a statement from Mxogyny on the Black Lives Matter Protests and Movement
As you may have noticed, Mxogyny has taken a step back from posting pieces on our website this week and have focused instead on sharing work by black creatives on our social media, through Georgia our social media manager. We did not feel comfortable moving forward with posts whilst such gross atrocities were taking place in the United States, the effects of which have reverberated across the globe, resulting in one of the largest civil rights movements in history. Instead, we have been using and will continue to use our platform for marginalised creatives to amplify, support and promote the work of black artists and creatives.
As a team with no black individuals in roles of leadership, we feel it would be a disappointment on our behalf to speak for or on behalf of black creatives. We also want to stress that in opening the platform to only black work, our intention is not to place black creatives in a role where they feel it is their responsibility to educate others on racial injustice - that responsibility should fall onto the shoulders of non-black people. Instead, we want to actively stand in solidarity with the writing and art that often does not receive the same opportunity for promotion and publication that work by white creatives does, especially when it stems from majority-white institutions such as Russell Group Universities, where most of our readers and contributors will come from.
We, as a team, feel so much and have so much to say at this time, but we feel it would be a much more productive, constructive and efficient use of our time, energy, and space as a platform to amplify black voices who articulate this situation better than we ever could. We feel it is a better use of our efforts and energy to promote educational resources in the hopes of broadening mindsets and engaging an awareness so that solidarity and destabilisation of past systems can continue well into the future, not just during the current movement. We have therefore compiled a list of resources which can be found here to help propel you towards enacting the change - the list spans articles, academic essays, podcasts, audiobooks, documentaries, books, films, even TV shows and art, and ways to support black businesses in the UK and globally.
We will also be selling our tote bags with 100% of proceeds going towards split donations funding community bail funds, mutual aid funds and racial justice organisations, which can be found here. We want to encourage our readers to make use of these resources and use this time which might normally be filled with other art, articles, books and films to divert your attention and give your time instead to educating and bettering yourself, as we are committed to doing at Mxogyny. We are all responsible for building a more just society.