Wednesday, December 1, 2021
Queering the Line: GISstorymap
Queering the Line
John Rubio
In conjunction with my virtual exhibition, this storymap will traverse lines of queer identity development in Black communities within the United States—multifaceted lines that include not only geographic regions, but also personal and cultural orientations. I begin with a simple question: how has queerness—as an identity, a lived experience, and a cultural orientation—developed within Black U.S. communities and the lives of Black individuals? In researching this question, I must first acknowledge some limitations. I recognize that, given the scope of my question, five geographic pins cannot account for the diversity of experience and opinion regarding queer or Black lives (or their intersection) in America. In addition, these experiences are further varied by the different time periods my selected speakers from the History Makers Archive reference. Thus, my project does not aim for an exhaustive account of queer Black experience in the United States, but rather seeks to trace a non-straight line through the speakers I have selected that links their insights and experiences into a kind of narrative—a narrative that follows the individual lines of each speaker, moving through their histories, congruences, and conflicts to present a vision for queer Black futurity. I argue that, in keeping with my closing video speakers (Barbara Ransby and Angela Davis), queer lives and Black lives share a kinship in terms of marginalizing and oppressive treatment (often intersectionally experienced), as well as being marked as lesser subjectivities based on their difference from white heteronormativity, and the hierarchies that privilege the latter. This kinship provides opportunities for coalition building, not simply in terms of social justice activism, but also in terms of empathetic resonance culled from mutual experience. However, it is important that the goals of such coalitions focus on dismantling institutions of oppression, not seeking inclusion within them.
We begin with gospel singer and minister Donnie McClurkin who describes how his sexuality was irrevocably entangled with a sexual assault he endured as a child. Narrating from this traumatic event, McClurkin moves us through his struggles as a devout Christian with queer desires. This story culminates on the streets of New York City in 1981 on his 21st birthday. Seeking queer experiences that would be impossible to cultivate in the imposed closet of his Christian community, McClurkin decides, “I was tired of this, and I’m gonna go out in Manhattan and I’m going to be with whoever I wanna be with, I’m gonna, I’m gonna find a man.” However, after receiving no interest from other men on his first attempt at cruising, McClurkin leaves the city feeling dejected, only to later realize that in 1981 HIV and AIDS were spreading rapidly within gay communities, especially at cruising sites. McClurkin comes to the conclusion that his rejection on his birthday was in fact God looking out for him: “God had to talk to me and say I covered you.” McClurkin’s story does not provide a reconciliation of queer and Christian values, but instead offers a repudiation of queerness in favor of divine providence. I selected McClurkin’s story as the starting point for my project specifically because it lacks reconciliation. Rather, his reflections introduce the many complex lines of identity (inflected by desire, fear, repression, and abuse) that orient McClurkin as an “ex-gay” Black man in the United States. It is from this cleaving of queer desire and masculine expression within Black communities (especially Christian communities) that I move to potential sites for integration.
We move next to visual artist and urban planner Theaster Gates in Chicago, IL, who offers an alternate vision of queerness within the Black Church, one that spies the possibility for collectivity and incorporation. Gates describes his experience at the Cosmopolitan Church of Prayer, “there was like such fiercely feminine male presence. Wasn’t always necessarily gay, it was, it was, you know, it’s, it was a generation of men raised by women.” Gates does not locate male homosexuality per se within his experience of God; however, he does note a queering of the strictures that partition gender roles, especially through the songs of gospel vocalist Daryl Coley. Rather than experiencing God’s “cover” as a guiding hand leading him away from the supposed immoralities and dangers of being gay, Gates recognizes God’s complexity as a kind of queer potential for gender fluidity. He states, “the way that you could see the sincerity of this, to me, feminine evocation of God was through the shout, through the wailing. Through, through the presence of the Holy Ghost these men would lose it. And when they would lose it, all gender normative values would be given up.” From Gates we follow a line to nonprofit executive Darren Walker who describes his time in college at the University of Texas at Austin. Moving from Gates’ queer evocations regarding gender in gospel performance (and reception), Walker identifies as an openly gay man who was sure of his sexuality well before he entered college. He describes his experience as “open[ing] up a new world.” In keeping with queer theorists such as Michael Warner and Eve Sedgewick, Walker orients himself within a kind of counterpublic under the auspices of the university. His experience is one of worldbuilding in which, despite being verbally abused for his sexuality, Walker never faced physical violence, and what’s more, was able to integrate himself into a space that provided, and allowed for, love.
For my last two speakers, I have selected Barbara Ransby and Angela Davis who both offer visions of Black futurity that focus on queer inclusivity, but with slight variations in their approach. Ransby calls for a “kind of internationalism, appreciation for, you know, feminine sensibilities and women’s contribution, inclusion of queer people and disabled people in the mix—to be generous in that way, not narrow and self-focused.” She locates queer inclusion within a rough index of other marginalized groups who might achieve coalition with Black activism. While her reference to queer inclusion might appear casual and offhand (especially compared to the other speakers featured in this project), it is important to note that by drawing such an index Ransby is in fact promoting collective struggle for the mutually disenfranchised, recognizing intersectional oppressions, and offering a view of Black culture that transcends U.S. citizenry to encompass global diasporas. Given this focus, Ransby’s contribution is not situated in a particular location, thus I have opted to pin her site at the University of Illinois, Chicago, where Ransby is a professor of History and African American Studies.
Angela Davis advocates for the same inclusivity regarding queer people, but she critiques key objectives launched by mainstream activisms—in particular, queer service in the military and gay marriage. She notes, “while I think it’s important to emphasize it, everybody should have civil rights, whether it’s a right to join the military or the right to get married, it’s important to, to challenge these institutions. And so I try to use my feminist and Marxist approach to think about how to be both opposed to and in favor of some of these things simultaneously.” Davis highlights the fact that mutual recognition of injustice and coalition building are needed, but they produce little in the way of progress when the aims involve seeking recognition by the very institutions that are enacting injustice. The aim, according to Davis, should be to dismantle such institutions. For this reason, I have placed her pin at the Capitol Building in Washington DC.
Davis laments the mainstream social justice prerogative for what she calls “the easy way out,” preferring instead to wrestle with the “tightrope” of supporting universal rights, but not seeking their protection from forces that have already demonstrated their propensity for violating rights. Moreover, she expands this idea of the tightrope to a personal conviction about her own queerness, noting, “I don’t even know whether I would consider it a sexual identity. I think that it’s about, it’s about intimacy and about finding people with whom one can make a life and, and that, you know, happens with men and women, it happens with women and women, men and men, people who don’t necessarily agree to particular gender identities. And I don’t think it’s, I don't think it’s more complicated than that.” Similar to Gates’ reflections on the collapse of gender normativity he experienced at the Cosmopolitan Church of Prayer, Davis endorses the “flexibility” of identity, even to the point of counteracting identity as a desirable habitation, whether for personal or political reasons.
Davis, like Gates’ sense of God through music, engages queerness through the ever-shifting complexities of intimacy and love. She insists that the mutualities shared between queer and Black experiences cannot be solved by campaigns for recognition that only serve to bolster unjust institutions steeped in the oppressions of capitalism. Rather, the mutual goal should be to end such institutions and their systemic violence against deprivileged groups, such as seen in the school to prison pipeline, the military’s recruitment targeting of impoverished citizens (not to mention U.S. military imperialism), and the neoliberal affirming practice of marriage. We began with a cleaving between queerness and masculinity (especially within the Christian church). We traversed this schism across multiple individuals who offered both personal and communal experiences of reintegration. We then conclude our travels across time, space, and narrative to arrive at yet another cleaving—not one that separates, but one that unites queer and Black struggles with all marginalized communities. However, this unity calls not for a determinate identity, but rather basks in the indeterminacy of human relation and subjectivity—a final pin that never fully arrives at a set location, but instead casts queer lines to the margins that compose our horizons and searches for assemblage.
Tuesday, October 12, 2021
Veering the Line Discussion Questions
1. Describe what happens to your experience of embodiment as you peruse this digital gallery. Consider how your sense of bodily orientation is both altered and sustained.
2. What lines of ideological orientation do the exhibits in this gallery challenge? How do the views expressed in the HistoryMakers testimonials develop new lines of thought and orientation? What lines of communication are opened, and between who?
3. How might you describe a queer of color orientation to the world, whether material or virtual?
4. What elements (whether a virtual object, curatorial choice, or media component) would you add to this gallery to improve it?
