Blackseed Farm, an all Black farming project on Whidbey Island was intentionally burned down the other day. They were about to do a grand opening of their hydroponic lab and now they are asking for community support to rebuild (Support here). I have worked on this project before, you can find my photography and videography on the front page of their website (View here) - my photo was also in the local Whidbey island newspaper when I worked on this project in 2021.
I was invited into a farming/ permaculture container at an ecovillage on Vancouver island at the beginning of this month as a student and a teacher and experienced the worst systemic harm I have ever experienced in my entire life in that container by the leadership. They advertised their course as a decolonizing permaculture course and me and many of the students left shocked and appalled at what transpired towards my body in that space. In this container racial harm was caused, it was addressed but not repaired, leaving me to feel unsafe, lose my belonging, get pushed to the edge and in turn leave the space. Which lead me to spend unallocated resources to support myself elsewhere, resulting in a loss of educational opportunity and educational recognition; and in addition my labor as a teacher was erased from the teaching certificate without consent. To top it all off, I had to fight the leadership for time and space to address the class about what took place with my experience in the space, and in the end it was barely given.
I am working very hard right now to work the wound out of my soul and not get sick. I am determined to not let what I experienced damage me, and it's broken my trust deeply with the counterculture movement. I was deeply effected by this situation financially as well, I will be okay, but if you do want to donate you can here or you can vemo me @aliko-weste.
The anti- blackness on planet earth is one of the saddest things I think humanity has to reckon with. One of the many consequences of anti-blackness is you miss out on our insane levels of genius and magic. Or you receive our magic, erase our labor, take credit for it, and continue to suppress, extract, and fetishize our magic. So many things that we take for granted on this planet comes from the genius and labor of Black folks and most people have no idea.
Your racism is everyones loss.
When we start to see the deep tending and support of Black and Brown communities on planet earth, humanity will be well again.
You think you'll be left out if you support us, but actually we want to feed you too.
Again, your loss when you destroy and withhold our financial foundations, our labor (Onesimus Bostonian), our food systems, our businesses (Tulsa Race massacre), our inventions, our people (Emmit Till), our crops and so much more.
The level of harm we endure daily and our ability to rise up again and continue to share our magic, rebuild, and claim the abundance of our birthright is the strongest thing I've ever seen. And I am so blessed and happy that strength lives inside me.
I feel sorry for you. That you will never know that strength, that your strength comes from destroying your neighbor, and therefore destroying yourself. You could have been blessed and fed by the arms of a Black Women... what a blessing you missed out on.
"I Pity The Fool" - Mr. T
Photo by Aliko Weste on Black Seed Farm opening day
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