COVID-19 Journal: Day 116

Thanks to John in California for sending me his favourite recording of Malcolm X in a live format. Here he is, interviewed by four white men in 1963. I can't imagine this sort of "conversation" happening today, so perhaps we have come a little way. I wonder what you think of it. 


Today I made a cake, slightly confused by zucchini in it, but apparently that becomes moistness, so that's good. Made my first butter cream too, so that's exciting. And delicious. I hope I don't have any on my face. Excited to trek to celebrate a dear friend.

My allotment responsibility stint has come to an end. I realise now that a bit of weight bearing -- carrying water -- has made my body quite a bit less creaky, even in just five days. Noted. That's because there are no hoses or sprinklers there, so you have to carry fifty million watering cans full back and forth to water the whole lot.

I've also been thinking more about wealth. And how that juxtaposes with balance. Say no to binaries, say yes to juxtaposition. When you try to change anything that's superior, it's a lot harder to use the "masters tools", as Audre Lorde already knew in 1984. Even when thinking about how to reach gender equality, I've presumed like many others that this would require some kind of sacrifice on the part of the men in control, and then got dismayed by how hard it is to convince someone, especially the powerful and wealthy, to relinquish power.

I've been chewing this over a bit in the context of museums and health/wealth with my brilliant friend and social practice artist, Eliza Gregory, who wrote these excellent prompts in about a two second break from looking after her baby (!):
  • What are the social implications of entrenching cultural wealth in terms of endowments, grants and artifacts?
  • What social problems are connected to these practices?
  • And on the other side, what might society be like if we changed the way a portion of that wealth is held or distributed?
  • In what ways do these practices uphold the colonial project/the colonial/Victorian legacy that actually holds the entire society back?
  • In what ways do these practices continue to explicitly support white supremacy?
  • And what would it mean for all people to be liberated from that structure?
  • Can we picture ourselves freed from it?
  • What does that look like?
  • What does that feel like?
And that's the thing. Can we picture ourselves liberated from the power of wealth??