AbolitionISH

Bitcoin & Blackness: Decoding the Technocene

Whatever the hell bitcoin and blockchain are (we have the same questions!) their promise is clear: decentralized economies where the consumer-creator is in control. But as we consider how these technologies spawn from and support certain paradigms of violence, we’re left wondering… is Web3 just the upper octave of our present cyber landscape? Do they offer salvation from the algorithmic anti-blackness of Big Tech, or is it more complicated?  This month, Jon Jon welcomes Cameron Flowers [//twitter.com/camothefamo], CEO of Floreo Labs [//floreolabs.org], to help us understand these technologies and approach these questions. Cam trains remote communities of future tech leaders and incubates innovative, community-driven technology initiatives. He's an artist, engineer, creative-technologist, and adjunct faculty member in the Department of Computer Science at Lehman College in the Bronx. Keywords: bitcoin, innovation, protocols, value, design, chains, technology, problem solving Please become a monthly supporter of abolitionISH—100% pays our guests, producer, and social media director!—at patreon.com/abolitionish [https://patreon.com/abolitionish]. AbolitionISH: a podcast at the end of the world is a black politics and culture podcast made possible by Producer WyLee (@whoswylee) and Host Jon Jon Moore (@incivilitea).

Old Fields, New Orchards: Surviving Poetics with Ra/Malika Imhotep

CW: This episode contains mentions of sexual violence. “I would like my work to do two things: be as demanding and sophisticated as I want it to be, and at the same time be accessible in a sort of emotional way to lots of people, just like jazz. That's a hard task. But that's what I want to do." — Toni Morrison "What are the methods... of holding this soft, adaptive, Black feminine flesh thing, this surviving thing. How do you write about it?" — Ra/Malika Imhotep *** How does capitalism live in our bodies? How did an interest in Ghanaian hip-hop and Pan-Africanism lead Ra/Malika Imhotep to New Orleans, to study and write about Black femininity, queer embodiment, & the performance of labor?  This month, Jon Jon welcomes Ra/Malika Imhotep [https://linktr.ee/RaMalikaImhotep], Ph.D, a Black feminist writer, performance artist, and cultural worker from Atlanta, Georgia. Ra/Malika's debut collection of poetry, gossypiin [https://redhen.org/book/gossypiin/], was published by Red Hen Press in April 2022. Ra/Malika's intellectual and creative work tends to the relationships between queer embodiment, Black femininity, vernacular culture, & the performance of labor.  In this conversation, Jon Jon asks them to share their ongoing journey through academic, artistic, and ancestral spaces, and how these spaces have informed their being and creation. And Ra/Malika gives us so much—on self-importance, refusing the demand to translate interiority, what Atlanta taught them about slavery, and why they "want the language to be felt," no matter what they're writing.  Keywords: gossip, peaches, dysfunction, cotton root bark, imposition, atlanta, barbara christian, reproductive labor, 1987 Please become a monthly supporter of abolitionISH—100% pays our guests, producer, and social media director!—at patreon.com/abolitionish [https://patreon.com/abolitionish]. AbolitionISH: a podcast at the end of the world is a black politics and culture podcast made possible by Producer WyLee (NYC/JHB, @whoswylee) Host Jon Jon Moore (CDMX @incivilitea) and Social Media Director Bug (PHL, @hoetentiial).

Abortion Care & the Changing Same with Ash Williams

"It can't be overstated that the solutions have got to come from the people locally and not top down" -AW In the wake of the Supreme Court's official decision to strike down Roe v. Wade last week, poor Black people across the US face an expansion of reproductive control and violation. This month, Jon Jon interviews Ash Williams [https://twitter.com/ash_bash23], a Black non-binary transfemme organizer, choreographer, and member of the Mountain Area Abortion Doula Collective [https://mtnabortiondoula.co/about]. Ash reflects on becoming an abortion doula, organizing in the US South before today, and what we can do right now to deliver care to the nxggas in our lives who need it. Keywords: mason-dixon line, abortion, SCOTUS, illegal, awareness, skills, local, care, violence, defense, choreography  Please become a monthly supporter of abolitionISH—100% pays our guests, producer, and social media director!—at patreon.com/abolitionish [https://patreon.com/abolitionish]. AbolitionISH: a podcast at the end of the world is a black politics and culture podcast made possible by Producer WyLee (NYC/JHB, @whoswylee) Host Jon Jon Moore (CDMX @incivilitea) and Social Media Director Bug (PHL, @hoetentiial).

TO FREEDOM? Black Anti-Fatness with Da'Shaun L. Harrison

"Everything goes back to desire... I'm always figuring out how I can move further away from the hegemonic desire that we're socialized into. Who am I desiring, and why?" -DLH  ... This episode contains mentions of sexual violence. It's Spring, and May Flowers bring Mo' Knowledge! This month, Jon Jon interviews writer, editor, and abolitionist Da'Shaun L. Harrison. They talk to us about anti-fatness, anti-blackness, what it means to write for Black audiences, and what individual desire has to do with the regimes of power we face. Harrison is nominated for a 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Non-Fiction for their debut, Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/670607/belly-of-the-beast-by-dashaun-harrison/] (North Atlantic Books 2022). Keywords: desire, thanksgiving memes, prison, diet culture, possession, pounds.  ... Please become a monthly supporter of abolitionISH—100% pays our guests, producer, and social media director!—at patreon.com/abolitionish [https://patreon.com/abolitionish]. AbolitionISH: a podcast at the end of the world is a black politics and culture podcast made possible by Producer WyLee (NYC/JHB, @whoswylee) Host Jon Jon Moore (CDMX @incivilitea) and Social Media Director Bug (PHL, @hoetentiial).

To Engage Power: Gay Humor, Slave Play, and Sylvia Wynter

"Every piece of art... in order for it to actually be subversive, to actually be important, to think beyond the end the world— it has to engage power." In this absolute smorgasbord of a Season 3 Premier, resident psychoanalyst and African-American Studies doctoral student Gilberto Rosa-Duran catches up with Jon Jon for a sweetly winding, dare we say gut-wrenching, laugh-fest on power—and what it has to do with Black humor, desire, and representation. At the end of the world, what makes a comedic performance interesting? What does gay boy humor have to do with fisting? WHAT the hell IS psychoanalysis? And why is Jeremy O. Harris the gay man's Tyler Perry? Keywords: Shrek, Arthur Jafa, Ted Danza, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and a 500MG edible. Please become a monthly supporter of abolitionISH—100% pays our guests, producer, and social media director!—at patreon.com/abolitionish [https://patreon.com/abolitionish]. AbolitionISH: a podcast at the end of the world is a black politics and culture podcast made possible by Producer WyLee (NYC/JHB, @whoswylee) Host Jon Jon Moore (CDMX @incivilitea) and Social Media Director Bug (PHL, @hoetentiial).