Most often we talk about the cracks being where the light comes in. In this conversation with Bayo Akomolafe, he says “Sometimes mirrors rupture and cracks start to emerge. And then our images start to get distorted. And in those would could despair and seek to polish the mirror back to it’s shininess again. Or we could use in a different ethical move, use the cracks to seek out the darknesses, the shadows the cracks occlude”
This conversation has invited me to look at those in my mirror. Where I try to polish and where I accept the invitation. In the broader scale where we in West are so busy polishing that our arms are falling off. It takes some breathing deeply and a commitment to not turn away.
I had so much emotion running through my veins as he spoke, words fell short and felt that as well. He is an important voice of our day. In his words, poetry and in the way those ask me as the receiver to reflect!
Please let us know what you take away from this conversation.
Listen here:
About Bayo:
Bayo Akomolafe (Ph.D.), rooted with the Yoruba people in a more-than-human world, is the father to Alethea and Kyah, the grateful life-partner to Ije, son and brother. A widely celebrated international speaker, posthumanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist, and author of two books,
These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home (North Atlantic Books) and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak, Bayo Akomolafe is the Chief Curator of The Emergence Network and host of the online postactivist course, ‘We Will dance with Mountains’.
Where to find him:
www.bayoakomolafe.net
www.emergencenetwork.org
Resources mentioned:
Feminist Scholar Karen Barad