Episode 97 - Bayo Akomoalfe - One Whiteness, Monsters and More Than Human Openings
In deeply mysterious times I can think of no finer human to help us consider other ways of seeing, thinking and responding to the crises than Bayo Akomolafe who we welcome back for Episode 97.
Bayo is a philosopher, writer, post-activist, professor of psychology and executive director of the Emergence Network.
Bayo was guest in Episode 66 and this conversation was recorded live in community during a Becoming Crew online learning event in June this year.
As we witness mythic scale events unfold almost weekly, this conversation feels more timely now than it did 5 months ago when it was recorded.
Bayo’s words and thinking continue to ferment in such profound ways.
Having sat on it for a few months, we’ve added some Spaceship Earth sonic love and I feel this is a really potent and helpful offering for this moment .
“Transformation has never been a human project. It is more than human.”
Bayo Akomolafe
Bayo is without doubt one of the most important thinkers, writers and speakers in these times of unravelling and one of the most humble, kind and funny humans with it.
The rarest of combinations.
I am so grateful for his generosity of thought and all he offers.
He invites us to see and notice differently, to consider things which often feel invisible, beyond our individualised ways of seeing and yet perhaps, might be critical noticings for finding ways through our collective stuckness.
But only if we’re prepared to venture into the cracks as Bayo might say.
We invited Bayo to come to this conversation to help us explore and better understand the terrain of ‘whiteness’ - whiteness not as skin colour but perhaps as the invisible controlling logic of the systems, structures and deeply engrained ways we act out everyday enmeshed in the pervasiveness of capitalist modernity.
As he has written previously
“Whiteness is the logic of capture. It works alongside neoliberal humanism and alongside capitalist modes of extraction, perpetuating itself via a neurotypicality – a system of value that measures out what it means to be properly embodied, what it means to be a self, and – by extension – what it means to be dispensable.”
We cover :
The terrain of whiteness
Desensitisation and grief
Moving towards cracks and openings
The limits of systems theory
Post-Activism
Cultivating different ways of responding to these times
How alternative solutions often continue to serve dominant systems and infrastructure
Learning to live well with loss, grief and uncertainty
This is a deep, rich, creative and vulnerable conversation about the trouble we are facing, brimming with provocation and insight to sit with in this moment.
I’d suggest this as essential fertiliser for heading off the highway of modernity and making new moves.
This was a live online session with our community and includes some beautiful questions towards the end which Bayo responds to.
“To come to a world that is entangled is to come to the humility of recognising that we are imbricated in webs of suffering.”
Bayo Akomolafe
I’d love to know how this lands for you so please do share your thoughts.
Listen on all podcast platforms.