Content warning: Today’s conversation includes references to sexual violence. Please listen with care. I caught up with Taitu Heron in December 2020, as a way of bringing to a close a difficult year with one of my favourite people. Taitu is a development specialist, human rights advocate, scholar and performance poet and we first met in St Lucia in February 2020, on the eve of the onset of the global pandemic. In St Lucia, we spent long nights righting the worlds wrongs and she offered wisdom an...
Apr 17, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 75
“Let yourself unlearn everything you thought you knew about yourself” is one of the many important life lessons George M. Johnson shares with young readers in their new book, All Boys Aren’t Blue. George calls the book a memoir-manifesto and in it, they grapple with sexuality, gender identity, assault, consent and Black joy – and I found it to be an utterly invigorating read. We discuss the lessons we are being called to learn and to metabolise from our journey through an immensely challenging y...
Mar 06, 2021•59 min•Ep. 74
My conversation this week is with queer Black poet and storyteller Jubi Arriola-Headley. Among his altogether brilliant debut collection of poetry is the tremendous "Every God Is a Slowly Dying Sun" — a heartbreaking reflection on Jubi’s relationship with the late poet Craig G Harris. original kink is available now from Sibling Rivalry Press. About Busy Being Black Busy Being Black is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. Thank you to our partners: UK Black ...
Feb 06, 2021•9 min•Ep. 73
I have fallen in love with the poetry of Jubi Arriola-Headley. Exploring themes of manhood, vulnerability, rage, tenderness and joy, his work speaks such truth to those of us reckoning with who we’ve been and who we want to be. Jubi is a queer Black poet and storyteller and his debut collection is called original kink. Our conversation explores his relationship with his late father and his intimate and profound friendship with the late and great Craig G Harris. We discuss carrying on a legacy, g...
Feb 06, 2021•58 min•Ep. 72
Today I’m in conversation with one of our elders, Jeffrey Pickering. Born and raised in Barbados, he moved to the UK at 16 to pursue further education. He went on to become a nurse and cardiac physiologist and shared his life with his partner Michael for 36 years, until Michael’s passing in 2011. Jeffrey spoke to me about his reverence for his mother, his first love, his career, his assiduous pursuit of culture and education and the moment, in 1974, he first laid on eyes on Michael. About Openin...
Jan 30, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 71
Professor Therí Alyce Pickens is Full Professor of English at Bates College, and her newest book, Black Madness :: Mad Blackness, has done nothing short of set me alight. In it, she explores the relationship between Blackness and disability, showing how Black speculative and science fiction authors craft new worlds that reimagine the intersection of Blackness and madness. We spoke just before Christmas about her book, which led to a really enlightening conversation about analysing the spaces bet...
Jan 23, 2021•58 min•Ep. 70
As part of this special series funded by the European Cultural Foundation, I’m delighted to be working with artist and activist Isaiah Lopaz to share exclusive first-listens to his new project, Anthology/Appendix. Anthology/Appendix is a multimedia project centred around queer Black fiction and includes readings, rituals, discussions and performances. Today’s story is “Me and My Old Man”. The love that they have for one person places two men – one a friend, the other a lover – in constant confli...
Nov 28, 2020•10 min•Ep. 69
In this final episode in this series supported by the European Cultural Foundation, I'm in conversation with Dr S Chelvan, a globally recognised legal expert on refugee and human rights claims based on sexual or gender identity and expression. His Difference, Stigma, Shame and Harm (‘DSSH’) model is a positive tool to determine an LGBTQ asylum claim, which is now used globally and is endorsed by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. In 2014, Newsweek Europe described the DSSH model as...
Nov 28, 2020•56 min•Ep. 68
As part of this special series funded by the European Cultural Foundation, I’m delighted to be working with artist and activist Isaiah Lopaz to share exclusive first-listens to his new project, Anthology/Appendix. Anthology/Appendix is a multimedia project centred around queer Black fiction and includes readings, rituals, discussions and performances. Today’s story is “The Return of the Prodigal Father”. An email from a long lost father consisting of four words – “Hi I love you” – conjures worry...
Nov 15, 2020•22 min•Ep. 67
Professor Fatima El-Tayeb is professor of Literature and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Her work deconstructs structural racism in “colorblind” Europe and centers strategies of resistance among racialized communities. She’s the author of three books, was active in Black feminist, migrant and queer of colour organisations in Germany and the Netherlands and was one of the co-founders of the Black European Studies Project. Today, she expands upon the connection between B...
Nov 15, 2020•55 min•Ep. 66
Today’s conversation is with iki azaid funes, a Venezuelan migrant and anti-racist activist currently seeking international protection in Spain. She’s a survivor of Covid-19, and her experience fighting Covid-19 and the regime of white supremacy in Europe offers important insights to help us all understand how people like iki, and many in our communities, so often fall outside the bounds of what is considered human and thus protection, solidarity and citizenship. She describes her experience in ...
Oct 31, 2020•50 min•Ep. 65
As part of this special series funded by the European Cultural Foundation, I’m delighted to be working with artist and activist Isaiah Lopaz to share exclusive first-listens to his new project, Anthology/Appendix. Anthology/Appendix is a multimedia project centred around queer Black fiction and includes readings, rituals, discussions and performances. Today’s story is “On Not Dying in Germany”. While waiting for her sons to visit, an old woman speaks to her long-gone husband about the secrets sh...
Oct 17, 2020•18 min•Ep. 64
My conversation today is with artist, author, legal scholar and activist Olave Nduwanje. Working across anti-racism, LGBTQ rights, anti-capitalism and disability movements, Olave brings to this conversation a wonderfully expansive understanding of Blackness, queerness and trans identities. Olave calls us to an understanding of Blackness that is capacious, that contains within it the possibilities of everything we are and can be – and she offers that so many of the ideas we’ve internalised about ...
Oct 17, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 63
As part of this special series funded by the European Cultural Foundation, I’m delighted to be working with artist and activist Isaiah Lopaz to share exclusive first-listens to his new project, Anthology Appendix – a multimedia project centred around queer Black fiction which includes readings, rituals, discussions and performances. Today's story is "In the Eyes of Our Mothers". On opposite ends of the city, one mother attempts to atone for not accepting her daughter as they play tv catch up, wh...
Oct 03, 2020•15 min•Ep. 62
Adeola Aderemi is a multilingual Afro-Greek and multi format artist, scholar, activist and healer, who spends a great deal of time amplifying the voices of and fighting for marginalised women. She is the editor in chief of Distinguished Diva – a community of Black women storytellers – and is currently working on raising awareness among the general public on issues such as human trafficking, gender equality, women's health and equal representation for Black women in media. We discuss her research...
Oct 03, 2020•54 min•Ep. 61
As part of this special series funded by the European Cultural Foundation, I’m delighted to be working with artist and activist Isaiah Lopaz to share exclusive first-listens to his new project, Anthology Appendix – a multimedia project centred around queer Black fiction which includes readings, rituals, discussions and performances. Today's story is "A Wednesday Affair". In a foreign land two women vow to remain together as they discuss flight, rescue, tragedy and chance while waiting in line to...
Sep 12, 2020•13 min•Ep. 60
Liz Fekete is the Director of the Institute of Race Relations and head of its European research program. She has worked with the Institute since 1982 and specializes in contemporary racism, refugee rights, far-right extremism and Islamophobia across Europe. She is advisory editor of the Institute’s journal Race & Class and is the author of A Suitable Enemy: Racism, Migration and Islamophobia in Europe and Europe’s Fault Lines: Racism and the Rise of the Right. We discuss her nearly 40 years ...
Sep 12, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 59
Dr Eddie Bruce-Jones is a legal academic and anthropologist, based in London. He is the Deputy Dean at Birkbeck School of Law, the author of Race in the Shadow of Law: State Violence in Contemporary Europe (Routledge, 2016) and serves on the Board of Directors of the Institute of Race Relations and the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group. He’s on the advisory board of the Centre for Intersectional Justice in Berlin, and the Editorial Board of the Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality L...
Jul 11, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 58
BL Shirelle is a hip-hop artist and activist who uses her music to share her experiences with police violence, addiction and the realities of prison for Black women. Her debut album, Assata Troi – which translates to “she who struggles is a warrior” – is described as a timeless hip hop classic that speaks of hope in our era of mass incarceration and systemic racism. In addition to her own music, BL is the Deputy Director of Die Jim Crow Records – the first record label in the United States for f...
Jul 04, 2020•56 min•Ep. 57
A self-titled bad Buddhist, Lama Rod Owens is an author, activist and authorised Lama (Buddhist Teacher) in the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism. He's a comforting, honest and straight-talking queer Black man, who’s considered one of the leaders of his generation of Buddhist teachers. His new book is Love and Rage: The Path to Liberation through Anger – and he opens the first chapter like this: “Since the 2016 presidential election, shit has been hard for some of us. For the rest of us, shit has...
Jun 06, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 56
For the sixth and final episode of Theory in the Flesh, I’m in conversation with Dr Oni Blackstock, the Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau of HIV at the New York City Department of Health. In 2018, doctors diagnosed 1,917 people with HIV – a 67% decline from the number of diagnoses in 2001. --- I reached out to Dr Blackstock to understand what precipitated such a historic drop in new HIV diagnoses in New York City and how she and her colleagues at the Bureau of HIV have been able to intervene...
May 22, 2020•50 min•Ep. 55
Bakita Kasadha is a writer, researcher and poet. She is a Black woman living with HIV and as a health activist holds different national and international advisory roles. Her recently completed dissertation critiques and challenges knowledge production at the research level, and asks important questions about who is and is not involved in research that aims to uplift and support at-risk and marginalised communities. --- We explore the problematising of Blackness, the laziness of those who call Bl...
May 16, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 54
In a powerhouse TedTalk, The Problem with Race-based Medicine, social justice advocate and law scholar Dorothy E Roberts says: “Race is not a biological category that naturally produces health disparities because of genetic difference. Race is a social category that has staggering biological consequences, but because of the impact of social inequality on people's health.” The novel coronavirus, COVID19, is not racist. It is a highly contagious virus that moves with ease from person-to-person and...
Apr 25, 2020•52 min•Ep. 53
In countries like England, where young Black boys - irregardless of sexuality - are disproportionately impacted by school exclusions, where the prison population is full of Black men and where mental health services for Black people are increasingly rare, how are we as queer Black people and queer people of colour acknowledging and showing solidarity with our presumably heterosexual Black brothers? Cathy J. Cohen’s seminal essay “Punks, Bulldaggers and Welfare Queens” cautions us against a queer...
Apr 11, 2020•55 min•Ep. 52
On the 26th of March, Frances Webber, the Vice-chair of the Institute of Race Relations’ Council of Management and a former barrister specialising in immigration, and refugee and human rights law, wrote of the self-isolation required to prevent the spread of COVID-19: “Those without homes or privacy cannot distance or self-isolate; nor can they observe strict hygiene, without access to hot water and soap. For homeless people in night shelters or on the streets, for prisoners and immigration deta...
Apr 04, 2020•52 min•Ep. 51
When Lady Phyll and a busload of Black lesbians travelled down to Southend-on-Sea in 2005, they couldn't have imagined what UK Black Pride would become. I called Lady Phyll, the executive director and co-founder of UK Black Pride, to understand how she's feeling after the recent announcement that UK Black Pride 2020 is postponed. -- @_busybeingblack is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives, If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate, review and s...
Mar 27, 2020•22 min•Ep. 50
Much is researched, written and said about sexual racism in our communities. "No Blacks, no fats, no femmes, no Asians" are all terms any of us who’ve used dating apps have seen and those of us caught in the racist, fat- and femme-phobic crosshairs, we feel the pain acutely. My guest today, Professor Rusi Jaspal, is finding that what has become an ostensibly casual digital discrimination has real world implications on the lives of those that discrimination impacts. Professor Rusi Jaspal began hi...
Mar 26, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 49
After our conversation on stage at OUTing the Past exploring queer Black histories, Sea Sharp and I took a walk through the countryside to continue our conversation. I had a particular question about themes in their work that speak to a desire for invisibility, but as we approached a group of fenced-in and curious cows, our conversation took quite a turn. -- @_busybeingblack is the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. If you like what you hear, please take a mo...
Feb 22, 2020•17 min•Ep. 48
In their poem Misogynoir, Sea Sharp writes, Maybe mama knows I’d rather burn my leather / than wear it another day for her, would rather / slice this skin in slivers, rip off my flesh like a grapefruit peel. In this poem, which explores a contentious relationship between mother and child, between Black skin and freedom, Sea touches upon one of the profound conflicts queer Black people can contend with when confronted with the trumpeting of the importance of coming out and LGBTQ pride: telling th...
Feb 22, 2020•46 min•Ep. 47
In my conversation with Chantelle Lewis, she shares with us some of the initial findings in her doctoral research into Black mixed race families in the midlands. I thought it a great opportunity to sit down with my mum, Josephine, to find out more about her experience married to a Black man and raising mixed race children. She discusses her first encounters with racism, the moment she realised what her children would contend with and the parallel journeys we've been on to understand our responsi...
Feb 08, 2020•15 min•Ep. 46
