in some ways, the following post is a departure—an aside, if you will—from this blog's usual content matter, while in other ways it's entirely not. either way, i'd like to take a moment to share a random snippet of my dealings with reverse culture shock as a repatriated Black American...
i have never been a fan of History. from as early as elementary school, i learned that when people said "History" they really only meant theirs and not mine. by junior high school it was clear that my own history—that is, the history of people who are Black and American like me, in so far as U.S. History textbooks were concerned...
blaqueer: so, you know that saying “laughter heals the soul”…? well, i certainly wouldn’t go that far, but it did make for a good, even if “childish”, way to pass the time on Snapchat at work today. at the very least, it’s better than getting annoyed or frustrated, as per usual. see: original post bitmoji and Snapchat make for Tumblr-worthy reactionary screenshots, apparently.
queernigga: since conversation about blackface in japan is springing up again and summa y’all want to act brand new as if this is isolated and never happens let’s talk about the original mascot of Calpis, used from the 1920s until the fucking 1980s. Lemme also link one of my old videos about an experience with blackface drag in 新宿二丁目。 literally walked past a vintage ad for Calpis with this character on it yesterday at an antiques store in Kamakura; that was my first encounter with Calpis’ history with this character. can’t say i was surprised, but definitely disappointed. to this day, not only blackface but also redface and yellowface (re: depictions of people of other asian ethnic groups) is still very much alive and well in Japan– especially in the 芸能界 / entertainment industry. and without fail, every time something like this happens– if it even makes it into the…
posted with the permission of a friend, the above gem is but one of many examples of antiblack racism, transphobia and binarism that my friend is subjected to regularly on Grindr in Osaka and Tokyo. sharing it here as i often hear of this kind of thing happening on Grindr in English speaking countries, but see little about it beyond that. antiblackness is not unique to America or other English speaking countries, it is universal. and least there be any false assumptions made based on the above example being in English, my friend receives similar messages from non-English speakers in Japanese and has also received such messages during their time living in South Korea. this is Old News that is apparently Breaking News to some, but rest assured it most certainly is not Fake News.
blaqueer: From a mixed-race household with Middle Eastern and Irish heritage, Riyadh – with his unusual name and fair complexion – knows first-hand how judgemental the gay community online can be. With his perceived ‘white privilege’, he explores the casual racism in the LGBTQ+ community and asks, when does preference become prejudice? Queer Britain is a six-part series, and new episodes will be released each Sunday morning. cw: blatant racism, sexual objectification, explicit genitalia & sex talk… mind your triggers. there was one part of this where i had to pause the video (multiple times) and silently scream streams of expletives. guess when that was. come on, i dare you. suffice it to say that by the time the episode finally moved on from focusing on the gay scene, i was legit relieved. even so, residual silent screaming.
as usual, i find myself turning to YouTube as a resource for information only to be reminded that…. YouTube is So Damn White. most things non-binary and / or trans are So Damn White. a search for “non-binary” and “testosterone” turns up almost nothing but skinny, short haired, white, non-binary people, none of whom i can really see myself in. which is nothing new. that’s part of the reason i’m on YouTube in the first place. beyond that, a bigger problem that i find myself faced with is that the very image / concept of “androgyny” or stereotypical “non-binary appearance” is inherently linked to whiteness. i want people to pause before they misgender me (seeing as how they will inevitably misgender me regardless) and the best way to bring about that is, presumably, androgynous appearance. however, androgyny feels unobtainable to me as a black person, because no matter what i…
blaqueer: gaywrites: Yesterday in Philadelphia, LGBTQ activists and city officials gathered to kick off Pride month by raising a new official flag. It’s the traditional rainbow flag we all know, with two additions: a black stripe and a brown stripe. The flag is part of a local initiative to address a history of racism in the city’s LGBTQ neighborhood and community groups. It’s the first time an American city has embraced the flag with brown and black stripes. G Philly covered a leaked video last year that showed a White local club owner repeatedly describing Black patrons as n-words. Backlash to the video, combined with the collective’s ongoing activism, ultimately led to a city council bill that gives the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations the authority to penalize discriminatory businesses. Amber Hikes, a queer Black woman, now heads the Office of LGBT Affairs, and the office’s new commission includes mainly…
[ … ] There isn’t any classroom, or pre-testosterone counseling session that prepared me for what it means to become America’s boogieman; a black man. What I was first acquainted with as a gender nonconforming dyke and what was further illuminated after engaging in hormone therapy and beginning to “pass” as a man of color, is that without organically derived psychological schemas, black masculinity is suspended in others’ projections, desires / fantasies, or agendas. [ … ] – Parker T Hurley (”Outside the XY: Queer, Black and Brown Masculinity”, a @bklynboihood anthology edited by Morgan Mann Willis) came across this gem (among others) in my reading today. the first highlighted / bolded part (emphasis mine) in particular touches upon something that i’ve been thinking about for years now, but haven’t gotten up the nerve to explicitly talk about for various reasons. the latter highlighted / bolded part is all too…
self-proclaimed allies look to you for guidance on how they can be a better ally while consciously or not expecting their hand to be held or their fragile feelings to be spared along the way; simultaneously oblivious every time they trample all over your feelings, perpetrating the very thing they claim to be against because they’re so focused on the elephant in the room that they pay no mind to their own everyday microaggressions.
