Last night I shared space with others at a session run by Black Psychotherapy called Words Against Forgetting: Poetry, Grief and Collective Remembrance. This was their second virtual grief circle remembering Professor Jason Arday.

“In the wake of Professor Jason Arday’s death, many of us are carrying immense grief alongside rage, exhaustion, hopelessness, and a profound sense of injustice. We’re holding these feelings alongside the accumulated weight of anti-Blackness, everyday racism, public dehumanisation, that follows us and those we love everywhere we go.”

– Black Psychotherapy

Janice Whyne, a London-based poet and artivist of Jamaican descent, lead us through creative writing practices to support our emotional expression. Janice’s poetry explores identity, social justice and human experience. I felt really held by her, she created a space where people could share in a way that made sense for us as a group and individuals.

What am I feel right now? What am I carrying right now?

This was our first free-writing prompt, my response: I am carrying so much, I feel so empty but also so heavy, like I am carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. The world is too much right now but I also have the horrible privilege to be able to turn my eyes away. I am so angry and frustrated by so many people I share this world with whilst also knowing we all need and deserve love. That is such a difficult thing to reconcile with.

(5) words for Professor Jason Arday

I didn’t have five words only, and mine were mostly around the anger I feel about him being tormented by the media and the end of his life.

I also wrote some words about Professor Jason: inspiring, loving, beautiful, passionate, hard working, honest, a warrior. Many more words have been used to describe him on Everything Good About Jason Arday. We were invited to use our words to do another free write specifically about Jason, mine read:

I am disgusted that a young Black man has been taken from his family and from us all. I am horrified by the way he was used as inspiration porn for the university and the media, and how an insecure little white man made it his life’s mission to destroy his reputation. I am not surprised by the racist-classist-ableist witch hunt. I am also not surprised by his death, and I think that speaks a lot to how Black people and people of colour still receive so much hatred and vitriol from white people and white ‘society’. Black people have to perform excellence all the time and that is still not good enough. Autistic people have to perform neuro-normativity all the time and that is still not good enough. They are only happy when we bleed, then they get fucked off with us because of the mess. There are no consequences for this violence and people are still “debating” his credentials over his dead body.

Responding to a Gifty Arday quote

Our final prompt was responding to the following quote from one of Jason’s books Great and Unfortunate Things (Jason reads the book for the audio version and it’s a truly emotional read):

“Action is always needed” Gif told us “You must either use your presence or your voice to speak truth to power. Society is unjust and you have a moral obligation to disrupt that in small and big ways. Always use your presence to mobilise the greater good. One person’s suffering is all our suffering – you must give everything you’ve got to help your fellow brother and sister”.

– Jason Arday, quoting Gifty Arday, in Great and Unfortunate Things

We were split into breakout rooms to create a carousel poem using the lines each of us wrote, choosing our favourites and then co-creating a poem from them. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to ask permission from my fellow writers of Room 1, so all I can share is the lines I wrote:

It is so tiring all the suffering, I want to use more energy for joy.

Where is the moral obligation of politicians, moguls and billionaires?

What happens when voices are taken from people?

Words against forgetting

This session was powerful and very emotional. It made me reflect on the beauty of Professor Arday and his work. It was filled with rage and heart ache but also hope and solidarity, a relentless urge to carry his name in our hearts, minds and mouths. I know that it will take many years for us to process this grief and to take the power of this rage and continue to use it in our growing liberation practice. This session has definitely shown me the importance of grief circles and how these feelings need to be processed in community. Thank you Janice and and the Black Psychotherapy team for continuing to create these spaces for us.