Once, We Picked the Crop .............. Now, We Are the Crop
So last week is station 4. Crescent Moon (A Cycle).
This week is station 5. Split Rectangle (Change/Transition)
Title: Once, we picked the crop — now, we are the crop.
Object: Sugar Cane
12 associations
- Sweet
- White rum
- Plane from Jamaica
- Pink syrup
- My nana
- Broken down homes
- Fireflies
- Bob Marley
- Hate
- Love
- Dumbing down
- Letting the fucker go
The other day I receive this email:
Marine TUAL
Wed 10 Jun, 11:30 (11 days ago)
Dear Linda,
I work for the TV program "Invitation au Voyage" broadcast on the cultural channel ARTE. We are preparing a short story (15min) about the origins of clubbing in Manchester. I am looking for photographs of the Reno, exterior and interior. Would you have 2 or 3 photos in your collections that would be ok to use?
Thank you for your help,
Kind regards,
Marine
I reply:
Linda Brogan
Wed 10 Jun, 12:50 (11 days ago)
No, I don't. Your better question would have been to ask if I mind you including my work at all.
Linda
Marine TUAL
Wed 10 Jun, 12:57 (11 days ago)
to me
That was the purpose of my email—to ask for your permission.
I don’t reply
Marine TUAL
Tue 16 Jun, 14:46 (5 days ago)
Dear Linda,
May I ask if you would allow the use of a few pictures and what would be the conditions? I am sorry if my first email was unclear.
Best,
Marine
Linda Brogan
Tue 16 Jun, 14:49 (5 days ago)
to Marine
What is the text that accompanies the pictures?
Which pictures?
Where did you get them?
Linda
Marine TUAL
Tue 16 Jun, 15:12 (5 days ago)
The text that we say about the Reno is the following: 'In the 1970s and early 1980s, Moss Side was home to a particularly vibrant local dance scene. Legendary clubs made a name for themselves there, such as The Reno, where people danced until dawn to soul and funk.' We mention Hewan Clarke et Greg Wilson; we interviewed Aniff Akinola for this sequence.
The idea would be to show people in the Reno, regulars as well as DJs. The photos from this article would be great (regulars + DJ Persian for example):
https://britishculturearchive.co.uk/the-reno-moss-side-manchester-british-culture-archive/
We saw the photos from the project Excavating the Reno:
https://thereno.live/files/RENO_300x300_S6d.pdf
Thank you,
Marine
Linda Brogan
Tue 16 Jun, 15:31 (5 days ago)
Hi Marine
Is this my text: It doesn't sound like mine? 'In the 1970s and early 1980s, Moss Side was home to a particularly vibrant local dance scene. Legendary clubs made a name for themselves there, such as The Reno, where people danced until dawn to soul and funk.' If it is, please don't use it.
Please do not use anything from the British Culture Archive https://britishculturearchive.co.uk/the-reno-moss-side-manchester-british-culture-archive/ I do not have permission for the photographs in the British Archive to be reproduced. Many are dead and their families will be upset. Please do not use any of my text. or quotes or anything I say or write it will be out of context. Plus, it is copyrighted to me.
Please do not use anything from my book https://thereno.live/files/RENO_300x300_S6d.pdf I do not have permission for the photographs in my PDF book to be reproduced. Many are dead and their families will be upset. Please do not use any of my text. or quotes or anything I say or write, it will be out of context. Plus, it is copyrighted to me.
Marine TUAL
Tue 16 Jun, 15:51 (5 days ago)
to me
The text I quoted is our own, it is what we would mention over the photo archive. We aim at illustrating the importance of the Reno and the Nile as social venues for West Indian and African communities, as did many articles:
https://i-d.co/article/forgotten-history-the-reno-manchester-original-nightclub-mixed-race-youth/
However I understand you were entrusted with these photos, and you are not entitled to allow their reproduction.
Linda Brogan
Tue 16 Jun, 16:04 (5 days ago)
to Marine
Thank you. I advise you to leave it all alone. As I do now. We wish it to be buried again. You had to be there, at the club and at the excavation. We do not need you to illustrate the importance of the Reno and the Nile as social venues for West Indian and African communities, as did many articles. I have come to realise these kinds of thoughts are actually racist. You need to stop questioning me now and observe my wishes for you and your company. I need you to leave us alone. And find your story elsewhere.
At first I was afraid, I was petrified
Thinking I could never live without you by my side
And after spending nights
Thinking how you did me wrong
I grew strong
And I learned how to get along
Now you're back
From outer space
And I find you here
With that sad look upon your face
I should've changed that stupid lock
Or made you leave your key
If I'd've known for a second
You'd be back to bother me
A few years ago, Marine’s email would have made my day. But now it just infuriates me. How fucking dare they read every fucking thing I have written and been written about me and then ask me for some photos at the end, after interviewing someone else about the Reno.
Pure fucking abuse.
How dare the person give the interview. They are probably not even old enough to be there, born 1963, in the years I am talking about. Especially if they are citing Hewan Clarke as the Reno DJ. Persian is our DJ. In the Reno I am talking about.
But fuck that. That is not the purpose of today’s newsletter, the fifth station in understanding why the master’s tools can never dismantle the master’s house.
Why is it a racist statement: We aim at illustrating the importance of the Reno and the Nile as social venues for West Indian and African communities, as did many articles?
I am a very different person when these articles are written, I am still trapped in an abusive relationship with the arts and the institutions. Hence, I Will Survive. You can’t see it when you are being coerced. (Coerced are the past tense and adjective form of coerce. It means to compel or force someone to do something they are unwilling to do, usually through threats, intimidation, or manipulation. An action is coerced when it violates an individual's free will.) I do not realise I have free will until In the Ruins of the Big House when I declare myself the mistress of my Jamaican dad’s plantation using my white mum’s status.
The Reno is not of importance as a social venue for West Indian and African communities. That is entirely a racist statement. It basically says; they all look alike. They are alike. They all act alike. But more so because my Reno, the Reno I go to, I am talking about, is a fabulous place in which to be half-caste. Badges of honour go to half-caste. We give them to each other with our nods and our laughs and our fancying each other and our get togethers in each other’s houses, male and female, and our sense of humour, and the whole fucking point in digging up the Reno is to clarify this point. Remember — I write in an ACE application that the Royal Court gig — a white actress and black actress read excerpts from my monologue, that cause biased empathy in the audience, and show both sides of me, my mum is white, but no one will believe me, to the world I am black. I excavate the fucking Reno to release me and all my half-caste family from the shackles of the kindness of strangers. The kindness of strangers who want wings. Who want mortgages paid. Who want to be seen having great ideas in boardrooms. Who think I am still coercible, and anyone can fuck me for a few Shekels. Best, is there is not a few Shekels on offer. I now give my hard-earned work for free according to their new layer of abuse.
A more subtle layer. Cos, they think I am grateful. But I no longer acknowledge your jurisdiction over me. I am mixed-race. In my day and age, I am called, and identify as, half-caste. I am lucky enough to meet other artistically minded half-caste in the Reno and also lucky for us, Persian, Jamaican, who plays our kind of music. The Reno is never important to West Indians, or Africans. It is important to us. It is important to us. It is important to us. I excavate it because of its importance to us.
‘Look at her eyes though. Look at her eyes. See how her nose favours him.’ My Jamaican family, who are used to all kinds of caste over the centuries, accept me for who I am. I am Basil’s daughter. Basil, who goes to England and never comes back. But they don’t hate me. His wife doesn’t hate me. His other kids don’t hate me. They accept he has gone to a better life across the water. And he sends them back postal orders. They send him white rum, sent back to him, white rum, and good wishes to his white woman. Homemade sugar cane white rum with homemade sugar cane pink syrup, so the customs won’t stop me. And I cry the last night surrounded by the fireflies. Aunt Adelyn is stirring the pot. My cousins are sitting on my nana’s veranda sucking sugar cane cos they don't have Mars Bars. Listening to Des lick down Lurleen on my nana's radio that my dad sends new batteries for. Their life is full and happy. Their life has each other. And those that chose not to leave do not resent those that do. They have not sold out. Like One Love makes the most beautiful half-caste of all, gorgeous Bob, his millions. When he too is sick of rallying against the injustice. When he lets the fucker go. Fuck the injustice. It is also a tool of the master. That we believe in the injustice is also a tool of the masters. Pick a card, any card. Sleight of hand. Where is the ace? We never find the ace because we are too busy watching his hands. I choose to no longer watch his fucking hands. He can do what he likes with his hands.
Old pirates, yes, they rob I,
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but our self can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill de book
As I leave on the plane from Jamaica, sweet pink syrup in potent white rum, I no longer feel shame for my black family’s broken-down homes. I feel love for the hands that look like my hands, that look like my dad’s hands, that lift my chin this way and that way, that I belong. I belong. I belong in the Reno, in the shafts of light through the wall during the day while filling Paul’s gym bag with empty bottles and ashtrays and waiting for him to open it. And fucking pissing ourselves. And his fury. And his white mum and his black dad; like our white mum and our black dad. Planted beside Isabel Wilkerson’s 8 pillars of Caste on which the master's tools hang:
- Divine Will and Laws of Nature
- Heritability
- Endogamy and the Control of Marriage and Mating
- Purity versus Pollution
- Occupational Hierarchy
- Dehumanisation and Stigma
- Terror as Enforcement, Cruelty as a Means of Control
- Inherent Superiority versus Inherent Inferiority
Marine’s email may as well read:
Hi Linda
We are all white. And you are all black. And you will always need our help to get over this unfortunate state of affairs you find yourself in. This month you are lucky enough to be chosen as an ingredient in our gratin.
Hi Marine
I don’t wanna be in your fucking gratin. How dare you dumb down the nuance of the open sea voyage I made. Sucking this dick and that dick just to raise the funds before I even ask anyone from the Reno community to join me. How dare you reduce my epic voyage to, ‘We aim at illustrating the importance of the Reno and the Nile as social venues for West Indian and African communities, as did many articles:’ These articles are written when I still think I can never live without you by my side. But I’ve worn a ball gown since then. And drawn 8ft x 8ft 8-station mind-maps. I have developed, and believe in my own tools.