Thread by @SonyaDouglas

.@Critic_Speak asked me to contribute to a podcast discussion around the subject of race in the Welsh Arts scene.

They wanted me to talk about how I might have suffered, as a Black artist, from the gatekeeping White hierarchy that has dominated Welsh culture forever.

Instead/

https://twitter.com/Critic_Speak/status/1339269876993712131

my piece talks about how being Welsh, being Black, being an artist, is not based on some outward evaluation, someone’s acknowledgment of my oppression, nor on some outside validation of my identity; I base my value on the meaning that is left when all else is stripped away/

That is, simply, How Do I Live?

How do I live when women and girls are subjected to such violence on their bodies, their psychology, their education and choices?

How do I live when to be born female is still to be thought of as lesser, to be treated as of little consequence?/

It is supremely ironic that @Critic_Speak in removing my piece - the words of a Black woman - at the behest of a group that would include white, male-bodied people identifying as oppressed, are engaging in the same gatekeeping their podcast seeks to critique.

What hypocrites!/

I can talk about race but not gender? My words are fine for white guilt, but not for male entitlement? I’m more oppressed than the white man at the top table, but if he identifies as female he gets to take the cake home and I get nothing?

Or is it the case .@Critic_Speak that/

you want to hear Black voices, but only on certain subjects, saying the right sort of things, the “good” Blacks?

Shame on you for your cowardly disengagement.

No platform? No courage is what I see. No integrity. No argument.

I think you can tell that I’m not one of those/

cowed into silence, nor am I to be frightened from standing up for what’s right.

Proud to stand with women like @KLBfax @MForstater @jk_rowling and all the others.

We are #TheWomenWhoStand and if #IWillNeverBeMyselfEnoughForSome I can at least be myself enough for me. /end