Happy Birthday Frederick Douglass !

Happy Valentines Day beloveds.

Is it as cold where you are as it is in the UK? My word, it is Baltic! The flipping sea froze for the first time in like half a century. I didn’t see it myself but it sounds kinda extraordinarily beautiful.

One of the many mad developments to come out of this wild year has been my reconfiguration of my relationship with the cold. I have historically detested it. I used to find it a peculiarly unique type of cruelty that of all the many climates in the world that I might have found myself, I had to endure the wet and the cold in Ireland, and as one of very few black people there in my childhood and teens it felt like a personal affront lol but somehow incrementally, I’ve been warming to occasional dalliances with iciness. I now start my mornings drenching myself in ice cold water and I ain’t gonna lie I fkn love it and low key look forward to getting up in the morning, again not a historic norm for me.

Just had a fantastic session with Ireland’s first female President Mary Robinson and the Lord Mayor of Dublin Hazel Chu and Dr Ebun Joseph which was hosted by Suzanne Lynch The Irish Times Washington Correspondent, for the close of Douglass Week which has been a phenomenal series of events in celebration of the life of Frederick Douglass and particularly his time in Ireland over 1845-1846.

A little context: Frederick Douglass was born into slavery, the son of a white man whom he never knew and an enslaved mother of mixed heritage (mostly African but likely indigenous and European too) from whom he was brutally torn in infancy. As such he never knew his exact birth date but chose February 14th in honour of his mother, who called him Little Valentine . Frequently and brutally whipped, Douglass escaped slavery in 1838 and went on to become a tireless globally renowned campaigner for black emancipation and racial justice (not to mention philosopher and unparalleled public intellectual). After the Emancipation Proclamation Douglass continued campaigning for Black rights and during Reconstruction became the highest-ranking Black official of his time as well as advocating equal rights for women, Native Americans and Chinese immigrants (amongst others). Which has so many resonances with the need for solidarity today, especially in the context of the violent anti-Asian American attacks that have been happening in the US recently.

A key theme of my new book is the movement from allyship to coalition. At the moment I’m exploring intersectionalities of issues, cultivating common ground and identifying the common origins of many different forms of oppression, and also thinking about the way the environmental crises might open up exciting possibilities for new alliances.

Speaking of my book, lads the proofs have been printed and I’m now in the final stage of a once over of them, before it goes to PRINT PRINT. It’s due tomorrow so imma love ya and leave ya.

Take care of yourselves, x