The 'Self-Supervised' Token 'United Kingdom, 2025: <1% of 25,670 Professors are Black (61 of those are women)' 1 Today I learned that I am a pioneer. No, not destined to be - I am the expert now. A.K.A: A Minority Ethnic Undergraduate Student. With boundless thought and incessant scrutiny to behold, if you will. So let's fantasise, just for a little while... Given that I am, most naturally, the pinnacle of modern academia. I know more than all my professors, PhD scholars and academics put together. I most obviously have the grounds and legitimate authority to: Champion a new field of study Coin new terminology Start my own school of thought For I am a black female scholar in England - who's stopping me? No. I don't do STEM or indulge in contemporary visual arts. No, I do that subject they warned you about. The one that won't get you hired; the dauntingly abstract ones that strike fear into the hearts of...
Erebus & Nausea 'Today, I was hit.' That's what I say when I finally feel something. Some- thing that follows me around. Latches on to me like the smell of decay, neurosis - like the smell of my tear soaked childhood bedroom. It's acrid and all consuming, it stings. I wish to coin a new term for being 'over-overwhelmed'. Not the type that blows over, the one that you have no choice but to swallow. The type that has hardened me. The type that threatens me, tackles me to the ground. Devours me. Holds me down so tightly that I don't realise I'm underwater until I'm choking. Erebus and Nausea That's what I feel when I feel. It makes my skin all prickly and alien to me. Muting every sound external so that the blood rushing around my head can be bass-booted and put on loudspeaker. But, my blood runs cold. It runs and runs and runs and- I find myself running too. Into traffic, away from home, into danger. I want to, no. I need to feel somethi...