My project is entitled “Veering the Line: Queer of Color (Virtual) Phenomenology.” In her book Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others (2006), Sara Ahmed examines the foundational philosophy of thinkers such as Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, arguing that these supposedly originary ideas are in fact conditioned towards particular views and conclusions (and exclusions) by the very phenomenological perceptions that are their topic of study. In particular, Ahmed is concerned with the idea of phenomenological “lines”—that is, those vectors (whether geographic or social) that guide us through space & time, determining direction and orientation. Given that such lines orient bodies in both space and time, their power to cull perceptions in a certain direction is not simply a material concern, but also one that affects discourse. Ever playful and inquisitive with her terms, Ahmed conceives of phenomenological lines as more than mere markings. Lines designate division when deployed as borders or boundaries. They designate the thrust of kinship and familial reproduction, as in “bloodlines” or “lineage.” Lines also imply a “following,” as when a line of people form in anticipation of some event. We think through lines of reasoning. We speak (especially when performativity is involved) through lines scripted for (or if we’re lucky, by) us. Ahmed’s intervention is to interrogate those straight white lines in society that are accepted as givens, and thereby naturalized as such through cultural propulsion and state oversight. She states that “[o]ur investments in specific routes can be hidden from view, as they are the point from which we view the world that surrounds us. We can get directed by losing our sense of this direction. The line becomes then simply a way of life, or even an expression of who we are” (19). What other lines of human orientation are elided by this assumption of a “given” line?
As you move through this virtual space, I invite you to be cognizant of the lines you are traversing, both as a virtual point of view with control over your orientation, and as an independent consciousness (that is nonetheless socially inflected) engaging in various lines of discourse with the exhibits. Consider how variously abled people might follow alternate lines through the space I have created, both as an imagined materiality and as an actual digital realm that requires various means of access. Feel free to peruse the gallery along the course I have set (my line) or wander according to your own direction of desire. Using Ahmed’s queer phenomenology as my theoretical framing, I examine (and invite visitors to examine) how each participant selected from the HistoryMakers Digital Archive introduces various new lines of material and discursive orientation regarding matters of Black queer identity.
I begin with Angela Davis who demonstrates “how to be both opposed to and in favor of some of these things simultaneously.” She is speaking of same-sex marriage and service in the military, both institutions that Davis believes LGBTQ+ people should have access to, but also that she identifies as capitalist constructs that have wrought centuries of suffering on marginalized communities, especially people of color and queer people. I then include an image of one of my supplementary texts (in this case Roderick A. Ferguson’s Aberrations in Black) that offer texture and extension to the line proposed by the HistoryMakers participant.
My line then moves on to Darren Walker who discusses his sexual and racial identity as a gay Black man, acknowledging a lifeline of support and comfort not readily experienced by most people with similar identities. I couple Walker’s testimonial with Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, particularly her essay “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” which argues for the creative power of eroticism, not restricted to (but never ignoring) sexual desire.
From here I move to the next room enclosure where we find Theaster Gates discuss how the gospel singing of several vocalists (especially Daryl Coley) generated a kind of spiritual exaltation—what we might call a line of divine engagement—in which “all gender normative values would be given up.” I pair Gates’ discussion with C. Riley Snorton’s Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity. I do this not because Gates makes any reference (explicit or otherwise) to trans identities, but rather because within his lines I recognize an historical precedent regarding the mutability of gender when understood as a racialized construct—a precedent that Snorton examines through the era of American slavery. I also include a clip of Coley performing “Can’t Tell It All.”
I conclude with Barbara Ransby who offers her hopes for the future of the African American community. While most of Ransby’s concerns involve the over-incarceration of Black bodies, she does touch on the need for more “inclusion of queer people.” This is a subtle line of departure, barely more than a detour, but it does represent a brief crinkling of the straight line of U.S. ideology, one that Ransby is already disturbing by reading Black lines amidst, upon, throughout, and beyond the white line of social supremacy. With Ransby I link Kara Keeling’s Queer Times, Black Futures which, among many other interventions, examines futurity as a crucial site for queer and Black liberation.
A note about the gallery design. I opted for a template that would emphasize lines and intersections so as to serve as visual motifs for the kinds of line disruption I am promoting. Thus all windows and wall spaces are covered by intersecting lines, demonstrating points of progression and congestion that underscore the felt givenness of certain lines that are always already vulnerable to subversion. I have also placed two tables (a prime motif in Ahmed’s phenomenology), one in each room, that include my framing quote from Ahmed. In addition, the wood floor and several pieces of furniture follow this lined motif. I have also included four pieces of artwork that (in order) represent 1) the divergent potential of lined systems (Daniel Olah), 2) the queer potential of these lines of divergence (Luca Ianconelli), 3) how such lines carry with them racialized views of gender (Jack Finnigan), and 4) a joyous play of black of queer (hence, not straight) Black bodies (Lance Grandahl).
With these ideas in mind (and body), please follow the lines of your own choosing and discover what forms of worldmaking are made possible when we challenge the givenness of certain lines with those lines of being that have always run parallel, perpendicular, and every other angle of approach or intersection with straight line orientations and their attendant ideologies.
