Though I have been mostly offline for my annual summer social media sabbatical, I watched the Jason Arday story unfold with increasing horror over the last couple of weeks. With hundreds of stories in traditional media, along with many people texting me updates because they perceived parallels between his situation in academia and my own, it was unavoidable.
I had never interacted with Jason, but I’ve spoken at Cambridge twice over the last two years—on my way out of the academy myself—and, like many Blackademics, I’m aware of most of the few of us who live in Black and brown skin while inhabiting these primarily white spaces.
Jason’s life ended in tragedy, and while our stories bear many similarities, at least I am privileged to leave academia on my own two feet and not in a body bag. May Jason know peace now, something he was not allowed to feel in the last weeks of his life.
Suicide is complicated and multifactoral in its causes, but it is undeniable that the ghoulish hunting of this gentle spirit is why he is dead today. Jason was not just hounded out of Cambridge or academia; he was hounded out of the workforce, hounded out of existence. For this wretched Western society (which is so well exemplified by the grotesque nature of so-called “higher” education) wants each of us to believe we are born to be exploited and used up—especially people who are Black or mentally ill or disabled. This grotesque order wants each of us to believe that if we fail to manage our own exploitation, we deserve the death penalty.
