[BLACK GIRL LIVE] 

 

“No! This is the lowest charge in one of the highest profile cases. 

Like what are folks supposed to tell their daughters” 

 

“The Truth

That they love our labour and not our lives 

So, we have to love ourselves fiercely” 

 

This is a screenshot of a conversation taken from Activist Brittany Packnett-Cunningham’s Instagram account. This conversation was in response to the verdict given in Louisville on the death of Breonna Taylor, a Black medical worker who was shot and killed by police officers in March during a botched raid on her apartment.  

 

Reading the screenshot, I started to think about the ways most women’s names and lives are made hypervisible through tragedy. The statement brought to the surface the precarity of black women’s lives and black queer lives in South Africa; how the acts of rape and murders committed against women are not only heinous, but gruesome violence’s that go unpunished and always condemned with a tweet from the presidency twitter account saying “we condemn the acts of violence against women and children”. We live in a country where the minister of police is more passionate and vigilant about alcohol offenses than domestic violence, and the second violence’s women experience when they report cases at the police station. On 7 September 2020, a woman was shot dead inside Mthatha police station by her husband while opening a domestic violence case against him. We are constantly bombarded by these exhibitions of violence against women, but ironically not nearly as much as we should be, considering that statistically “Every 3 hours, a woman is murdered in South Africa”, and while an every-3-hour public notice might be impactful in highlighting the severity of this crisis, it will not serve the mental state of the lives most impacted by that statistic. Now, more than ever, it has become imperative that we cultivate methods, systems and expressions that insist on Black Queer Women being seen in expressions of love, joy, inspiration, creativity, life – living – alive.

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Beyond the aesthetic of it, we must insist on mechanisms being put in place to ensure that black queer women are not only treated and viewed as experiences we take from or exploit, but their – our lives are a humanity that is valuable just by virtue of us being here. That our humanity is not only valuable when it is adjacent to something or someone else, or in service of an agenda. 

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And whilst we navigate and negotiate living with a health and femicide pandemic, we have to find and produce lifelines for ourselves and each other that will ensure that we not only survive both, but thrive and breathe while doing so, and not become hypervisible, loved and supported when we are at the centre of a tragedy or dead. 

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“They love our labour and not our lives 

So we have to love ourselves fiercely”

 

And insist on Black Girl’s Lives. 

 

On the Fund

 

In August 2020, I started an online store that creates merchandise carrying quotes / phrases / poems most loved by the people who read and follow my work. The wish was to connect the work of making a black girl's work visible to that of making other black girls live. 

 

The store has launched a relief fund: [BLACK GIRL LIVE] designed to assist black, queer, womxn Theatre Practitioners and Poets based in South Africa who are struggling financially, psychologically and spiritually during this time. 

 

In the wake of a pandemic with no end in sight, and the lack of governmental and institutional support for black, queer, womxn Theatre Practitioners, Poets, and Creatives at large, it has become apparent that we are each other's lifelines. 

 

I, Koleka Putuma, pledge R10 to the fund for every item purchased from the store. 

 

You can assist by spreading the word and making a donation directly to the fund. Donations start at R50 / €3 / $3

 

Visit the online store's page to pledge your support.

 

When applying please read the terms and conditions carefully. 

 

Get Merch!

Make a donation!

Help a [BLACK GIRL LIVE] 

 

Spread the Word!

 

KP