Is Black Queer Back?

July 8th, 2010 by Guest Contributor

Along with Kalup Linzy, a number of these personalities maintain a strong presence online. Much has been written on B. Scott, who is remaking celebrity online and has been working hard by blogging, hosting his own radio show, vlogging on YouTube, and appearing on various television shows. My students keyed me into KingsleyBitch, the 19-year old who has amassed over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube in less than a year by kvetching, vlog-style whenever he feels like it. It’s the kid of transgression endemic to YouTube, the kind that Mr. Pregnant, who is a kind of queer figure, takes to the next level. New York-based performer Britney Houston moved from online to offline, making a name for herself doing music video remakes on YouTube then making music and performing live in NYC, much like Monstah Black and Kalup Linzy have, but with more pop. Online, black gay narratives are another small but mighty bunch, including Christopher Street, Drama Queenz, Lovers and Friends, Anacostia and Buppies.*

(UPDATE: Reader suggestions (of people I missed): Jonte’; Jean Paul Paula)

WE HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE

We have been here before. Some would say we have never left, and they might be right. (Warning: really sketchy and incomplete history to follow).

The black gay and/or queer sexuality has always been with us. Since the 19th century, it has been increasingly public. There is, for instance, the fairly well-documented case of Peter Sewally, an ostensible cross-dresser arrested and tried for his “monstrous” behavior” (much of GLBT history is accessed through police records). As scholar Tavia Nyong’o writes: “Sewally’s monstrousness lay both in his evident race and in his shocking conflation of the gender binary around which the dynamics of middle class propriety pivoted.” Black queer as boogeyman.

There’s an interesting footnote in the Sewally tale which has him discussing how, in the black community at the time, his gender-bending was quite accepted at the balls. Yes, balls are a decades-old tradition. Allen Drexel writes how the balls were big, community-wide affair. Drag balls were quite public and often officially allowed – mostly because they often took place on Halloween, etc., specifically in the black community. The balls were covered by the mainstream black press and engaged a diverse section of the South Side community. Talk to many old black gays today and they’ll confirm black queer/cross-dressing/genderfuck has been a perennial staple in black performance.

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Posted in LGBTQ, gender, history, queer, race, race & representations | 18 comments

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