support Black Lives Matter movement and demand for total stop on war against Black People with powerful speech and songs from the African Diaspora in Copenhagen.  See the turn out at the protest from 18:07 to 18:20 Last Thursday on July 14th, 2016 I was invited to speak at the Black Lives Matter protest demonstration here in Copenhagen. The event was arranged quickly and quite efficiently by M ary Consulate Namagambe  and Sade Johnson.  I know both women through the activism and events which they are both very active in either arranging and/or supporting for people of African descent here in Denmark. There was about 500 people who showed up to this beautiful demonstration. There were people who I knew from way back like photographer David Morrow (who also hails from the States), former colleagues and students. There were new friends,  like Aka Mørch Ped...

"We are talking theoretically. I am very angry. Are we going to talk theoretically, while people are dying?"  -- Napuli Paul Langa It's been a few weeks now since BE.BOP 2016 was held both in Berlin and here in Copenhagen and it's almost impossible for me to cover the deep and engaging content that I was privy too. There is one presentation however, which I feel to be timely, given the recent goings-on not only in my own life, but in the world at large. The presentation was by Napuli Paul Langa, the featured activist in the film, Napuli's Tree by Yoel Diaz Vazquez. The film captures the events of April 2014, when activists in 14 German cities organized protests, marches and creative actions in response to the "Refugee crisis." BE.BOP 2016 Black Europe Body Politics: Call &Response catalogue reads, "In an act of contemporary marronage, refugee and activist Napuli Langa took action by climbing a sycamore tree on Oranienplatz.  She ...

Simmi Dullay Simmi Dullay is a scholar and a visual artist based  in London. She spent the last year as a visiting lecturer at various universities from Mauritius to Scandinavia. She lectured in Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology at the University of South Africa (Unisa). She is currently a doctoral candidate. Her academic background covers a variety of fields, ranging from Critical Theory, Art History & Visual Arts, Post colonialism, Gender, Race and Exile/Race studies. She obtained her MFA, (Cum Laude) from the Durban University of Technology, in 2010. She investigates exile using interdisciplinary methods based on visual methodologies, Black Consciousness, decolonial praxis, auto-ethnography and memory work. Her research draws productively on art, cultural and gender studies, critical philosophy and sociology. Dullay taught at the University of Kwa Zulu Natal in Education, Social Justice & Diversity as well as Philosophy & Sociology in Education. ...