offshoot
A Community of Sense
One could say that Black radical critique in the Americas began with the body, in the senses. By way of the terrors of the middle passage and what awaited on the other side, we understand this to have been a necessity. In refusing and subverting degradation, oppression, white supremacy, and state violence, Black embodiment has always enacted a revolutionary praxis. Call it a critical reflex: critical in the way it passes judgment, reflex in the way it takes a message from the nervous system—being under a state of siege—and throws it back. Not only Black radical thought but also Black expressions of joy, creation, and innovation are powerful forms of critique that judge a system to be rotten to its core, from its malignant roots gestated in colonialism, extraction, and exploitation to the normalization of a carceral state as neoliberal democracy.
Maybe the elders would choose a different word than critique, but its etymology (from criticus/kritikos) names something essential in their formidable experiences that is worth dwelling on for a moment: the capacity to judge. And from there to analyze, imagine, and organize individual and collective action towards liberation. In offshoot’s Issue 1: Senses, there are lively interviews with Dale Rascoe, JoNina Abron-Ervin, Ashanti Alston, and Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, each distinct in their own way. What you might find striking about them is that they all seemed guided by a clear-sighted capacity to examine and appraise or diagnose and decide when confronted with injustice. They did not speak only to emphasize personal injustices as motivating factors, though there are many without question. Rather, some explicitly recount finding out about the mistreatment and oppression of others as triggering a critical reflex at a young age: they not only judged a wrongdoing, but were determined to throw it back, and lay siege upon the systems that were responsible. It takes a rare kind of character to devote part of one’s life, or even one’s entire life, to such a cause. Countless sacrifices were made, especially on a personal level, which involved putting their bodies at risk.
“What does it mean to risk your physical presence, your very existence,
for the sake of a liberation struggle? What senses does it heighten?“
What does it mean to risk your physical presence, your very existence, for the sake of a liberation struggle? What senses does it heighten? One can gain new awareness not just in an intellectual sense, but in how the body interprets the world around through its faculties. Revolutionary elders like those in this issue may or may not have to listen better, see better, taste better, or know better, depending on their circumstances. The same can be said for the artists, thinkers, and younger radicals enlisted here. And any sensory enhancement gained over time may be lost to outside focus on certain aspects of the personality that seem more aligned with public perception. Yet we should respect people like those in this issue as capable of complex relations with any of their sensibilities.
As the world undergoes yet another acceleration towards fascist control and mass dispossession, the younger generations look to elders to learn from and be inspired by their knowledge and experience. But there is now more interest in and concern for their modes of being beyond the struggle. How does one live well in the midst of ongoing (intensifying) calamity? While our senses guide and inform our thoughts, strategies, actions, and reactions, how can we also nourish them to cultivate moments of love, rest, comfort, communion—even liberation? What can we learn from past efforts, their successes as well as their lapses?
Black political subjectivity has been shaped by so many of the Western world’s crimes, atrocities, and wrongdoings enacted upon the body that it has rendered Black embodiment especially fraught. It is no wonder that so many Black thinkers, artists, and activists reclaim and center embodiment in Black radical and feminist thought. Black embodiment simultaneously enacts and contests multiple forms of oppression, mediates generational trauma and memory, individual experience, and the politics of emotions. It does so while also pursuing joy, pleasure, and care. And so it is through the communal care and protection of such embodied sense – its memories, desires, imperfections and ingenuities – that liberation can be pursued and experienced.
“We had a unique opportunity before us; we hoped to harness the truth
of what’s being communicated here in the testimonials and interactions
with Black revolutionary elder interviewees who carry the struggle with them.“
We had a unique opportunity before us; we hoped to harness the truth of what’s being communicated here in the testimonials and interactions with Black revolutionary elders interviewees who carry the struggle with them. The interviewers bring skills as diverse as art criticism, architectural scholarship, radical politics, and museum curation to their conversations. Participants wrote deeply personal reflections either about or informed by the subject matter of their interviews. We were honored to receive these writings, as well as those recorded conversations and their transcripts, which we’ll preserve in our growing offshoot archive. All of this and more will be made available to you for education, enjoyment, and application.
Thank you for joining us for offshoot Issue 1: Senses.
