Sandeep Bakshi

Who’s that gill?

Anyway it continues to be weird and fucked up how y’all expect Black people to be calm and dispassionate about racism and then frame us as monsters when we show even a hint of passion in opposition to our own dehumanization

But tell yourself it’s just about the facts, sure

Partner and I in front of the commemorative board of folks who fought AIDS

Présence Africaine bookshop

Xala by Ousmane Sembene and Fanon’s postcard

bell hooks book and our book’s spine in the bookshop

Hanging out in the Latin Quarter in Paris before we attend a Palestinian poet talk this eve, organised by a lovely colleague.
Went to the amazing bookshop Présence Africaine to buy Xala and saw our book next to one by hooks :-)

La France en tête en Europe pour les décès durant les opérations policières Entre 2020 et 2022, 13 pays de l’UE ont enregistré au moins 488 décès en garde à vue ou lors d’interventions policières.

Puisque Laurent Nunez ne veut pas qu'on dise que la police française tue, blesse, torture et viole, j'imagine qu'il ne veut pas non plus qu'on lise cet article montrant qu'en Europe, c'est en France où la police tue le plus.

C’est tout de même incroyable qu’une fonctionnaire peut ainsi être radiée alors que nous savons combien c’est difficile pour ne serait-ce avoir une audience contre les prédateurs sexuels de tout genre.
Ce pays a décidé de faire la chasse à celleux qui sont aperçu.e.s comme musulman.e.s.

The 2013 video below is of the person being defended by Mme Macron against feminists.
I was horrified upon seeing it live. The crowd’s applause is even more troubling. Remember when they tell you no one cared in 2013, that, not a few of us were revolted at the frank display of French r*pe culture.

Guardian charity advert asking to Make Britain Great Again through community work.

Wondering about the editorial process that concluded that ironic Trumpian framing was a good idea. Pitching your tent in these fields never ends well.

On "polite" academic bullying at academic conferences: I once spent an entire post-paper Q & A session finding a dozen ways to politely respond to the question 'Would you defend position X?' Where I had not mentioned position X and had already stated my refusal to discuss position X.

There’s always this complaint that students and teachers were better generations ago. They taught well and they learnt well.
Incidentally, this is what they taught and learnt.

I just can’t. Maybe I should just stick to teaching the English language - verbs, adjectives, fronted adverbials ... What’s the point in this totally illiterate nation that is manufacturing more illiteracy by the day.

Show anchor: Is colonisation a crime?
Édouard Philippe (former FR PM): No.

Without fail, I begin my queer & transnational feminisms MA course w/ the cliché de Beauvoir quote, ‘on ne naît pas femme: on le devient’.
It connects students to feminist genealogy anchored in France, where we’re located.
Anti-rape activists labelled ‘sales connes’ is a new low for the country.

Yes makes me smile every time I across this reel

YouTube video by Nota Bonus L’histoire dramatique de la colonisation du Sahel - Entretien avec Camille Lefebvre

Un long et passionnant entretien sur Nota Bonus, par @notabenemovies.bsky.social et avec @camillelefebvre.bsky.social
Sur comment se déroulait concrètement la colonisation européenne, avec le cas de la région du Sahel

#Histoire

youtu.be/kGlzv9NdCpE

10. Colonialism maintains a stranglehold on knowledge production through an elaborate publication infrastructure largely based in the global North...[to] gatekeep what qualifies as "legitimate" publishable knowledge.
p. 281

- Sylvia Tamale, Decolonization & Afro-Feminism (2020)

9. "Equality" is predicated upon fundamental but flawed notions of liberal individualism & universalism; its efficacy needs to be interrogated. The urge for the internationalist feminist project to generalize obscures women's intersectional differences & oppressions.
p. 210

8. The Academy should recognize the intellectual agency of colonial subjects & the validity of learning beyond onself & the self-referential ...
Decoloniality must pay attention to all systems of oppression that intersect w/ racism, socioeconomic status, age, disability...
p. 283

7. Coloniality deploys a certain type of "science" that is positivist, stems from the enlightenment obsession w/ knowing & categorising, & is dualistic & hierarchical ... The very nature of "The Academy" is borrowed from colonial structures meant to commodify knowledge.
pp. 255-6

6. Although colonial & Eurocentric legal theories are reluctant to view such mechanisms as falling within the realm of law, we must examine these informal or community-based initiatives as part of Africa's decolonization of the justice system.
p. 154

5. Race always intersects with gender & sexuality, so we can speak of a racialised gendered sexuality.
p. 105

Societal fixation with a universalised system of binary oppositions regarding gender & sexuality is inextricably bound up with the patriarchal-capitalist system.
p. 137

4. The African decolonization/decolonial project is fundamentally about one thing: restoring the dignity of African people.
p. 21
Decolonization is a multifaceted & integral process that cannot be delinked from the very structures of knowledge implanted by the colonialists.
p. 30

3. The prefix "de-" in the terms "decolonization" & "decoloniality" connotes an active action of undoing or reversal... It speaks to the dismantling of several layers of complex & entrenched colonial structures, ideologies & practices that pervade every aspect of our lives.
p. 20

2. Decolonial liberation would not just target the exploitative capitalist economic system but all systemic constructs and relations (based on race, sex, family, knowledge structures, able-ness, etc.
p. 29

Cover of Sylvia Tamale, Decolonization and Afro-Feminism (2020)

1. Long read (10 posts)
Reminder: Sylvia Tamale has extensively offered careful insights on decoloniality & decolonisation not just applicable to Africa but the world at large. And we need to acknowledge it! Selection of quotes from just one book ⤵️

Thanks.

Nope -- not the Windrush illegal white rubbish (it's not a scandal, please stop using euphemisms). I'm talking of families forced to live apart ever since the 1950s and the way life has been organised in the country.

Families were/are torn apart. Ask your Asian and Caribbean neighbours.

We all need this l’il person in our lives.
This world is this person’s; we just live in it.

Why not. Who's going to stop them.

Headline Far-right National Rally ‘not a danger’ to France, Sarkozy claims Nicolas Sarkozy’s new book, The Diary of a Prisoner, is being released this week – and also details the time he spent in jail

Nicolas Sarkozy’s legitimization of the Front National: background and perspectives AURELIEN MONDON ABSTRACT In the ‘poor’ result achieved by Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2007 presidential elections, many commentators saw the demise of the Front National. However, when asked by a journalist whether it was the end of her father’s political career, Marine Le Pen smilingly replied: ‘I don’t think so. In any case, this is the victory of his ideas!’ In this question and answer lies the whole story of the Front National and its impact on mainstream politics in the past two decades. First, Le Pen’s defeat was exaggerated, the same way his victory had been in 2002. What Mondon argues in this paper is that the 2002 presidential elections did act as an ‘earthquake’ within French politics. However, this ‘earthquake’ did not trigger a tsunami of support for Jean-Marie Le Pen, but rather a tidal wave of misinformation and misunderstanding as to the real significance of the election results. By concentrating on the 2002 and 2007 presidential elections, Mondon highlights how this reaction led to the consecration of right-wing populist politics, best exemplified in the landslide election of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. He also provides an insight into the slippery slope Sarkozy’s government took after its election, leading to an extremely rightward-leaning 2012 presidential campaign and new heights for the Front National.

Just saying, Sarkozy has been (mainstreaming) the far right for 20 years...

In fact, he is the reason why I did a PhD and got into academia (him and John Howard) so you can blame him for that too

www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...