Bayo Akomolafe’s first public engagement as our 2024 W.E.B. Du Bois Fellow is a little over a week away!
“May We Live in Interesting Times: A Parable for Endings (and the Beginnings We Don’t Know Yet)” will take place at Saint James Place in Great Barrington, MA on Saturday, July 6, from 1:30-5:00 PM. This will provide ample time for the speaker to develop his themes, for audience interaction, and for an intermission with refreshments.
A STORY AND AN INVITATION FROM BAYO AKOMOLAFE
For the past two months, my family and I have been enjoying the hospitality, the wonderous ecology offered to us here in the Berkshires. One evening last week, I was washing dishes in our kitchen here. And my six year old son Kyah, who lives with autism, was stomping in rapid circles around the kitchen table. Just non-stop.
My first reaction, as a father, was to tell my son to “sit down!” This was how I was raised in Lagos: stillness was expected of children to show obedience to their elders, to be compliant. We participate in these inter-generational instructions, in some ways not knowing why we do it.
But as my son continued unceasingly, and the ancestral urge to be stern welled up in me like a volcano, I recognized in that moment an opportunity to respond differently. It was an emancipatory pathway to what I’ve been referring to as a sideways gesture. So, instead, I posed a question:
“Kyah, can you tell me why you are walking around in circles right now?”
Without stopping his breakneck speed, stomping around in circles, he looked back at me and he said:
“Dada, there are certain things I have to do that you do not know anything about.”
“Okay,” I said. And I went back to washing dishes.
As I have relayed in various contexts, my son is my “prophet,” my “edge.” I relay this story because my son reminds me of these times we are living through.
My upcoming public talk is titled “May We Live in Interesting Times.” I could just as well have titled it: “There are Certain Things to Do that We Do Not Know Anything About.”
In these collective moments we share as a species on this planet: as we navigate a time in our lives when politics seems to be of no effect, when justice seems impotent to address the critical challenges posed by the complexities of our social, economic, material, racialized worlds…
I wonder if the ways we have approached these problems challenge us. In the midst of hollowing out white stability, I wonder if there are other kinds of perceptions; other kinds of vocations to be enthralled by; other kinds of fugitivities to be enlisted in; other kinds of landing spaces, hospitalities, cares.
If you’re also wondering like me, thinking along these lines, join us, if you can, at Saint James Place on July 6 — to play with us, to think alongside us.
Let’s be part of some conspiracy together.
