{"id":4707,"date":"2025-10-27T13:41:01","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T13:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/?page_id=4707"},"modified":"2026-02-03T11:06:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T11:06:41","slug":"titilayo-farukuoye-november-2025","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/titilayo-farukuoye-november-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Titilayo Farukuoye, November 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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What I am Reading Now\u2026
Titilayo Farukuoye
<\/strong>November 2025<\/p><\/div>

In times like today\u2019s, it is the power, strength and solidarity that is created by coming together to seek collective liberation with peers, workers, neighbours, queers, creatives, women + gender marginalised people and all those I am in community with, that keeps me going.<\/p>

It\u2019s this shared care and understanding that makes it possible to continuously show up, ask questions and struggle for justice and create a shared vision for a better world.<\/p>

Every so often this feeling of shared solidarity is violently shattered by an often subtle gesture that demands space for an overwhelming and unkind question in my head: Why do so many people and communities get forgotten about? What allows you to care about this cause, but not the next?!<\/em><\/p>

It seems that we are together, until we are not.<\/p>

Anti-Blackness is one of the causes of this rupture. It jumps out like a curse ready to haunt even the best community group or initiative, taking whatever shape it pleases: a throw away comment, whether or not people turn up to a Black-led event or initiative, which atrocities are shared on social media, which are not, which activists are remembered, or forgotten, the amount of violence someone is met with, who is afforded grace, extra time and resources, who isn\u2019t…<\/p>

It is not out of bold malice (though sometimes it is!), but is merely an essential function of white supremacy, which relies on simple racial hierarchy to work: those closest to whiteness (through skin colour, hair and accent but equally so body type, culture, language, passport, nationality, education, upbringing, you name it) are prioritised.<\/p>

What complicates this notion, is that we can\u2019t all do everything<\/em>, so prioritisation and targeted action is essential<\/em> if we are to achieve anything at all (as exemplified by the BDS movement), however, this selectivity is a problem when African and African descendant people by default are de-prioritised.<\/p>

We cannot wait for one people to liberate themselves before the next group gets their turn, not when we are in a global fight against racial capitalism and neocolonialism murdering so many of us daily, not when all of our struggles are connected \u2013\u2018The truth is, no one of us is free until all of us are free\u2019 \u2013 Maya Angelou.<\/p>

In this spirit, though there are so many struggles to be in solidarity with, to act and boycott for, like the people of Sudan<\/a> and Haiti<\/a>, I have decided to share a few books and resources I have read and continue to engage with to focus on the plight for freedom and justice of the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo:<\/p>

In the words of Pappy Orion, founder and chair, of humanitarian charity Focus Congo,<\/strong><\/p>

\u201c<\/strong>The Genocide in Congo has never been silent. We have had Congolese people screaming, women, children screaming for their lives [..] Because this is happening on African soil to Black people, we all choose to ignore it. […] according to some of us Africans, Congolese people are meant to suffer\u2026\u00a0<\/p>

Millions of lives have perished, and yet we [global witnesses] keep on going, we are all accomplices, we know that, but we choose to ignore.<\/p>

Congolese Lives Matter. Stand with Congo.\u201d- Pappy Orion, founder of Focus Congo
<\/strong><\/p>

Free Congo!<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Titilayo Farukuoye<\/strong> (they\/them) is a writer, educator and organiser based in Glasgow. Their work addresses social justice and community care and is informed by rights and cultural leaders like Assata Shakur and Oy\u00e8r\u00f3nk\u1eb9\u0301 Oy\u011bw\u00f9m\u00ed. Titilayo invites us to dream and use our radical imagination to seek more just realities. Titilayo co-directs the Scottish BPOC Writers Network and is a winner of the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Their poetry pamphlet\u00a0In Wolf\u2019s Skin<\/em>\u00a0is available with Stewed Rhubarb Press and Titilayo\u2019s non-fiction book\u00a0But We Did: Dismantling colonialist myths towards collective liberation<\/em>\u00a0is forthcoming with Saraband.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Watch<\/p>

Crisis In The Congo: Uncovering The Truth<\/em>, Friends of the Congo (YouTube, 2011)<\/a><\/div>
(Content Warning: Graphic imagery, detailed description of torture, manslaughter, rape, genocide\u2026)<\/div>
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Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat<\/em>, Dir. Johan Grimonprez (2024)<\/a><\/div>
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Follow & Donate<\/div>
\u00a0<\/div>
– https:\/\/friendsofthecongo.org\/<\/a>
– https:\/\/congoweek.org\/flyers-fact-sheets.html<\/a>
–\u00a0https:\/\/www.focuscongo.com<\/a><\/div><\/div>
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Read<\/div>
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King Leopold’s Ghost<\/em>, Adam Hochschild (Mariner Books, 1998)<\/div>
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My Country, Africa: Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria<\/em>, Andr\u00e9e Blouin (Verso Books, 2025)<\/div>
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Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives<\/em>, Siddharth Kara (St. Martin’s Press, 2023)<\/div>
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Listen<\/div>
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Koffi Olomide<\/span><\/div>
Fally Ipupa<\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Please note the views published in\u00a0What I am Reading Now…<\/i>\u00a0are personal reflections of the contributors.
These may not necessarily represent the views of the University of Dundee.<\/span><\/p>

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>

Home<\/a><\/p>

Previous Issue: Omar Kholeif<\/strong>, October 2025<\/span><\/a>
Next Issue: Viola\u00a0Ye\u015filta\u00e7<\/strong>, December 2025<\/a><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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about projects What I am Reading Now\u2026Titilayo FarukuoyeNovember 2025 In times like today\u2019s, it is the power, strength and solidarity that is created by coming together to seek collective liberation with peers, workers, neighbours, queers, creatives, women + gender marginalised people and all those I am in community with, that keeps me going. It\u2019s this …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4707","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4707"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4951,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4707\/revisions\/4951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}