RESISTING FRAGMENTATION:

THE RADICAL POSSIBILITIES OF BLACK LGBTQ+ ACTIVISM IN BRAZIL AND THE UNITED STATES

By:

Watufani M. Poe

B.A., Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, 2013

A.M. in History, Brown University, Providence, RI, 2018

A.M. in Africana Studies, Brown University, Providence, RI, 2018

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of

Africana Studies at Brown University Providence, Rhode Island,

May 2021

© Copyright 2021 by Watufani M. Poe

Poe iii

This dissertation by Watufani M. Poe is accepted in its present form by the Department of

Africana Studies as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of

Philosophy.

Date: ______

Keisha-Khan Perry, Advisor

Recommended to the Graduate Council

Date: ______

Geri Augusto, Committee Member

Date: ______

James Green, Committee Member

Date: ______

Marlon Bailey, Committee Member

Approved by the Graduate Council

Date: ______

Andrew G. Campbell, Dean of the Graduate School Poe iv

------WATUFANI M. POE ------Africana Studies, Box 1904 • 155 Angell Street, Providence RI 02912 • [email protected]

EDUCATION

Ph.D. Brown University, Africana Studies 2015 – 2021 Designated Emphasis: Studies in Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Dissertation Project: Resisting Fragmentation: The Radical Possibilities of Black LGBTQ+ Activism in Brazil and the United States Committee: Keisha-Khan Perry (Chair), James Green, Geri Augusto, Marlon Bailey (Arizona State University)

University of São Paulo, Sociology 2019 - Visiting Fulbright Scholar

Federal University of Minas Gerais, Political Science 2019 - Visiting Fulbright Scholar

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, History 2019 - Visiting Fulbright Scholar

A.M. Brown University, Africana Studies 2018 A.M. Brown University, History 2018 B.A. Swarthmore College 2009 - 2013 Major: Africana Studies Minor: Latin American Studies

RESEARCH INTERESTS Black Queer Studies (field exam), Afro-Latin America (field exam), History of Brazil (field exam), Mixed methods, Qualitative methods, Transnational history, Portuguese, Spanish

EXTERNAL FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS Fellow, Fulbright U.S. Student Program (Brazil) 2018 - 2019 Mellon International Diss. Research Fellow (Brazil), Social Sciences Research Council 2018 - 2019 Honorable Mention, Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Competition 2017 Grantee, Tinker Field Research Grant (Brazil), Tinker Foundation 2017 Grantee, Tinker Field Research Grant (Brazil), Tinker Foundation 2016 Associate Fellow, Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers, Phillips Academy (Andover, MA) 2014 - 2015

INTERNAL FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS Fellow, Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Brown University ($34000) 2020 Poe v

Fellow, Open Graduate Education Program, Brown University ($30000) 2017 Awardee, International Travel Award, Brown University Graduate School ($800) 2017 Grantee, Joukowsky Summer Research Award, Brown University ($800) 2017 Grantee, Joukowsky Summer Research Award, Brown University ($1500) 2016 Awardee, International Travel Award, Brown University Graduate School ($800) 2016 Grantee, James Green Fund Small Grant, Brazil Initiative at Brown University ($2000) 2016 - 2017 Fellow, Tisch Fellowship, Brown University Graduate School ($30000) 2015 Grantee, Summer Action Grant, Lang Center for Civic and Social Resp. at Swarthmore ($1200) 2012 TEACHING EXPERIENCE Teaching Assistant, The Afro-Luso-Brazil Triangle (Anani Dzidzienyo, Brown University) 2018 Teaching Assistant, Afro-Latin Americans (Anani Dzidzienyo, Brown University) 2017 Teaching Assistant, Black Freedom Struggle Since 1945 (Françoise Hamlin, Brown University) 2017 Teaching Assistant, How Structural Racism Works (Tricia Rose, Brown University) 2016 Teaching Assistant, Blacks in Diaspora (Nina Johnson, Swarthmore College) 2013

ACADEMIC PRESENTATIONS “Black Lives Matter in Brazil” 2020 Presented at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting; New Orleans, LA “Representação vs. Representatividade: Analyzing Black LGBTQ+ Identity Politics in Brazil” 2020 Presented at the University of Toronto Center for Ethics; Toronto, ON, Canada “Race, Racism and Resistance in Latin America” 2020 Presented at San Diego State University; San Diego, CA “Finding Space for the Bicha Preta: Black LGBTQ Activism in Brazil and the United States” 2019 Presented at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil “Viadagens Cruzadas: Insurgências Negras e Desobediências Queers no Sul Globalizado” 2019 Presented at the Federal University of Reconcavo da Bahia, Cachoeira, BA, Brazil “B(l)ack To My roots: Black Queer Diasporic Reclamation of Homeplace” 2018 Presented at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting; New Orleans, LA “Reading at the Intersections: Representations of Blackness in O Lampião da Esquina (1978-1981)” Presented at the Dialogues and Challenges in the Study of the African Diaspora in Latin America; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 2017 “A Quare Eye to Slavery: Black Homoerotic Encounters in Brazil and Cuba” Presented at the Colloquium ¿Del otro la’o?: Perspectives on Queer Sexualities, University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez; Puerto Rico 2017

PUBLICATIONS 2021 “Anti-Racism and Racial Democracy” Routledge Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, Routledge Press (Forthcoming) 2021 “A Quare Eye to Slavery: Black Homoerotic Encounters in Brazil and Cuba,” Appealing Because he is Appalling: Black Masculinities, Colonialism, and Erotic Racism: Essays Honoring Baldwin and Fanon, University of Alberta Press 2021 (Forthcoming) 2021 “Review of Slavery Unseen: Sex, Power, and Violence in Brazilian History by: Lamonte Aidoo,” H- HistSex (Forthcoming) Poe vi

2017 "Review of Sex Tourism in Bahia: Ambiguous Entanglements, by Erica Lorraine Williams: Poe, Watufani: University of Illinois Press, 2013, 224 pp., 95.00(hardcover),ISBN-13:978- 0252037931; 28.00 (paperback), ISBN-13: 978-0252079443." (2017): 111-113.

SELECTED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE Program Coordinator, Lavender Youth Recreation and Inf. Center (San Francisco, CA) 2014 - 2015 Alumni Program Associate, GSA Network (San Francisco, CA) 2013 - 2014 Blueprint Mentor, Swarthmore College Black Cultural Center (Swarth., PA) 2010 - 2011 Swarthmore Queer Union Intern, Swarthmore Coll. Intercultural Ctr. (Swarthmore, PA) 2010 - 2011 Senior Intern, African-American Museum of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA) 2010

SELECTED SERVICE Co-Organizer, South of Queer Series, Brown University 2016 - 2017 Member, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan Committee, Brown University 2016 – 2017 Poe vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As scholars we are so often pushed to center individuality and “originality” in the production of academic works, as if writing and research happens in isolation from the

“brilliance” of the scholar. Producing this dissertation throughout the past six years has proven to me that this idea is far from the truth and that all academic work, especially ethnography, is produced in collaboration. We produce theory in collaboration with our interlocutors, interviewees, friends, advisors, and mentors along the way. This project belongs as much to me as it does to the numerous people who have passed through my life over the past six years. I am grateful for the brilliance and generosity so many people have entrusted to me by sharing their stories, their expertise, and their feedback.

To all of the incredible people who offered their stories, shared archival resources with me, and shared community with me, thank you. Para todos no Brasil: Wesley, Tamiris, Bartira,

Leticia, Marcos, Gustavo, Mirande, Lelê, Jonatas, João Felipe, Denie, Carol, Thalita, Mario,

Paulett, Joilson, Daniel, Alex, Alessandra, Aleff, Leop, Daniel, Jean, Gê, Raphael, Alexandre,

Ricardo, Franklin, Fernanda, Ana, Nataly, Carlos, Uilton, Ane, Igor, Flip, Gil, Annie, Jessica,

Sheu, Brysa, Washington, Thiffany, Sellena, João, Vinny, Papaleguas, Livia, Paulo, Gabriel,

Dominick, Michele, Dayana, DaniLu, Nunyara, Alan, Claudio, Neusa, Mandela, Ermeval, muito obrigado por tudo que você contribuiu para essa tese. To everyone in the USA: Abdul-Aliy,

Niko, Marcus, Shani, Hazel, Icon, Deangelo, DaShawn, Briyana, Azeem, Marquel, and Chris, you all have my eternal gratitude. I had amazing help along the way in transcribing the multitudes of interviews on my plate, so to George, Gabi, Gustavo, and Gleisson, thank you for dedicating your time to not only transcription but helping me understand the core of the colloquialisms expressed in the interviews. Poe viii

Without the financial support of many institutions and people, this kind of large transnational project would be impossible. I am incredibly grateful for the support from the

Mellon Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, the Tinker Foundation, and Brown University’s Graduate School for all the continued support to be able to travel and live while conducting this work.

To my intellectual community at Brown University and in the New England area, I thank you for filling my mind and spirit, giving me the energy to continue with this dissertation. To my incredible committee, Geri Augusto, who stepped in at the last minute and provided incredible feedback on how to center Pan-African thought in my approach, Marlon Bailey, whose Black queer USA focused eye fine-tuned my theoretical interventions in the field of Black Queer

Studies, James Green, who taught me what it meant to be a historian invested in the political well-being of the communities we research, Anani Dzidzienyo, who passed away in the middle of my writing this dissertation but has left an indelible mark not only on this dissertation but on my development as a teacher, scholar, and activist, and Keisha-Khan Perry, my incredible advisor whose support from before I arrived at Brown for this bold transnational project and careful eye to the development and growth of the project through the years ensured its success, you have my eternal gratitude. To my fantastic and incredibly thorough editor Ciara Miller, I cannot imagine doing this project without you. From the day I sent you an email panicking about completing a chapter to be ready for a job talk in early 2020 to our last check-in meeting processing my last chapter you have provided detailed support and encouragement along the way. To my colleagues and friends in at Brown, thank you for all the intellectual debate, the laughter, the shoulders to cry on, and the joy that marked my graduate journey. To Shamara,

Nicosia, Lydia, Bedour, Katsí, Amanda, Warren, D’Ondre, Kristen, Felicia, and everyone in Poe ix

Africana, I feel so lucky to have shared such a wonderful space of Black scholarship and brilliance with you all. To my friends and mentors outside of Africana, Lamonte Aidoo, Emily

Owens, Virginia Thomas, and countless others, thank you for helping me find my path towards

Queer of Color Critique and Black Queer Studies. To Blair, Kendall, Marquel, Nas, and Men of

Melanin Magic in Boston, thank you for opening up the world of Black Boston to me and providing an escape when I couldn’t handle the tininess of Providence any longer. To Jonathan,

Prabh, Vé, Parsa, Jay, thank you all for being my home in Providence, my chosen family, the queer of color community that I needed to get me through the rigor of graduate school. Thank you always for the pink lemonade.

To my mother, Evelyn Davis-Poe, and father, Zizwe Poe, I thank you for building our family in a Pan-Africanist political tradition that you believed in. I can’t say I always understood the why of what you were doing growing up, and there were certainly times I resisted this vision while attempting to negotiate my place in a Eurocentric neocolonial world, but without your political strength and resolve, I would have never been able to come into myself nor to this dissertation project. To my siblings and their partners, Jumatatu, Mjumbe, Jennifer, Kara,

Ambata, Sharnel, Tayarisha, and George, I thank you all for the continued love and support that you all provided and an ear to workshop my ideas even if you didn’t completely get what I was talking about. Finally, to Brenno, muito obrigado por me escholher todo dia. Escrever essa tese ao seu lado tem sido a maior honra da minha vida. Que venha muito mais dias ao seu lado.

Obrigado por ser minha felicidade eterna.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations xii

Introduction 1 Black Queer Fragments 3 Resisting Fragmentation 8 Tra(ns)versing Diaspora: Towards a Black Queer Diasporic Epistemology 10 The Specter of Trump and Bolsonaro: An American Entanglement 18 Black Queer Research(er) 33 Dissertation Structure 40

Chapter 1: Resisting Fragmentation: Black LGBTQ+ Self and Community Making 42 Part 1: All Parts at Once – Black LGBTQ+ Self-Making 46 Necessary Conflict 51 The Loneliness of Necessary Conflict 57 Black LGBTQ+ Bodily Autonomy 63 Part 2: Collective Defragmentation – Black LGBTQ+ Community-Making 67 Investing in Black LGBTQ+ Community Growth 73 Center Black LGBTQ+ Bodies 75 Conclusion 82

Chapter 2: The Journey Home: Black LGBTQ+ Navigation of Broader Movements For Social Justice 83 Adé-Dúdú: A Black Gay Movement 88 Cláudio Nascimento: Gay Black Leadership in the LGBTQ+ Movement 100 Black Lives Matter - Black Queer Feminist Leadership in the Black Movement 113 Silences in the Name of the Movement 123 Refusing the Silences 131 Conclusion 137

Chapter 3: Representação vs. Representatividade: Black LGBTQ+ Identity Politics in the Political Sphere 139 Introduction: Clashes Over Representation 139 The Origins of Identity Politics and Representation 146 Representatividade: Erica Malunguinho’s Quilombo Politics 152 Representatividade: Humanizing the Struggles of the Oppressed 161 Representação: Identity As a Weapon 167 Representação or Representatividade: Who Decides? 183 The Dangers of Representatividade 190 Conclusion 197

Chapter 4: Poe xi

Black Queer Freedom: The Radical Imaginings of Black LGBTQ+ People 202 Part 1: Themes of Black LGBTQ+ Freedom 204 The Impossibility/Improbability of Freedom 204 The Destruction of Oppressive Forces 209 Freedom To Be 213 Self-Determination 218 Part 2: Performing Black LGBTQ+ Freedom 220 Janelle Monae’s Electric Freedom 220 Liberdade da Bixa Preta – Linn da Quebrada 228 Liberdade da Bixa Preta – The Afrobapho Collective 234 Conclusion 238

Conclusion 239

Bibliography 247

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1 - Batekoo Ocupação Preta 69

Figure 2 - Batekoo Ocupação Preta 69

Figure 3 - Batekoo Ocupação Preta 70

Figure 4 - Batekoo São Paulo on July 29, 2019 79

Figure 5 - Batekoo São Paulo on July 29, 2019 79

Figure 6 - Erica Malunguinho stepping into her role as State Representative 153

Figure 7 - Garcia’s Room 171

Figure 8 - Garcia’s Room 171

Figure 9 - Garcia with “Gays With Bolsonaro” Shirt 181

Figure 10 - Janelle Monae’s Q.U.E.E.N. 222

Figure 11 - Linn da Quebrada’s Enviadescer 228

Figure 12 - Author With Scholars From The Federal University of the Recôncavo of Bahia 241

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INTRODUCTION

“We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.”

-- Combahee River Collective, 19771

In July of 2016, Diego Viera Machado, a Black gay student activist at the Federal

University of Rio de Janeiro, was killed in what appeared to be a hate crime.2 Black and LGBTQ activists claimed his death as both a racist and homophobic attack which channeled their outrage into organized action. They charged that Machado's social positioning as a Black, gay, and working-class scholarship recipient marked him as a target on three fronts and that any response to his death had to reckon with his specific challenges at these intersectional axes of oppression.

Black LGBTQ social media groups encouraged people to spread pictures with the words

"Respeita as bichas pretas" (Respect Black sissies) bolded against a blank screen to support and mourn the entirety of Machado. Through this, Black queer activists also sought to locate

Machado's queerness in the Black working communities' colloquial language from which he came. Identifying the attack against Machado not as an attack on "gay" people but against

"bichas pretas," a term broadly understood as offensive but reclaimed within Black queer and trans-working-class communities, allowed Black LGBTQ people to control their narrative even in this moment of violent terror.

During that same year, Black LGBTQ activists in Philadelphia raised their voices in discontent against a series of racist events in the city's gayborhood (gay and lesbian district).

Following an on-camera anti-Black vitriol spewed by the owner of the popular gay club ICandy,

1 Combahee River Collective, "The Combahee River Collective Statement," Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (1983): 264-74. 2 Cristina Boeckel,"Aluno da UFRJ é Encontrado Morto Dentro do Campus do Fundão, Rio," Rio de Janeiro, July 03, 2016, http://g1.globo.com (accessed November 02, 2017). Poe 2

Black LGBTQ activists from the Black and Brown Workers Collective led boycotts and actions against racism not only at that venue but across the gayborhood. As boycotts continued, the

Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations instituted mandatory trainings on racial discrimination for all businesses and organizations throughout the gayborhood. As tensions rose, the staff at the Mazzoni Center, an LGBTQ non-profit in the area, decided to walk out in protest of their CEO. Abdul Aliy-Muhammad, a former Mazzoni staff person and member of the Black and Brown Workers Collective, pledged to go on a medication strike, refusing to take his HIV medication to catalyze the dismissal of the Mazzoni Center CEO. Speaking on what motivated his actions, he stated, "As a Black Queer Poz person in the United States of Oppression, I have to resist, fight for my humanity and others all while trying to survive and not die from unwavering targets on my back."3 After the CEO's resignation and continued boycott of ICandy and other gayborhood bars, the Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs and activists of color throughout

Philadelphia unveiled a new symbol of the LGBT community's struggle: a rainbow flag adding the colors black and brown to represent communities of color. As a result of persistent resistance,

Black LGBTQ activists in Philadelphia won the flag as a symbol against racism within the

LGBTQ community. Both moments reflect a political mobilization drawn from the experiences of oppression rooted in one's social position. The whole Black LGBTQ+ experience is integral to the type of response and resistance these activists mount which begs the question that if identity politics suggests the political essence of one's identity, what then is the political potential of

Black LGBTQ+ identity politics? What radical prospects lie within seeing the world through the lens of Black LGBTQ+ experiences? My research in Brazil and the United States asks the

3 Ernest Owens, “Meet the Activist Who Protested Mazzoni With an HIV Meds Strike,” April 26, 2017. https://www.phillymag.com/g-philly/2017/04/24/abdul-aliy-muhammad-meds-strike-mazzoni/ (accessed March 06, 2018. Poe 3

following ethnographic questions concerning Black queer and trans resistance:

1. How do different forms of institutionalized anti-blackness, heteropatriarchal violence,

and capitalism shape Black LGBTQ activists' tactics to defend their lives?

2. How do Black LGBTQ people’s social position and worldview help them to push racial

justice movements and LGBTQ liberation movements into more expansive visions of

liberation?

3. How do Black LGBTQ activists organize and enact their own freedoms/utopic spaces?

Black Queer Fragments

I arrived at the apartment building, drenched in sweat. I miscalculated that although the apartment building in downtown São was close to where I stayed in distance measurement, it was up a steep hill. In conjunction with the city's hot and muggy December heat, this incline made my appearance less presentable than I desired for an interview. Ringing the doorbell to my interviewees' apartment, I took my sweaty looks in stride. Besides, others undoubtedly suffered through the summer heat of December as well. When I arrived at Flip's apartment and his partner

Gil, I received a cold glass of water and the simple question, "Some heat, huh?" Taking note of the implied response to Flip's question of my sweaty appearance, we all burst into laughter.

After sitting and cooling off for a second, Flip and I launched into conversation. I had run into him various times before the interview took place, but our schedules always conflicted when we tried to set up an interview. However, every time I ran into Flip, his undying commitment to

Black LGBTQ+ community building was more than apparent. The first time I saw Flip from afar was during the annual Todos os Gêneros (All of the Genders) festival at Itaú Cultural Center in

São Paulo. The festival generally focused on themes related to gender and sexuality. That year, Poe 4

the focus was on communities with HIV. Flip presented an experimental dance examining what it means to be Black and HIV positive in Brazil. Following his piece, he participated in a panel discussion with four other Black LGBTQ+ HIV positive activists discussing the difficulties of being Black and HIV positive and the importance of centering the conversations of race and

Blackness in the public health field. The next time I saw Flip was São Paulo Pride's weekend in

2017 when the collective he helped start, Festa Amem, threw the first Parada Preta (Black Pride) party at a club in downtown São Paulo. Following his work on social media after Parada Preta, I saw Flip present on various panels with Black Pride planners in different countries worldwide, speaking to the importance of strengthening Black LGBTQ+ community ties throughout the diaspora. I was continually in awe of Flip’s dedication to Black LGBTQ+ and Black HIV- positive communities. His articulation of community importance beyond borders and across diaspora spoke powerfully to me and my project. I was excited that we could finally sit down to talk more than two years after our first encounter.

When Flip began to talk through his activism and community-building experience, he described it as a complicated piecing together of seemingly disparate pieces of himself.

Flip: There was this fragmentation of my sexuality. I came out as gay within the hip-hop scene, and that was a lonely experience too. Inside a community that welcomed me when it came to aesthetics, sound, and dance, but the affective side was always left out. I had my first boyfriend in 2012, and he was part of my dance group, so I opened up to everyone in the group early in 2012/2013, and everyone knew, but it was always treated with tolerance - as long as you aren't feminine or you don't talk about it or show it, we accept it or tolerate it. So there was this huge silencing process and fragmentation. So here I did hip hop, and I was somewhat myself, and then I looked for the affective fulfillment in other places. I looked for people in LGBT parties, saunas - this issue of looking for places to explore your sexuality in spaces in silence and darkness. But, this intersection and this conjunction began when I met other people that had this construction of self that crossed mine: Dance/Hip Hop and sexuality. It was there that I began to distance myself. I distanced myself from dance for a while. I worked in a bar. And through this process of working in the bar, I started to throw a party in this bar that I worked at, and the party was Festa Amem. So for as long as I remember, I always Poe 5

dreamed of having a gay hip hop party where I could partake in the culture, the music, and the aesthetics that I wanted without being exotified. In 2016, Festa Amem begins this process to connect the dots of myself to get in touch with the community. I think in this process, I begin to understand myself as a Black gay person.4

For Flip, this separation of parts of oneself, or fragmentation, forces Black LGBTQ+ people to silence parts of themselves to make those in the communities they belong to feel comfortable.

But that silencing of parts of themselves only leads to making supposed community spaces unsafe for the full expression of self for Black LGBTQ+ people. For Flip, hip hop spaces were where he could artistically connect to his Blackness, but those spaces refused his Black LGBTQ- ness. To find spaces to embrace his sexuality, he searched out LGBTQ social spaces; however, it was not until he discovered other people who share the intersection of race and sexuality that he could connect the fragmented pieces of himself. For Flip, this not only meant people who could understand his experiences as a Black LGBTQ+ person, but spaces that openly advocated for the combined social issues that his community faced, relating to racial discrimination and LGBTQ- phobic violence. Flip reiterated the importance of his connection with other Black LGBTQ+ community members through his excitement about Black trans São Paulo-based singer Linn da

Quebrada's 2017 hit "Bixa Preta."

Flip: These conversations are still new. So Festa Amem in 2016, Aparelha Luzia also opened in 2016...Batekoo, a party that also brings these issues from a generational standpoint, so the young Black peripheral community comes in 2015 too. So, it's a discussion that's found profundity in five years, so when Linn da Quebrada comes out singing 'Bixa Preta,' we think, 'Wow, someone is talking about me!' meaning all of these issues about Black LGBT people. But it was always separated in the past. I remember people used to say there aren’t Black gay people because if you are gay, you're gay, you stop being Black. So, there was this issue of taking away your Black identity because of relating homosexuality to whiteness. So it was a common thing in the Black community.5

4 Personal Interview with Flip Couto, December 20, 2018, São Paulo, Brazil. Translation by author. 5 Ibid. Poe 6

Bixa or Bicha Preta is a sometimes-derogatory term aimed at Black gay and trans femmes in

Brazil that Black LGBTQ+ communities have reclaimed as a powerful moniker of the Black gay and trans community.6 Aparelha Luzia, founded by Erica Malunguinho, São Paulo's first Black trans woman state representative, is a Black empowerment organizing space and performance venue in São Paulo's Santa Cecilia neighborhood. Batekoo is a Black LGBTQ+ dance party launched by and composed of Black LGBTQ+ artists and event organizers from Bahia in São

Paulo that spread throughout many major cities in Brazil. Along with Flip's Festa Amem, all serve as spaces that center the experiences, struggles, and joy of Black LGBTQ+ people. Flip draws attention to the importance of moments like Linn da Quebrada focusing on the struggle and power of "Bixas Pretas" in her song or social spaces that center Black LGBTQ+ people, which provide refuge from the fragmentation that other Black or LGBTQ+ community spaces force upon them. These Black LGBTQ+ spaces refute the constant erasure that Flip acknowledges in Black or LGBTQ+ communities by declaring Black LGBTQ+ issues as both

Black and LGBTQ+ issues. These geographies of Black LGBTQ+ community-building work to resist identity fragmentation.

Flip's articulation of the self-fragmentation that Black LGBTQ+ people experience reflects Black feminists' ideas regarding the illegibility of their experiences in a single-issue discrimination-based lens. When Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced intersectionality theory, she drew upon years of Black women's theorizations of their experiences at multiple axes of oppression.7 Crenshaw sought to explain why Black women's experiences are ignored in the

6 Marcio Rodrigo Vale Caetano Et Al., Bichas Pretas E Negões: Seus Fazeres Curriculares Em Escolas Das Periferias." Revista Teias 20, No. 59 (2019): 39-55. 7 Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South. Oxford University Press, 1988; Davies, Carole Boyce. Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones. Duke University Press, 2007; Hull, Gloria T., Akasha Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith, eds. All the Women are White, all the Blacks Are Men, But Some Poe 7

frame of the law and how explaining their experiences through the lens of only racism or only sexism does not get to the root of their struggles. In Crenshaw's article "Demarginalizing the

Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine,

Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics," she illuminates legal cases that refuse to acknowledge the different experiences of oppressed people. The discrimination law only considers those who experience only one discrimination, such as Black men or white women. Crenshaw argues,

This focus on the most privileged group members marginalizes those who are multiply-burdened and obscures claims that cannot be understood as resulting from discrete sources of discrimination...These problems of exclusion cannot be solved simply by including Black women within an already established analytical structure. Because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated.8

Crenshaw's intervention goes beyond an additive analysis that adds racism to sexism to equal

Black women's experiences. Instead, she suggests that our approach to discrimination is flawed because discrimination does not happen in fragments for marginalized people. Black women's discrimination is not racism some days and sexism other days but a certain kind of gendered racism or racialized sexism present in every discrimination experience. Therefore, Black women and their experiences cannot be understood in pieces but rather wholly, as the conjunction of multiple oppressions.

Drawing from Flip's reflection about his struggles to remain unfragmented in community spaces and Crenshaw's theorizations of intersectionality, this dissertation seeks to understand how Black LGBTQ+ activists in Brazil and the United States attempt to remain whole and

of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies. Feminist Press, 1982; Truth, Sojourner. Ain't I A Woman?. Penguin UK, 2020. 8 Kimberlé Crenshaw, "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics," U. Chi. Legal f. (1989): 139. Poe 8

unfragmented in their community organizing and activist objectives. Black LGBTQ+ activists like Flip organize to eradicate multiple systems of power that seek to oppress them daily. While the tactics and objectives are varied for different Black LGBTQ+ activists, many are united in their attention to racism, heteropatriarchy, and capitalism. I work to understand the diverse technologies of activism and freedom-building that Black LGBTQ+ people develop, with attention to the specific conditions that foster different activist responses such as their gender identity and expression, skin complexion, and socioeconomic background. Just as Crenshaw argues that Black women's discrimination is more than the sum of two biases put together, Black

LGBTQ+ activists argue that society's solutions and alternative constructions must do more than address two or more prejudices put together. Addressing the oppression Black LGBTQ+ people face consists of radically reimagining a free society, and that imagination is made possible by

Black LGBTQ+ activists refusing a fragmented understanding of their experiences.

Resisting Fragmentation

My research's central question is how do Black LGBTQ individuals and communities find ways to survive and create freer presents and futures for themselves and those like them?

What do these visions and practices of freedom offer those outside of the Black LGBTQ+ community? I analyze these questions by observing Black LGBTQ+ activists' engagement in various social and political spaces such as racial justice or LGBTQ+ rights organizations, the realm of electoral politics, and collectives formed specifically to center Black LGBTQ+ people.

To excavate Black LGBTQ+ activism across the United States and Brazil, I draw upon recent literature on Black queer and trans activism in the United States9 and in countries in Latin

9 Cathy J Cohen, "Punks, Bulldaggers, And Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential Of Queer Politics?." GLQ: A Journal Of Lesbian And Gay Studies 3, No. 4 (1997): 437-465; Ferguson, Roderick A. Aberrations In Black: Poe 9

America10 while using a comparative methodology to bring together scholarship on what

Edmund T. Gordon has termed “disparate diasporas.”11 Through this transnational perspective, I outline the convergences of political experiences in the Black Queer Diaspora.12 This dissertation explores the global systems of oppression that control the lives of Black LGBTQ people in the

Americas and analyzes their resistance to these systems through their self-making, navigation of activist spaces, production of ideas about freedom, and forging of diasporic connections.

My research defines activism as the acts that Black LGBTQ+ people take to survive a world that actively seeks their death. Brazil and the United States are two countries with alarmingly high rates of hate crime violence and murders against Black LGBTQ+ communities, especially Black trans communities.13 Both countries also have governments that embrace open hostility towards Black and LGBTQ+ communities.14 Rather than combat LGBTQ-phobia, these governmental hostilities within right-wing sectors of the government (which have recently

Toward A Queer Of Color Critique. U Of Minnesota Press, 2004; Hanhardt, Christina B. Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and The Politics Of Violence. Duke University Press, 2013; Mumford, Kevin. Not Straight, Not White: Black Gay Men From The March On Washington To The AIDS Crisis. UNC Press Books, 2016. 10 Jafari S Allen, ¡Venceremos?: The Erotics of Black Self-Making in Cuba. Duke University Press, 2011; Saunders, Tanya L. Cuban Underground Hip Hop: Black Thoughts, Black Revolution, Black Modernity. University of Texas Press, 2015. 11 Edmund T Gordon, Disparate Diasporas: Identity and Politics in An African-Nicaraguan Community. University of Texas Press, 1998. 12 Jafari S Allen, "Black/Queer/Diaspora at the Current Conjuncture." GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 18, no. 2 (2012): 211-248. 13 Patrícia Figueiredo, “Negros São Alvo De Metade Dos Registros De Violência Contra População LGBT No Brasil, Diz Pesquisa,” July 13, 2020. https://g1.globo.com/sp/sao-paulo/noticia/2020/07/15/negros-sao-alvo-de- metade-dos-registros-de-violencia-contra-populacao-lgbt-no-brasil-diz-pesquisa.ghtml; Johns, Michelle M., Richard Lowry, Laura T. Haderxhanaj, Catherine N. Rasberry, Leah Robin, Lamont Scales, Deborah Stone, and Nicolas A. Suarez. "Trends in violence victimization and suicide risk by sexual identity among high school students—Youth Risk Behavior Survey, United States, 2015–2019." MMWR supplements 69, no. 1 (2020): 19; Souza, Daniel Cerdeira, Ingrid Mesquita Coelho, Felipe dos Santos Martins, and Eduardo Jorge Sant'Ana Honorato. "Assassinatos de LGBT’s no brasil–uma análise de literatura entre 2010-2017." Revista Periódicus 1, no. 10 (2018): 24-39. 14 Both the Republican Party, the party of former US President Donald J. Trump, and the Social Liberal Party (PSL), the former political party of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, have adopted policies hostile to the rights and liberties of LGBTQ+ populations in their countries. When the Brazilian Federal Supreme court decided to criminalize homophobia, Jair Bolsonaro openly critiqued the decision. Donald Trump instructed a rolling back of protections on LGBTQ+ students and workers using revisions to the federal discrimination policies. Poe 10

controlled both countries) produce environments that endorse, not combat, violence against

Black LGBTQ+ people. I define resistance and activism as a daily individual and community survival practice given the daily violences Black LGBTQ+ people face. I work toward upholding Black LGBTQ+ life by focusing on sites of Black LGBTQ+ protagonism: the organization of online support groups for the Black LGBTQ+ community, advocacy for political rights for Black and LGBTQ+ people, and the creation of dance parties and spaces of corporeal freedom for Black LGBTQ+ people.

As many scholars have suggested, the process of self-making and subjectivity for Black people throughout the Americas has been fraught due to the dehumanizing processes of chattel slavery.15 Black people continually work to escape the entrapments of anti-Black societies that seek to limit their visions of self to control their notions of what is possible. The intersectional limitations imposed by heterosexist and white supremacist power structures further complicate the self-determination of Black LGBTQ+ communities. While experiences with oppression and fragmentation can help to radicalize Black LGBTQ+ visions, the workings of power dynamics silence some Black LGBTQ+ people and limit their radicalization and their communities.

Therefore, while the violence of oppression on multiple fronts presents the possibilities of radicalization for many Black LGBTQ+ individuals and communities, it also simultaneously represents the reasons for continued silencing and lack of radical Black LGBTQ+ self-making for others.

Tra(ns)versing Diaspora: Towards a Black Queer Diasporic Epistemology

15 Lamonte Aidoo, Slavery Unseen: Sex, Power, And Violence In Brazilian History (Duke University Press, 2018); Saidiya V. Hartman, Scenes Of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, And Self-Making In Nineteenth-Century America (Oxford University Press on Demand, 1997); Osmundo Pinho, "“Putaria”: Masculinidade, Negritude E Desejo No Pagode Baiano," Maguaré 29, No. 2 (2015): 209-238; Hortense J. Spillers, "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book." Diacritics 17, No. 2 (1987): 65-81; Vincent Woodard, The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption And Homoeroticism Within US Slave Culture 34 (NYU Press, 2014). Poe 11

Rather than analyzing the phenomenon of Black LGBTQ+ activism in either Brazil or the

United States, I analyze this resistance interconnectedly, focusing on both countries at the same time. Since my first trip to Brazil, I, a Black queer person born in the United States, felt the continual connections in experiences between Black LGBTQ+ communities in Brazil and the

United States. Studying abroad between Salvador da Bahia and São Paulo for half a year, I took part in conversations and actions with Black LGBTQ+ people in Brazil that reflected experiences in the lives of other Black LGBTQ+ people in the United States. While paying close attention to the differences that stemmed from a different language, cultural, and political contexts in both countries, I quickly felt connections between the Black LGBTQ+ experiences in both places.

Foundational works on sexuality and race in Brazil commonly contrasted Black and LGBTQ+ communities' constructions in the two places.16 Despite these academic preparations to keep attuned to difference, my mind continually jumped to the connections between the struggles of the Black LGBTQ+ community in both places. As the son of two Pan-Africanists who continually emphasized the importance of unity of all African people on the African continent and their descendants abroad, I saw these connections. Maybe it was my own experience of silence about my sexuality in my family's Pan-Africanist circles or the silencing of my conversations about Blackness at my former LGBTQ non-profit jobs that allowed me to connect my struggle with the struggles of Black LGBTQ+ people within Brazil. Perhaps it was, as Jafari

Allen insists in his article "Black/Queer/Diaspora at the Current Conjecture," "For black queers, survival has always been about finding ways to connect some of what is disconnected, to

16 Carl N Degler, Neither Black Nor White: Slavery And Race Relations In Brazil And The United States (Univ Of Wisconsin Press, 1986); Gilberto Freyre, The Masters And The Slaves 351 (Univ Of California Press, 1986); Tannenbaum, Frank. Slave and Citizen (Beacon Press, 1992); Thomas E. Black Into White: Race And Nationality In Brazilian Thought (Duke University Press, 1992). Poe 12

embody and remember."17 Therefore, reflecting on Allen's words, I considered my personal experience of fragmentation as a Black queer person, which ignited an eagerness to connect fragments between race and sexuality and between diaspora.

The recognition of the similarities and connections between Black and Black LGBTQ+ experiences from different countries is possible through an epistemology that understands the

African diaspora's story as interconnected, despite its separation by national borders and oceans.

Scholars and activists have long insisted on the importance of an analysis of the African diaspora that considers both similarities and differences to understand the larger political struggle of

Black people throughout the world.

Black Brazilian feminist scholar-activist Léila Gonzalez invoked a Pan-Africanist and

Afrocentric project with her conception of Amefricanidade push for a broader coalition of Black women throughout Latin America and the Caribbean fighting against racism and heteropatriarchy in the region18. For Gonzalez, Amefricanidade referenced Black Brazilian and

Black people throughout the Americas' experiences as inextricably African and American. Léila

Gonzalez explains this "American" project, showing Black Brazil's connection to places like

Jamaica, saying,

The category of Amefricanidade incorporates all of the historical processes of these intense cultural dynamics (adaptation, resistance, reinterpretation, and creation of new forms) that are Afrocentric, meaning, referenced in models like Jamaica and the Akan, their dominant model; Brazil and their Yoruba, Bantu, and Ewe-Fon models...these imprints that show the Black presence in the cultural construction of the American continent bring me to ponder the necessity of the elaboration of a category that does not restrict itself to only the Brazilian case and

17 Jafari S. Allen, "Black/Queer/Diaspora at the Current Conjuncture," GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 18, no. 2-3 (2012): 211-248. 18 Sonia E. Alvarez, Kia Lilly Caldwell, and Agustín Lao-Montes, "Translations Across Black Feminist Diasporas," Meridians 14, no. 2 (2016): v-ix; Keisha-Khan Perry and Edilza Sotero, "Amefricanidade: The Black Diaspora feminism of Léila Gonzalez, In LASA Forum, vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 60-64. 2019. Poe 13

that, utilizing a broader analysis, takes into account the demands of interdisciplinarity.19

The analytical power of Gonzalez's conception of Amefricanidade lies in the diasporic connection it spurs. Despite different national histories and contexts, the shared story of the transatlantic slave trade, cultural syncretism, and resistance to dehumanization, Black people in the American continents necessitate a broad epistemology that examines the Black diaspora interrelatedly.

Gonzalez uses Nanny of the Maroons, a Black woman maroon leader from Jamaica, as an example of the Black and American (referring to both North and South America) cultural and freedom project inherent in Amefricanidade. For Gonzalez, Nanny of the Maroons is a figure that represents a Black freedom project, one that particularly taps into Black women protagonism throughout the continent. In her article arguing for an Afro-Latin American feminism. Gonzalez specifically highlights the importance of a collective Afro-Latin American feminism that cuts across borders to combat the silencing of conversations about race and gender throughout Latin

America. She insists,

The myth of equality for all before the law presupposes the existence of great racial harmony...which is always found under the shield of the white dominant group, the ideology of blanqueamiento...It is important to point out that, within the context of profound racial inequalities which exist in the continent, sexual inequality is also strong. Non-white women of the region—the "Amerafricans" and the "Amerindians"—suffer a double discrimination. They are the most oppressed and exploited women in a region of patriarchal-racist capitalism. The Amerindians and Amerafricans are also discriminated against on the basis of their class; they are part of the immense afro-latinamerican proletariat.20

19 Raquel De Andrade Barreto, "Enegrecendo O Feminismo Ou Feminizando A Raça: Narrativas De Libertação Em Angela Davis E Lélia Gonzalez. 2005." Phd Diss., Dissertação (Mestrado)–Pontifícia Universidade Católica Do Rio De Janeiro, Departamento De História, Rio De Janeiro, 2005. 20 Lélia González, "For an Afro-Latin American Feminism." Confronting the Crisis in Latin America: Women Organizing for Change (1988): 95-101. Poe 14

For Black women and Indigenous women, questions of race and gender cut across borders and necessitate hemispheric solidarity. As scholars and elites attempt to purport the lack of a race problem across Latin America, Gonzalez's project of an Afro-Latin American feminism speaks back directly to this myth. It works to construct an alternative vision of Latin America's histories that center Black and Indigenous women's point of view.

Like Gonzalez's push to understand the Black diaspora from both an intersectional lens and with a political goal in mind, scholars of Black Queer and Trans Studies have pushed for an expanded theorization of the Black queer diaspora. In his introduction to the GLQ Special issue

"Black/Queer/Diaspora," Jafari Allen pushes a bold foray into the study of the Black queer diaspora with new imaginative methods to understand the connections between this diaspora.

Allen, an anthropologist by training, insists that diaspora practice must go beyond rigid disciplinary boundaries to answer the questions of the Black queer diaspora. He explains,

To follow the routes of black/queer/diaspora is to interrogate dynamic, unsettled subjects whose bodies, desires, and texts move. Our methodologies must therefore be supple, our communication polyglot, our outlook wide and open, and our analysis nuanced...Rather than trace an intellectual lineage in which metaphors of trees, roots, or even complex intersecting strands of heterosexually reproduced DNA are organized in an orderly, temporally rigid trajectory, I offer here an organization of the genealogical matrix of the present moment that is necessarily and deliberately promiscuous.21

When scholars intend to center Black queer and trans communities in their studies, they cannot simply utilize the same methodological and epistemological tools that have worked to render

Black LGBTQ+ illegible and erased. Just as Kimberlé Crenshaw argues22 that the concept of discrimination as linear and single axis-based must change to adequately understand the types of discriminatory experiences Black women pass through, theories and methods of Black diaspora

21 Allen, "Black/queer/diaspora, " 211-248. 22 Crenshaw, Demarginalizing the Intersection.” Poe 15

studies must begin to understand the stories of Black queer and trans communities fully. Allen's insistence for us to lean less into diaspora's genealogical basis and more into the affective diaspora in which the interconnectedness between Black LGBTQ+ communities is based on shared experiences and tangible connections is my immediate goal for analyzing Black LGBTQ+ activists in Brazil and the United States. While some might argue this approach seeks to erase geographic differences and invent fictitious similarities, I strive to illuminate power structures such as white supremacy, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy that serve to control and limit the lives of Black LGBTQ+ people globally. To see the connections between the Black queer diaspora is to see the global workings of power and oppression.

Omise' eke Natasha Tinsley in her groundbreaking article "Black Atlantic, Queer

Atlantic: Queer Imaginings of the Middle Passage," suggests that Blackness, queerness, and diaspora flow into one another just as the Atlantic Ocean, the body of water that connects the

Americas and Continental Africa, flows. She suggests that the Atlantic is already Black and queer and marks a flowing Black queer geography. Tinsley argues,

These are theoretical and ethnographic borderlands at sea, where elements or currents of historical, conceptual, and embodied maritime experience come together to transform racialized, gendered, classed, and sexualized selves. The queer black Atlantic I discuss here navigates these crosscurrents as it brings together enslaved and African, brutality and desire, genocide and resistance. Here, fluidity is not an easy metaphor for queer and racially hybrid identities but for concrete, painful, and liberatory experience.23

Tinsley’s assertions of the Black queer Atlantic urge the reader to think through how Black queer and trans individuals define themselves through their suffering or their joy and resistance rather than the two's entanglement. The flows of the Black queer Atlantic have made it impossible to discern the Black from the queer and trans, the Africa from the Americas, and the oppression

23 Omise' eke Natasha Tinsley, "Black Atlantic, queer Atlantic: Queer imaginings of the middle passage." GLQ: A journal of lesbian and gay studies 14, no. 2-3 (2008): 191-215. Poe 16

from the liberatory praxis. These experiences must coalesce. Therefore, Tinsley offers another tool to understand the Black queer diaspora through the lens of the entanglements initiated from the flows of transatlantic journeys across the ocean. Just as Black and LGBTQ+ are forever entangled, so are Black LGBTQ+ people wherever the flows have taken them, from Continental

Africa to North and South America. This fluid and entangled understanding of Black queer selfhood rejects the idea of Black queerness as "new" because, as Tinsley argues, Black has always been queer. She repudiates, "Eurocentric queer theorists and heterocentric race theorists have engaged their discourses of resistant black queerness as a new fashion — a glitzy, postmodern invention borrowed and adapted from Euro-American queer theory.”24 Tinsley points to the continual negating of the historical presence of Black LGBTQ+ stories within both fields of (heterocentric) Black and African American Studies and within (white) Queer Theory.

The refusal to see Black queer history coincides with the refusal to understand Black queerness as fundamentally both Black and queer, continually flowing into one another. An epistemological shift from understanding Black queerness and Black queer diaspora as rigid, separate, and additive to understanding these concepts as interlaced and fluid helps illuminate the connections between Black LGBTQ+ subjects the world.

Lucas Viega's work "As Diásporas da Bixa Preta: Sobre Ser Negro e Gay no Brasil" (The

Diasporas of the Black Fag: Being Black and Gay in Brazil) gives more layers to the flows of the

Black queer diaspora or the diaspora of the "Bixa Preta," focusing on Brazil. For Viega, the Bixa

Preta diasporas directly relate to the global nature of power systems that constrict their lives.

Like the aforementioned scholars, Viega also insists that Black people in Brazil live in a state of diaspora outside of Africa, meaning a continual separation from ancestral lands where their

24 Tinsley, "Black Atlantic, queer Atlantic.” Poe 17

cultural and affective connections to the continent are used as excuses to dehumanize them.

However, Viega outlines diaspora as being continually treated as an outsider where one lives. He writes,

It is inherent to Blackness, with all of its intersections that relate to it, the "affective-diaspora" as being a permanent sensation of being away from home, far from the possibility of being integrated and genuinely welcomed where you live. The Black subjectivity is diasporic because it brings in its bodily and genealogical memory the departure from home, from your safe space, from affirmation of self, and from the cosmology of your people.25

The sustained existence of white supremacy in Brazil and throughout the Americas creates a continual affective-diaspora experience for Black people born in the Americas. Viega insists that

Black LGBTQ+ people pass through the experience of an effective double diaspora when the effect of heteropatriarchy, a Eurocentric invention, works to make Bixas Pretas outsiders within their communities. Viega argues, "The discovery of homosexuality by Black boys...make them experience a second diaspora, because it removes them from the possibility to be integrated and accepted...this second barrier from acceptance is in their own quilombos, in other words, in their family, in their community, and even in Black movements."26 The experience of being an outsider in their own community (itself a community on the margins) creates a constant affective-diaspora experience that flows between multiple identities. Combining Viega's explanations of the Bixa Preta's diasporas with Tinsley's Black Atlantic, queer Atlantic shows how the concept of diaspora and the conflicted feelings of being an outsider flows from race to gender, to sexuality, to geography. Black LGBTQ+ diasporas are shaped by continual displacement in multiple communities and locations and the negotiation of self amid these affective-diasporas.

25 Lucas Veiga, "As Diásporas Da Bixa Preta: Sobre Ser Negro E Gay No Brasil," Tabuleiro De Letras 12, No. 1 (2018): 77-88. Translation by author. 26 Ibid. Poe 18

Analyzed collectively, these theories of Blackness, diaspora, feminism, queerness, and transness piece together a conflicted experience of constructing self and community. Regardless of nationality, Black people continually search beyond the nation's concept for belonging, home, and community. The work of community imagining and building beyond the nation reflects how citizenship projects have (purposely) failed Black people in the Americas and have worked hand in hand to uphold the pillars of white supremacy. These constructions of diaspora provide a refuge globally for the oppression and displacement inflicted upon them domestically. The theories of Black women and Black LGBTQ+ people also work to show the ways that diaspora must attune to the varied functions of power that work to restrict the lives and dreams of Black people in all realms. While modern heteropatriarchy and capitalism are constructions of the

Eurocentric world, Black communities are raised to uphold these concepts, which further marginalizes them. The diaspora work argues that these displacements are not singular in a globalized world and are not about just one location but permeate throughout all places where these power systems exist. The affective experience begets a community of shared knowledge and marks a geography of displacement into a diaspora.

The Specter of Trump and Bolsonaro: An American Entanglement

On Monday, October 29th, 2018, I woke up from a sleepless night with a pounding headache and full of fear. After an intense month-long election process that spanned two electoral rounds, the ultra-conservative Jair Bolsonaro had been elected the next president of

Brazil. The month had filled with #EleNão (#NotHim), primarily led by feminist and LGBTQ+ protesters who sought to vocalize their outrage and disgust at the possibility of the election of a politician who spouted violently heteropatriarchal and white supremacist views. Simultaneously, Poe 19

these protests would meet with counter-protests in support of Bolsonaro's campaign filled with protesters donning green and yellow clothing, the colors of the Brazilian flag, to insist that their candidate was the true Brazilian patriot. Despite the historical numbers that the #EleNão protests had gathered to march in repudiation of Bolsonaro,27 the other side won. On that Monday, following the election, three of my Black LGBTQ+ friends from São Paulo forwarded me messages on Whatsapp that warned the LGBTQ+ community to avoid walking around alone near two major metro stations in the center of the city, right down the street from the apartment where I resided because there were first-hand account reports from people who had been chased and attacked by supporters of Bolsonaro. As there had already been reports during the election month of deaths of LGBTQ+ people28 and Black people29 in São Paulo and throughout Brazil, who spoke out against Bolsonaro during election month, I took these forwarded warnings seriously. I avoided leaving my apartment for one week as I wrestled with fear for my safety and the sadness of the symbol of hatred winning the election.

However, this sadness and fear served as a moment of déjà vu as I felt a striking similarity to my experiences two years before Donald Trump's election in my birth country.

When the news broke on November 9th, 2016, that Donald Trump had beat the odds to be elected as the next president of the United States of America, the atmosphere amongst myself and other Black people I encountered that day was full of despair and fear. Donald Trump rose to

27 Amanda Rossi et al., “#EleNão: A Manifestação Histórica Liderada Por Mulheres No Brasil Vista Por Quatro Ângulos.” BBC News Brasil. BBC. Accessed February 13, 2021. https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-45700013. 28 Janaina Garcia, “Polícia Investiga Assassinato De Travesti No Centro De SP; Testemunha Cita Motivação Política.” Notícias. UOL, October 16, 2018. https://noticias.uol.com.br/cotidiano/ultimas- noticias/2018/10/16/policia-investiga-assassinato-de-travesti-no-centro-de-sp-testemunha-relata-motivacao- politica.htm. 29 “Investigação Policial Conclui Que Morte De Moa Do Katendê Foi Motivada Por Briga Política; Inquérito Foi Enviado Ao MP.” G1, October 17, 2018. https://g1.globo.com/ba/bahia/noticia/2018/10/17/investigacao-policial- conclui-que-morte-de-moa-do-katende-foi-motivada-por-briga-politica-inquerito-foi-enviado-ao-mp.ghtml. Poe 20

power utilizing violent hate speech and racial dog-whistling30 to garner support and capitalize on the white supremacist rejection of the United States’ first Black president, Barack Obama. Like

Bolsonaro's election, Trump's win sent a clear message throughout the country for marginalized groups who were targeted as "undesirables" by Trump's rhetoric during his campaign and me: we must be on high alert for state and state-sanctioned vigilante violence in this era of Trump. These fears proved to be rational as reports of hate crimes by neo-nazi and ultra-conservatives, who voiced their support for Trump's American project, began to rise.31 Two years later, the same fearful caution rose inside me in response to violent state-sanctioned hate in a country thousands of miles separated from the United States border.

The similarities between Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro are not coincidental; instead, they are purposeful. Throughout Bolsonaro's election campaign, he insisted and bragged about himself as the "Trump of the Tropics."32 Bolsonaro reveled in a friendship with Donald Trump, copied nationalistic and xenophobic slogans that Trump popularized to adapt them to Brazil, and even sought counsel with Trump-like Steve Bannon's advisors.33 Bolsonaro insisted that the closeness in ideology between himself and Trump would allow Brazil to enjoy a closer relationship with the United States than it had ever been.34 Bolsonaro knew that these assertions of US connections would win him popularity in a country like Brazil, whose long history of influence and control led to a neo-colonial relationship between the two countries.

30 Ian Haney López, Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class (Oxford University Press, 2015). 31 Simon Clark, "How White Supremacy Returned to Mainstream Politics," Center for American Progress (2020). 32 Eoin Higgins, "Brazil's Donald Trump Is Coming to the US in Search of Donors and International Legitimacy." The Intercept, October 7, 2017. https://theintercept.com/2017/10/07/brazil-election-jair-bolsonaro-us-tour/. 33 João Filho, “Bannon Se Soma à Galeria De Presidiários De Estimação Da Família Bolsonaro.” The Intercept Brasil, August 21, 2020. https://theintercept.com/2020/08/21/steve-bannon-preso-bolsonaro-extrema-direita/. 34 “Trump Recebe Bolsonaro Na Casa Branca: 'Brasil e EUA Nunca Estiveram Tão Próximos' - GloboNews - Vídeos - Catálogo De Vídeos.” GloboNews - Vídeos, March 19, 2019. http://g1.globo.com/globo- news/videos/v/trump-recebe-bolsonaro-na-casa-branca-brasil-e-eua-nunca-estiveram-tao-proximos/7468070/. Poe 21

Years of US imperialist influence and covert meddling in Brazilian affairs have produced a national and political construction of identity in the two countries that involve continual back and forth conversation. While scholars throughout the twentieth century have invested heavily in studying the differences between political, racial, and identitarian landscapes between Brazil and the United States,35 these interactions have created an inescapable entanglement of identity between the two places.36 Many early ideas about race and social interactions in Brazil formulated by elite thinkers in the early 20th century were constructed in direct conversation with ideas about race relations in the United States. Brazilian elites strived to define themselves in comparison with nations in the Global North, doing so with an intent to whiten and

Europeanize their image.37 Comparisons with the Global North countries allowed Brazilian elites to negotiate the country's global standing and image. While Brazilian elites in the early 20th century sought to model themselves after France38, they also sought to distinguish themselves from the United States, especially in racial relations. Renowned historian Thomas Skidmore explains the phenomenon saying,

The Brazilians thought they were superior in race relations, that they had humane race relations, and the US didn't. The pervasive problem for Brazilians was how one measured oneself against the US. It was constant. Brazilians had to concede

35 Carl N. Degler, Neither Black nor white: Slavery and race relations in Brazil and the United States. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1986; Freyre, Gilberto. The masters and the slaves. Vol. 351. Univ of California Press, 1986; Skidmore, Tannenbaum, Frank. Slave and citizen. Beacon Press, 1992; Skidmore, Thomas E. Black into white: race and nationality in Brazilian thought. Duke University Press, 1992. 36 Jessica Lynn Graham, Shifting the Meaning of Democracy: Race, Politics, and Culture in the United States and Brazil. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2019; Mota, Isadora Moura. "Other Geographies of Struggle: Afro-Brazilians and the American Civil War." Hispanic American Historical Review 100, no. 1 (2020): 35-62; Micol Seigel, Uneven encounters: making race and nation in Brazil and the United States. Duke University Press, 2009. 37 George Reid Andrews, Blacks & Whites in São Paulo, Brazil, 1888-1988. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1991; Weinstein, Barbara. The color of modernity: São Paulo and the making of race and nation in Brazil. Duke University Press, 2015. 38 Brodwyn M. Fischer, A Poverty of Rights: Citizenship and Inequality in Twentieth-Century Rio de Janeiro, Stanford University Press, 2008; Teresa A. Meade, Civilizing Rio: Reform and Resistance in a Brazilian City, 1889- 1930, Penn State Press, 2010.

Poe 22

that the Americans had better automobiles, more movies, and so on, but felt strongly that this was outweighed by the fact that [Brazilians] had better race relations. And so race relations for the Brazilian elite were essential for their national ideology and defense against the US.39

The comparison between Brazil and the United States became a strategic contrast against a country that was viewed internationally as violent and discriminatory towards its Black populations. When Brazilian social historian Gilberto Freyre writes his seminal classic The

Masters and the Slaves about the construction of colonial northeastern slave society in Brazil, his construction of Brazil as a “racial democracy,” or a country that is egalitarian in racial relations and lacks violent racial barriers, is partially based off of the contrasting of his experiences studying at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.40 His view of racial segregation and violent lynchings throughout the Jim Crow South inspired him to write about the history of Brazilian racial relations, which he viewed as tame and harmonious in comparison. For Freyre, Brazil's well-documented history of racial mixture, meaning sexual relations between the Portuguese slave owners, African enslaved populations, and Indigenous people, showed that Brazil was more advanced on race questions. Freyre pointed to the Portugueses' miscegenation with their enslaved populations as forward-thinking, different from their North American colonial counterparts, and even suggested that the enslaved Africans brought to Brazil were more technologically and culturally advanced than those brought to the United States.41 Rather than accurately reflecting the differences between slave society in the two countries, his writings instead point to the anxiety that Brazilian elite thinkers felt around their status in a global

39 Jerry Dávila et al., "Since Black into White: Thomas Skidmore on Brazilian Race Relations." The Americas 64, no. 3 (2008): 409-423. 40 Peter Burke and Maria Lúcia G. Pallares-Burke, Gilberto Freyre: Social Theory in The Tropics. Vol. 11. Peter Lang, 2008. 41 Gilberto Freyre, The Masters and the Slaves. New York: A. Knopf (1946): 3-80. Poe 23

hierarchy and tensions around the sizeable Black population that inhabited their country.42

Differentiating themselves from the United States as a more forward-thinking and egalitarian country on race questions, while simultaneously less “purely” Black and more whitened through racial mixture, allowed Brazilian elites to negotiate and control their global image.

Scholars in the United States aided in bolstering this contrast between racial relations in the United States and Brazil, the former as violent and the latter as tame and harmonious. Frank

Tannenbaum's 1946 comparative history of slave societies in the Americas paints a Brazil with fewer investments in damaging racial barriers in stark comparison with the United States. He asserts that Catholic slave systems in Brazil and Latin America allowed enslaved people to achieve freedom more easily without continuing racial barriers after liberty. In contrast, in the

United States, Black people continued to face racial barriers even after being legally freed and

"the last eighty years in the United States may be characterized as a period within which the

Negro has been struggling for moral status in the sight of the white community."43 Tannenbaum's work was published a little over a decade after Masters, and the Slaves borrowed heavily from

Freyre's theses and continues the dichotomy constructed by Brazilian elites between race relations in the United States and Brazil. While Tannenbaum correctly calls attention to the racial discrimination and prejudice held by US whites and the struggles for Black communities in the

United States to fight the dominant dehumanization of their community pre and post-slavery, he ignores the scores of writing by Black presses and political groups such as the Frente Negra

Brasileira (Black Brazilian Front) that vehemently argue against their dehumanization by

42 Thomas E. Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought (Duke University Press, 1992). 43 Frank Tannenbaum, Slave and Citizen (Beacon Press, 1992). Poe 24

Brazilian elites.44 In 1933, Black Brazilian writer and politician from the Frente Negra Brasileira

Arlindo dos Santos implored Brazil to fight the continual marginalization and exclusion of Afro-

Brazilian populations from opportunity for social ascension within Brazil and lean into “a fraternal Brazil, devoid of petty prejudices, in which the Black brother and the White brother stand arm in arm.”

Similarly, thirty years prior, WEB DuBois proclaimed in his work Souls of Black Folk,

“So here we stand among thoughts of human unity, even through conquest and slavery; the inferiority of black men, even if forced by fraud; a shriek in the night for the freedom of men who themselves are not yet sure of their right to demand it.”45 Both authors, Black men, separated by national borders, decry the racial discrimination that the African descended populations in their countries face and implore an eradication of this inequality. Despite the circulation of these writings of Black activists throughout Brazil appealing for similar asks of inclusion that Black populations in the United States were also advocating for, US scholars such as Tannenbaum continued to recreate a dichotomy between Brazil and the United States. This dichotomy relied on a more "violent” United States to effectively construct the image of a benevolent and racially democratic nation in Brazil.

Throughout the 1950s, UNESCO scholars continued to mount empirical studies into

Brazilian race relations to understand Brazil's racially harmonious interactions, partially inspired by growing racial discontent movements in the United States and South Africa.46 However, these

44 Paulina L. Alberto, Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century Brazil (Univ Of North Carolina Press, 2011); Butler, Kim D. Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians In Post-Abolition, São Paulo And Salvador (Rutgers University Press, 1998). 45 Du Bois, W. E. B. And Brent Hayes Edwards. 2007. The Souls of Black Folk. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford [England]: OUP Oxford. 46 Alejandro De La Fuente, "From Slaves to Citizens? Tannenbaum And the Debates on Slavery, Emancipation, And Race Relations in Latin America." International Labor and Working-Class History, No. 77 (2010): 154-73. Accessed September 2, 2020. Http://Www.Jstor.Org/Stable/40648589. Poe 25

UNESCO studies and those that followed began to chip away at the idea of Brazilian "racial democracy" as the scholarship showed the nature of economic and social hierarchy based on color in Brazil and gave specificity to racial discrimination in the country.47 However, even with the growing scholarship at home and abroad that broke apart the myth of racial harmony in

Brazil, the Brazilian government and most intellectuals continued to cling to the idea of its lack of racial discrimination, especially as it barreled forth into a violent military dictatorship in the

1960s.48

In 1964, the military took control of the Brazilian government, beginning a twenty-one- year dictatorship. Accusing acting president João Goulart of supporting communism, the

Brazilian military seized the moment of a global red scare to oust the president and take control, insisting it was a “revolution” against communist forces.49 The global red scare was pushed forth by the United States' clash with growing communist revolutions worldwide. The military’s coup d'etat, put forth as an act against communism, won the US government's support. US President

Lyndon B. Johnson, informed of the military coup before it happened, gave his blessing by sending the Brazilian armed forces military equipment.50 This period began an intense repression in Brazil that culminated with the Institution Act Number Five decreed by military dictator Artur da Costa e Silva in 1968 that led to congress's disbanding, heavy censorship of the media, press,

47 Roger Bastide, "Sao Paulo: The Octopus Town." Le Courrier De L’unesco 8, No. 9 (1952): 9; Pinto, L. A., And Luiz De Aguiar. "Rio De Janeiro, Melting Pot of Peoples." UNESCO Courier Ü952 10 (1952); Wagley, Charles. "Attitudes in the 'Backlands,'." UNESCO Courier (1952): 12-13. 48 Paulina L. Alberto, Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century Brazil. Univ Of North Carolina Press, 2011.; Butler, Kim D. Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians In Post-Abolition, São Paulo And Salvador. Rutgers University Press, 1998. 49 Thomas E. Skidmore, The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil, 1964-1985. Oxford University Press, USA, 1990. 50 James N. Green, We Cannot Remain Silent: Opposition to The Brazilian Military Dictatorship in The United States. Duke University Press, 2010; Pereira, Anthony W. "The US Role in the 1964 Coup in Brazil: A Reassessment." Bulletin of Latin American Research 37, No. 1 (2018): 5-17. Poe 26

and entertainment industry, and a suspension of habeas corpus.51 Given the support the US government lent to the military coup and the continued support the US gave to the military dictatorship's purported fight against "communism," the United States turned a blind eye to the dictatorship's violent repression inflicted upon Brazilian citizens. The United States' active participation in this dictatorship moves entanglement between the two countries beyond a simple dialectical relationship where Brazil-based its racial relation success against the United States' racial failures to a neocolonial relationship of control, where the United States bends Brazilian government to its will by financial and military manipulation.

Despite the military government's intense veneration for and dependence upon the United

States, it continued to push forth Brazil's idea of racial democracy, juxtaposing itself against the

United States. The military government, investing heavily in tourism, used Freyre's popularized notion of Brazil as a "racially mixed wonderland" to market Brazil to the world.52 The military government especially leaned on Freyre’s imagery of the radiantly sexual mulata to attract tourists with implicit and explicit purposes of sex tourism.53 Ironically, while the military government’s rhetoric was that Brazil was a (sexual) paradise filled with mulatas due to the lack of racism, the national tourism industry violently exploited the sexual labor of Black women to revitalize the tourism industry for capital gain. However, despite contradictions in the national image that the military dictatorship put forth, the government clung to the myth of racial democracy as a reality in Brazil.

51 Thomas E. Skidmore, The Politics of Military Rule In Brazil, 1964-1985 (Oxford University Press, USA, 1990). 52 Mariana Selister Gomes, “A Construção Do Brasil Como Paraíso Das Mulatas. Do Imaginário Colonial Ao Marketing Turístico.” XXVII Congreso De La Asociación Latinoamericana De Sociología. VIII Jornadas De Sociología De La Universidad De Buenos Aires (Asociación Latinoamericana De Sociología, Buenos Aires, 2009). 53 Angela Gilliam, "Negociando a Subjetividade de Mulata no Brasil," Revista Estudos Feministas 3, no. 2 (1995): 525; Erica Lorraine Williams, Sex Tourism in Bahia: Ambiguous Entanglements (University Of Illinois Press, 2013). Poe 27

The military dictatorship's reliance on the ideas of racial democracy did not simply serve to attract tourists but also to quiet discontent within their national borders as well. While the general in power introduced new forms of repression for Brazil's general population, racial violence and exclusions existed before the dictatorship also heightened for Black communities.

The outsourcing of many industries to other countries during the military dictatorship destroyed much of the informal market and smaller business enterprises, many of which were the only labor markets open to Black citizens in Brazil due to racial barriers in these more prominent industries.54 While this outsourcing of Brazilian industries offered what was known as the

“economic miracle,” an economic boom that brought wealth to the country’s elite and middle class, the large majority of Black Brazilians were shut out of reaping the financial benefit of this

“miracle.”55 Racial and economic inequality in the country reached new heights; however, poor and Black Brazilians had few outlets to push back against the dictatorship during its most repressive political period. To hide the extent of how the economic inequality in the country was codified in racial and color terms, the military dictatorship government removed racial and color classifications from the 1970 census.56 Without empirical data on racial inequality in the country, the military government pushed forth nationalized ideas of racial harmony and argued that race conflict was a problem foreign to Brazil. In doing this, they marked racial discontent as foreign and curtailed the growing scholarly debate about whether racial democracy truly existed or not in

Brazil. The military's argument that racial discontent was rooted in foreign, mainly US, ideas

54 Lelia Gonzalez, "The Unified Black Movement: A New Stage in Black Political Mobilization." Race, Class and Power in Brazil (1985): 120-134. 55 Ibid. 56 Michael G. Hanchard, Orpheus And Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio De Janeiro And São Paulo, Brazil 1945-1988 (Princeton University Press, 1998). Poe 28

was important because it allowed the military dictatorship to accuse Black activists, discontent with their social position, of being anti-patriotic.

These dialectical and tangible economic entanglements between the United States and

Brazil continued even after the end of the military dictatorship in 1985. Brazilian economic success depended on navigating a global market dominated heavily by the United States, which ensured the United States' economic control over Brazil's political decisions. To achieve economic success, Brazil strived to liken itself to the United States, economically and socially.

Eventually, the government admitted racial discrimination and inequality in the country during the presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso in 1996 and committed to social programs to eliminate disparities. However, Intro the affirmative action programs initiated by Cardoso's government were largely reminiscent of the affirmative action programs proposed and implemented in the United States by the Johnson administration following Dr. Martin Luther

King Jr's death.57 Cardoso's government following in the footsteps of the United States was questionable, seeing as though the racial landscape of the United States and Brazil was drastically different, with Black people in the United States representing a minority of the population and Black populations in Brazil representing a near majority at the time. Even in admitting social inequalities and attempting to right them, Cardoso's government seemed more interested in lining up with the United States cultures.

In 2003, with the rise of the first president from a leftist party of the new republic, Luiz

Inácio da Silva (Lula) from the Workers Party (PT), Brazil's approach shifted, and Lula sought an economic and political independence from the long history of United States neo-colonial dominance. Prioritizing investment in national enterprise and the further development of

57 Jerry Dávila, Zachary R Morgan, and Thomas E Skidmore. "Since Black into White : Thomas Skidmore on Brazilian Race Relations." The Americas 64, no. 3 (2008): 409-423. Poe 29

MERCOSUL, President Lula sought to liberate Brazil from the reliance on outsourcing of

Brazilian industries, which allowed foreign domination of the Brazilian economy.58 The Workers

Party government instead sought to establish reciprocal relationships with the United States and other countries. The sixteen-year reign of the Workers Party government through Presidents Lula and Dilma Rouseff continued to work towards a relationship with the United States that rejected exploitation and aimed for reciprocity. However, the rise of the Brazilian right, which inspired

President Dilma Rousseff's impeachment in 2016, ended this era. With the election of Jair

Bolsonaro in 2018, the United States’ exploitation and Brazilian imitation of US policies returned boldly and unabashedly. In the first year of Bolsonaro's presidency, he touted that the relationship between the United States and Brazil had "never been closer"59 as he pushed forth policies that benefited the United States and other foreign powers, hoping they would extend the favor in return. Bolsonaro announced the privatization of Brazilian airports and the selling of them to various foreign companies.60 At the same time, he broke with the years-long tradition of reciprocity with the United States for tourist visa fees. He made the visas free for visitors from the United States, even as the United States maintained the Brazilian citizens' visa fee.61 Once again, Bolsonaro relied on traditions established by the military dictatorship of exporting national industries and (sex) tourism sold to US foreigners to bring money to the Brazilian rich.

58 Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, "Discurso Do Presidente Lula No Congresso Nacional - TV Câmara,” Portal da Câmara dos Deputados. Accessed February 13, 2021. https://www.camara.leg.br/tv/146709-discurso-do-presidente- lula-no-congresso-nacional/. 59 “Trump Recebe Bolsonaro Na Casa Branca: 'Brasil e EUA Nunca Estiveram Tão Próximos' - GloboNews - Vídeos - Catálogo De Vídeos,” GloboNews - Vídeos, March 19, 2019. 60 Darlan Alvarenga, “Governo Arrecada R$ 2,377 Bilhões à Vista Com Leilão De 12 Aeroportos.” G1, March 14, 2019. https://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2019/03/15/grupos-estrangeiros-dominam-leilao-de-aeroportos- espanhola-aena-leva-bloco-nordeste.ghtml. 61 Alex Tajra and Talita Marchao, “Brasil Dispensa Vistos Para Cidadãos De EUA, Canadá, Austrália e Japão.” Notícias. UOL, March 18, 2019. https://noticias.uol.com.br/internacional/ultimas-noticias/2019/03/18/brasil- desobriga-vistos-para-cidadaos-dos-eua-canada-australia-e-japao.htm. Poe 30

As both Trump and Bolsonaro have received harsh pushback throughout their presidencies from antiracist activists charging both their governments with racism, Bolsonaro follows Trump's lead in embracing a bold, openly racist rhetoric while denying the existence of racism. Trump relies on the Civil Rights Movement's history to claim that racism has ended, attempting to invalidate claims about his racist policies while leaning into racial dog-whistling and attacking the people and theories that help to understand the exact brand of racism and xenophobia he spouts. Bolsonaro, on the other hand, returns to the myths of Brazil as a racial democracy to reject the idea that his statements or actions can be interpreted as racism.62 Both downplay racism's reality to attack social programs aimed at equity, such as racial quotas in

Brazilian universities63 and housing desegregation policies in the United States.64The purposeful similarity between Trump and Bolsonaros' reliance on a heavily constructed and controlled idea of history to push forth unequal policies represents the culmination of a long dialectical relationship between the United States and Brazil. Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century, Brazil has used the United States as both a basis of comparison and contrast to define itself. The United States has economically coerced Brazil to bend to its will politically. In a moment of extreme right-wing governments, the countries have aligned in purpose and rhetoric.

These back-and-forth flows of comparison force us to reckon with the role of strategic comparison by elites and government actors in both countries as a force of control over a

62 “Após Morte De Negro Em Supermercado, Bolsonaro Diz Ser Daltônico: 'Todos Têm a Mesma Cor' - Brasil.” Estadão. Estadão, November 23, 2020. https://brasil.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,apos-morte-de-negro-em- supermercado-bolsonaro-diz-ser-daltonico-todos-tem-a-mesma-cor,70003522792. 63 “Bolsonaro Diz Que Política De Cotas é 'Equivocada' e Que Política De Combate Ao Preconceito é 'Coitadismo'.” G1, October 24, 2018. https://g1.globo.com/politica/eleicoes/2018/noticia/2018/10/24/bolsonaro-diz-ser-contra- cotas-e-que-politica-de-combate-ao-preconceito-e-coitadismo.ghtml. 64 Karni, Annie, Maggie Haberman, and Sydney Ember. “Trump Plays on Racist Fears of Terrorized Suburbs to Court White Voters.” The New York Times. The New York Times, July 29, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/29/us/politics/trump-suburbs-housing-white-voters.html. Poe 31

narrative. Rather than understanding the comparison and relationship between Brazil and the

United States as one that defines one country or the other, these dialectical histories show the invisible link between the two countries that continually concern image and control.

The “Uneven Encounters” of Black Diaspora

In Micol Seigel’s 2009 work Uneven Encounters: Making Race and Nation in Brazil and the United States, the author takes up how to understand the workings of race and the diaspora flows between two countries whose global influence differs widely. In addition to robust evidence of a discursive relationship between Brazil and the United States regarding race and racial constructions, Seigel's approach shows the power of analyzing transnational connections between the Black diaspora. Seigel insists, ¨the value of transnational method is its ability to examine and critique the nationalism that remains a powerful political and intellectual force.

Transnational subjects overflow and challenge national borders not in blithe disregard for those borders but because nation-states so profoundly, even violently, constrain them. ¨65 While my previous section focused on the dialectical relationship between Brazil and the United States, as nations that construct racial ideologies and relations of power, Seigel points to the benefit of analyzing those whose lives are shaped and controlled by the nation's ideologies. Analyzing how

Black people negotiate and resist the systems of power in both countries illuminates the interconnectedness of their cultures of resistance, the international dialogues amongst Black people, and state power's interrelations.

An analysis of the global Black diaspora comes with various sets of challenges, especially between the “Global North” and the “Global South.” While diaspora points to a shared

65 Micol Seigel, Uneven Encounters: Making Race and Nation in Brazil And The United States (Duke University Press, 2009). Poe 32

story of displacement between Black people worldwide through processes of the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism, the nation in which a Black person is born can thrust locational privilege upon the person that other Black people in other countries do not bear. However, these differences in power relations between Brazil and the United States should not preclude a relational study between the Black and Black LGBTQ+ diaspora in both countries. Due to the fraught relationship to citizenship for Black people in Brazil, the United States, and throughout the Americas, an analysis of Black experiences in both places is essential in outlining the global workings of exclusionary power. Black diasporic movements have also historically worked both within and beyond borders as a purposeful praxis to resist imperial power. To paraphrase Black

US freedom fighter Fannie Lou Hamer, no Black people are free until all Black people are free66.

While the exchange between the Black diaspora in the United States and Brazil remains unbalanced due to the imperial export of any content from the United States abroad, these moments of Black diaspora exchange that attempt to move beyond the global power dynamics that structure the ¨Global South¨ and the ¨Global North¨ point to the importance of interconnected experiences of diaspora. Black LGBTQ+ people in Brazil point to US Black

LGBTQ+ art, media, and cultural productions like the TV series Pose, the film Moonlight, and

Audre Lorde's poetry because they see themselves reflected in the content produced despite it being from another country. Black Lives Matter activists who shared the story and lifted Marielle

Franco's name in the wake of her brutal assassination both identified with the activist’s struggle and empathetically felt the pangs of the violence that silenced her, despite the difference in local contexts. The ability of Black LGBTQ+ people to see themselves in one another across borders

66 Kia L. Caldwell, Wendi Muse, Tianna S. Paschel, Keisha-Khan Y. Perry, Christen A. Smith, and Erica L. Williams, "On the Imperative of Transnational Solidarity: A US Black Feminist Statement on the Assassination of Marielle Franco," The Black Scholar (2018).

Poe 33

and to actively work towards concretizing affective diasporas represents an epistemological choice to understand the struggles of Black and Black LGBTQ+ people as global and interconnected. Through these actions, Black LGBTQ+ people actively construct the geography of the Black queer diaspora, not simply as a demographic but as a community striving to be in connection with one another.

My dissertation takes its cue from these active moments of diaspora construction, in which Black LGBTQ+ people recognize the connections between their experiences under oppressive systems and reach out to create affective relationships with those throughout the diaspora. These actions' mere existence serves as an impetus and justification for analyzing the

Black queer and trans diaspora, not as separate entities separated by borders, but as a vast and interconnected global geography. Therefore, my research approaches the situation in the United

States and Brazil not as a comparison between two distinct and different locations but as a relational study of a combined Black LGBTQ+ diaspora full of various local specificities that weigh upon and relate to one another due to the connections of existing systems of power and formations of community. This dissertation, therefore, does not use the nation as the most fundamental geography but rather the geographies of racism, white supremacy, and heteropatriarchy as a geographical guide.

Black Queer Research(er)

This dissertation is based on two and a half years of ethnographic and archival research between urban sites across Brazil and the United States. I interviewed 60 Black LGBTQ+ activists in Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo in Brazil and Philadelphia, New York City,

Minneapolis, and the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States. While most of my interviews Poe 34

were individual and semi-structured, I also conducted group interviews, generally with people who were already acquainted with one another. Also, I utilized the personal archives of various

Black LGBTQ+ activists, the archives at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the digital archives of the LGBT organization Grupo Dignidade. Finally, my work also draws from the analysis of poetry, literature, music, photography, film, videos, and other cultural output produced by Black LGBTQ+ people.

In Gloria Wekker’s classic The Politics of Passion: Womenś Sexual Culture in the Afro-

Surinamese Diaspora67, Wekker aptly reminds us that “all scientific knowledge is always, in every aspect, socially situated.” Wekkerś affirmation draws from a long legacy of Africana

Studies and Black feminist critique that argues against the idea of objectivity in research.68 The rejection of objectivity acknowledges that objectivity is generally couched in a white western male heterocentric perspective. Any perspective outside of that is seen as "subjective" rather than acknowledging that all standpoints are subjective. Rather than insisting that scholars should ignore their own subjectivities to attempt an objective viewpoint in their research, Black feminist scholarship leans into subjectivity, understanding that the specific view of the scholar, if utilized constructively, can offer rich insights for the work, especially for Black communities whose intellectual subjectivity has long been excluded from the academy69. One's subjectivity brings with it a philosophical and linguistic tradition that Black and marginalized communities often ignore within the academy to adhere to the academy's intellectual and objective standards. Black

67 Gloria Wekker, The Politics of Passion: Women's Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora, Columbia University Press, 2006. 68 Barbara Christian, "The Race for Theory." Cultural Critique 6 (1987): 51-63; Hurston, Zora Neale, Franz Boas, Miguel Covarrubias, And Arnold Rampersad. Mules and Men. Perennial Library, 1935; Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004. 69 M. Jacqui Alexander, Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred, Duke University Press, 2006. Poe 35

feminist theorist Barbara Christian insists that Black women writing about Black women within a Eurocentric and heteropatriarchal academy, this "race for theory,"70 creates theory that disconnects from the experience, language, and diversity of Black women's experience.

Inevitably, Black women writing about the lives of Black women within the white male language of the academy distances the work from the subject matter and the scholar. Christian posits two critical questions for all who study oppressed communities: who is writing this scholarship, and who is this scholarship for?71

Reflecting on these two questions has been crucial to my understanding of the kind of work I am trying to produce, the urgency of the questions I raise, and how I can navigate the field as a "scholar." As a Black queer scholar-activist born in the United States into a Pan-

Africanist, activist family, I have long been concerned with the questions of the safety and freedom of Black people throughout the world. My interest in studying Black queer and trans activism in both the United States and Brazil comes from my experiences living and working in community with activists from both countries and seeing the multi-layered issues we navigate to advocate for safety and community. The emotional toll of navigating capitalism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and imperialism weighed on the lives of the activist communities I lived within, but what continually stood out was the new and constantly transforming resistance tools that I saw utilized within these communities. These tools to create and imagine freedom where there was none for Black queer and trans people were fascinating and helped me find my moments of freedom in a world that actively sought my death. I was drawn to this research because I saw the power of Black LGBTQ+ resistance to transform lives and society. Therefore,

70 Barbara Christian, "The Race for Theory." Cultural Critique, No. 6 (1987): 51-63. Accessed September 18, 2020. 71 Ibid. Poe 36

this dissertation is squarely both from a Black LGBTQ+ perspective and for a Black LGBTQ+ audience. While I realize that the academy is demographically and hegemonically white- dominated, and I would like my work to be understood by everyone, I firmly center Black

LGBTQ+ diasporic people as the intended audience.

As a Black queer researcher of the Black LGBTQ+ diaspora in Brazil and the United

States, conducting my field research was complicated. Nothing illuminates this more than a frightening interaction I had with the São Paulo police in February 2019. I traveled to São Paulo for an orientation program that began my participation in the Fulbright research program. I arrived exhausted at Guarulhos Airport at 1:30 in the morning and quickly headed to the ride- sharing area to order a 99-pop taxi (an uber-like cell phone app based out of Brazil) to get me to the orientation hotel. About ten minutes later, my 99-pop taxi arrived. I hopped in and headed to downtown São Paulo. About thirty minutes later, as we were arriving in one of the city's main avenues, Avenida 9 de Julho, my uber driver passed in front of a cop car stationed right at the start of the avenue.

Seconds later, I looked up and saw that the police car was driving right next to us, and all of the four officers in the vehicle appeared to be staring right at me. The cop car pulled behind us, signaled for our vehicle to pull over, and then ordered everyone out of the car. As we nervously stepped out of the vehicle, with the police lights beaming in our faces, they ordered us to face the car with our hands crossed behind our heads. My taxi driver, who was white, was just as visibly nervous as me; however, the police headed straight toward me, seemingly unconcerned with the driver. They asked if this was an uber ride, and I let them know it was a 99 taxi. One of the police officers with an enormous machine gun, more significant than any gun I had seen up close in my life, pointed at the car. Ready to shoot, he asked if there is anybody else in the car, Poe 37

and the driver nervously responded, "no." A police officer then began to intensely pat me down, almost as if desperately searching for anything that would incriminate me. Even though I was sure I had done nothing wrong, my heart began beating a mile a minute. I was sweating bullets, knowing that my "innocence" was inconsequential on this long, empty avenue with these four armed police officers. The officers asked me where I was arriving from, and I told them that I am

American and I was here to do research. They asked for my passport. I told them it was in the car, and they told me to grab it.

Moving exceptionally slowly to prevent the police from thinking I was doing anything other than grabbing my passport, I opened the car door, got my passport from my bag, and handed it to the cop. After looking back and forth at the passport a good four times, seemingly checking to make sure it was real, he gave it back to me and told the other cops that I was telling the truth and that we were free to go. As I re-entered the car, with my heart still beating a mile a minute, I realized in that moment that my status as a Fulbright "researcher" did not and would not spare me from the experience of being a Black person in Brazil (or any research site). At the same time, I could not help but wonder what different end this encounter might have resulted in had I forgotten my passport, or if I were a Black Brazilian, regardless of profession. In ways that my Blackness marked me as a target, my US Passport seemingly saved me from a frightening end. However, after this encounter, two things were certain: my identity as a "researcher" was not the first thing people would expect or see. My racialized experience marked me in similar ways to those I was interviewing for my research.

In her foundational work Black Women Against the Land Grab: The Fight for Racial

Justice in Brazil, Keisha-Khan Perry discusses these methodological conundrums for the Black researcher in the field. Outlining her own experience with racial discrimination at the hands of a Poe 38

bank security guard in Salvador, Brazil, she points to the paradox that while Black people from the United States who investigate Brazil and Latin America are often accused of ethnocentrism and mapping US racial relations on to other countries, they generally experience similar accounts of racism as their research interlocutors.72 While living through this violent moment with the police and the many other accounts of racism and homophobia that I experienced while in the

"field" in Brazil and the United States, I continually felt connected to my interviewees. Aitemad

Muhanna elaborates on this conundrum in her article "When the Researcher Becomes a Subject of Ethnographic Research." Mahanna explains that her own experience growing up and living in the Gaza Strip both complicated and enriched her research due to the lack of the "self-other."73 complex that appears for many researchers who do not share similar histories with their interlocutors. My story as a Black queer person intersected in various ways with the stories of those whom I interviewed across Brazil and the United States because we all shared the dilemma of navigating multiple systems of oppression to find ways to survive them.

As a researcher, I also navigated, at times, the privilege of a US passport in Brazil. For many of my interlocutors, my Blackness and queerness served as a bridge that, in some cases, made them more willing to sharing their long-protected stories. In 2019, when I first interviewed

Wilson Mandela, the founder of the first Black gay collective in Brazil, he shared with me that many people throughout the years had reached out to him to get the story of the collective's history. He definitively decided that he would only give interviews to Black people. His justification was to give Black people the opportunity to tell Black stories and avoid racist caricaturization that some non-Black people tell Black stories use. Mandela was not alone in his

72 Keisha-Khan Y. Perry, Black Women Against the Land Grab: The Fight for Racial Justice In Brazil (U of Minnesota Press, 2013). 73 Aitemad Muhanna, "When the Researcher Becomes A Subject of Ethnographic Research: Studying “Myself” And “Others” In Gaza," In Women's Studies International Forum, Vol. 45, Pp. 112-118. Pergamon, 2014. Poe 39

conviction, for many of my interlocutors voiced a concern about who they share their accounts with for research and journalistic purposes. While many expressed that communicating with a

Black person or Black LGBTQ+ person did not guarantee that racism, sexism, or LGBTQ- phobia would not appear in the write up of the interview, many also revealed that sharing with someone who had gone through similar struggles made them feel more confident that the writing would encompass an empathetic view to their stories, instead of a caricatured one.

As explained in my previous section, I frame this dissertation not as a comparative study but as a relational study concerned with how the Black LGBTQ+ diaspora is connected to and relates with one another. When originally conceived, I envisioned this project as a comparison between the Black LGBTQ+ activism occurring in Brazil and the United States, focusing on how the differences in each country's social movements reflected a difference in national discourses around race, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic class. However, as I began my research and listened to the stories of Black LGBTQ+ people, consumed media and artistic content produced by the communities in both countries, witnessed political actions, and, perhaps most importantly, traveled between the countries making lasting friendships and community connections, I realized that the more interesting question for myself was how these people were connected rather than differentiated. I became concerned with how similar conditions produced similar outcomes for

Black LGBTQ+ people, regardless of location. That is not to say locational specificity and difference do not matter for this research; however, my methodological and epistemological approach decenters nation as the most critical locational context. While the conditions Black

LGBTQ+ people live under in Salvador, Brazil are different than those in New York City, USA, similarly the conditions of Black LGBTQ+ communities in New York City and those in

Minneapolis are also different, as well the conditions of Black LGBTQ+ communities in Poe 40

Salvador and in São Paulo, despite these locations being within the same country. However, despite these differences in conditions, Black LGBTQ+ continue to see their experiences reflected across locations and work to connect with one another. My relational lens focuses on the connections between conditions and the resistance to those conditions by Black LGBTQ+ people.

Dissertation Structure

This dissertation is divided into four core chapters and a conclusion. My first chapter,

"Unfragmented: Black LGBT Self and Community Making," analyzes the constructions of self and community for Black LGBT activists to understand how Black LGBT people hold and create space for one another. I look at how these activists understand their organizing and resistance strategies as directly correlated with their intersectional marginalized positionality. I examine the ways Black LGBT organizing reflects a desire by activists to understand their experiences wholly. Through analyzing the activism of four different Black LGBTQ+ activists in my first section and the parties Batekoo in Brazil and Papi Juice in the USA in my second section, I offer a portal to understand how corporeal themes and intellectual autonomy are recurring for Black

LGBTQ+ self-making and community-making. In my second chapter, "The Journey Home:

Black LGBTQ+ Navigation of Broader Movements for Social Justice," I analyze Black

LGBTQ+ activists' roles in larger social movements for LGBTQ+ rights and racial justice. Using interviews with different Black LGBTQ+ activists who organize with broader movements that center issues of race, gender, or sexuality, I argue that Black LGBTQ+ presence in these social movements fundamentally shifts their types of conversations, ideologies, and objectives to missions that have an intersectional lens. Poe 41

My third chapter, "Representação vs. Representatividade: Black LGBT Identity Politics in the Political Sphere," shifts focus from social movement organizations to the world of electoral politics. This chapter analyzes Black LGBTQ+ elected officials' uses of identity politics. I outline a spectrum of representational politics between two sides: representação, a simple form of representation where Black LGBT people enter the political sphere regardless of their politics and representatividade, a radical form of representation that ensures that Black

LGBT candidates work politically for the interests of their community and all those oppressed like them. Finally, in thinking through where political candidates’ policies lie on a spectrum of representational politics, I analyze how their use of identity politics affects Black LGBT communities and activists’ goals for Black LGBT freedom. This chapter analyzes how Black queer and trans movement politics are mobilized and sometimes misutilized within the context of electoral politics.

My fourth chapter, "Black Queer Freedom: The Radical Imaginings of Black LGBTQ+

People," shifts the dissertation's focus from Black LGBTQ+ people's actions to create freedom to theories of freedom. The first part of the chapter focuses on the themes of freedom apparent in interviews I conducted with Black LGBTQ+ activists in Brazil and the United States. The second part of the chapter focuses on how these Black queer and trans themes of freedom are reflected in performance artists' works. In this section, I focus on Linn da Quebrada's artistic works,

Janelle Monae, and the Bahian Black femme dance and performance group Afrobapho. The dissertation concludes with a reflection on the importance of exchange in transnational research, especially within the Black queer diaspora.

Poe 42

CHAPTER 1

Resisting Fragmentation - Black LGBTQ+ Self and Community Making

“We wear Purple because the intersections of Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality is the street we live on, and we can’t move even if we wanted to.”

-- Andrea Jenkins, 201574

In March of 2019, while conducting field work in São Paulo, I decided to check out a

Black LGBTQ+ arts and culture festival called Bixanagô. In interviews with Black LGBTQ+ activists throughout São Paulo, I heard much about this festival and how it opened a space for conversations about the intersections of Blackness, class, gender, and sexuality throughout the city, especially in the periphery. Many of the creatives and activists who organized other Black

LGBTQ+ spaces in São Paulo such as Batekoo, Festa Amem, and Aparelha Luzia also helped organize Bixanagô or were excited to attend and support. I quickly learned that, while São

Paulo’s metropolitan area has an astonishing approximation of 12 million people,75 when one frequents Black LGBTQ+ social spaces in the city, it is common to see many of the same faces.

My friend Gustavo, a Black queer man from a peripheral neighborhood of São Paulo who often accompanied me to many of these Black LGBTQ+ social spaces, explained this phenomenon to me. He said that the explosion of these spaces in the mid-2010s finally allowed Black LGBTQ+ people who felt pushed to the margins in LGBTQ+ or Black social spaces to be seen. Before then, most of the spaces for interactions that openly discussed the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality only existed online in the form of Facebook groups. When Black LGBTQ+ people finally began to meet in person in these spaces, a strong community bond formed that

74 Andrea Jenkins, “‘A Requiem for the Queers (or Why We Wear the Color Purple),” Essay in The T Is Not Silent: New and Selected Poems (Minneapolis, MN: Trio Bookworks, 2015). 75 “São Paulo,” IBGE, Accessed February 15, 2021. https://www.ibge.gov.br/cidades-e-estados/sp/sao-paulo.html. Poe 43

kept them coming back, which explained the family-like feel of attending Bixanagô after frequenting other Black LGBTQ+ spaces in São Paulo.

The Bixanagô festival consisted of two days of panel conversations and art/performance workshops during the morning and music performances and DJ’ed dance parties in the evening.

The topics of the panel discussions ranged from the rights of LGBTQ+ people to Black experiences with suffering, oppression, and artistic genius. Each panel was named after Black

LGBTQ+ people murdered due to violence towards the community. Names such as Luana

Barbosa,76 Matheusa Passarelli,77 and Dandara dos Santos78 introduced each roundtable conversation to foreground the urgency of discussions regarding violence towards Black

LGBTQ+ people. The invocation of these figures also served to celebrate their stories and lives.

In one panel discussion focused on the effects of HIV on Black and LGBTQ+ populations in

Brazil, the festival invited Ezio Rosa (the Black queer HIV-positive man who organized and created the festival), Michaela Cyrino (a Black woman HIV-positive activist and representatives from UNAIDS Brasil, Brazil’s contingent of the United Nations program to combat HIV and

AIDS around the world), and Fundo PositHiVo (a national foundation that funds organizations that work to prevent HIV and provide services for HIV-positive populations). The panel discussions ranged from personal experiences with HIV, stigma, and alternative practices for the treatment of HIV to how to access PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) and PEP (post-exposure

76 “Caso Luana: PMs Acusados De Espancamento e Morte Irão a Júri Popular Em Ribeirão Preto, SP.” G1, February 22, 2020. https://g1.globo.com/sp/ribeirao-preto-franca/noticia/2020/02/22/caso-luana-pms-acusados-de- espancamento-e-morte-irao-a-juri-popular-em-ribeirao-preto-sp.ghtml. 77 Rafael Soares, “Matheusa Foi Morta Ao Tentar Tirar Arma De Traficante Em Favela, Conclui Polícia.” Extra Online, January 6, 2019. https://extra.globo.com/casos-de-policia/matheusa-foi-morta-ao-tentar-tirar-arma-de- traficante-em-favela-conclui-policia-23348576.html. 78 “Travesti Dandara Foi Apedrejada e Morta a Tiros No Ceará, Diz Secretário.” Ceará, March 7, 2017. http://g1.globo.com/ceara/noticia/2017/03/apos-agressao-dandara-foi-morta-com-tiro-diz-secretario-andre- costa.html. Poe 44

prophylaxis). One of the most interesting conversations during the panel was about the difficulties of addressing HIV as a disease that disproportionately affects Black communities in

Brazil. Cyrino shared her own experiences of growing up in and out of different treatment centers of the Sistema Única de Saude (SUS)79, as doctors mainly tested treatments for HIV on

Black and poor patients. Despite the specific weight of HIV upon Brazil’s more impoverished

Black citizenry, Black HIV-positive activists’ attempts to push SUS to propose targeted programs towards the Black community are met with resistance. Legacies of racial democracy haunt how SUS and public health agencies discuss race. As one of the panelists explained, this is because SUS thinks it does not need to accommodate specific communities considering SUS’s nationalized healthcare is for “everyone.” A representative from PositHIVo talked about how their foundation tries to center the voice of the Black movement to help eradicate HIV in Black communities, as their articulations around the importance of intersectionality when thinking of who is HIV-positive at disproportionate rates have been the best at addressing this.

I was not surprised by the revelations about the pushback from the public health community in SUS around targeted programs for Black communities for HIV prevention. Brazil was (and is) still suffering through the long process of breaking down the embedded myth of racial democracy and the idea that talking about race is the “real” racism. Despite expecting this response, I grew frustrated when considering the struggles of Black HIV-positive people, forced to advocate for their own community’s survival. The representative from PositHIVo’s explanation showed how SUS, in its bold declaration of healthcare as a right for all taken from the Brazilian Constitution of 1989,80 refused to adopt bold intersectional lenses to understand

79 Brazil’s public healthcare system. 80 “CONSTITUIÇÃO DA REPÚBLICA FEDERATIVA DO BRASIL DE 1988.” planalto.gov.br. Presidência da República. Accessed February 15, 2021. http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/constituicao/constituicaocompilado.htm. Poe 45

how to best serve “all” Brazilians, and, instead, chose a colorblind approach. The result of this colorblind approach forces Black HIV-positive people, who are largely Black women and

LGBTQ+ people81, to call attention to their erasure and advocate for what they need. Cyrino insists that part of her continual struggle as a Black HIV-positive person is her constant reminder to SUS that people of her social group do not just face the barriers society presents to those who are HIV-positive, but they also deal with racist and classist barriers to healthcare, amongst other basic necessities, as Black, poor people. Resisting the fragmentation imposed on the understanding of themselves as Black HIV-positive people is not simply a question of recognizing who a person is in their entirety but understanding what struggles people face in their complexity and how to construct a society that better serves the people at the intersections of multiple oppressions. Only through intersectional understandings can one produce a society without barriers for all people. The voices and leadership of Black women and Black LGBTQ+

HIV-positive people resisting the fractured understandings of their struggles are essential to producing these visions for a better society, both in healthcare and beyond.

Reflecting on the central importance of the visions of Black LGBTQ+ people and their intersectional lenses for the reformulation of society, this chapter investigates the processes of self and community making for Black LGBTQ+ people. The chapter analyzes how Black

LGBTQ+ people, both within social movement spaces and in their individual lives, find ways to construct definitions of themselves that center their intersectional experiences within multiple systems of power. The first part of my chapter focuses on the stories of three Black LGBTQ+

HIV-positive activists and community workers in Philadelphia and Rio de Janeiro. In this part of the chapter, I outline how they resist fragmentation in their own lives, the necessary conflicts

81 Kia Lilly Caldwell, Health Equity In Brazil: Intersections Of Gender, Race, And Policy (University of Illinois Press, 2017). Poe 46

within community spaces that these moments of resistance bring, and the difficulties and loneliness this brings in the lives of those who are vocal about their self-making. In the second part of my chapter, I focus on social community spaces that center Black LGBTQ+ bodies and experiences to understand what community construction looks like for Black LGBTQ+ people amongst themselves. In this section, I focus on the Black LGBTQ+ party from Brazil Batekoo as an example of Black LGBTQ+ community making. In my analysis of Batekoo, I outline the themes of community-making apparent in the construction of the space and the necessary conflicts with non-Black LGBTQ+ individuals who frequent these spaces and who are not the targeted and centered communities.

Part 1: All Parts at Once - Black LGBTQ+ Self-Making

In the fall of 2019, in center city Philadelphia, I sat down with Black queer, non-binary activist Abdul-Aliy Muhammad to talk about their activist trajectory. Throughout Black queer and trans communities in Philadelphia, Muhammad is a beloved and revered figure who many highlight as someone unafraid to stand up for Black LGBTQ+ people. Getting to know the impact of Muhammad’s community presence, I was interested in getting to the root of how and why they arrived at their community work. At the very start of their childhood, Muhammad informed me that they always cared deeply and passionately about Black communities from a young age, so the transition to doing political work with them felt natural. Muhammad was born in West Philadelphia and raised in a Black Muslim family. When they were young, their mother instilled in them a critical lens of the United States’ imperialistic power and the ways Black people are treated in the United States. Moments such as the Million Woman March82 in 1997 in

82 The Million Woman March was a mass march organized by and for Black women in Philadelphia in 1997 to push against racial and gender violence in the United States, and for the well being of the Black community. It was one of Poe 47

Philadelphia defined Black intersectional political moments in Muhammad’s mother’s life. She shared those moments with Muhammad as a child, instilling them with a political awareness about the political struggles of embodied Blackness. This critical political lens stayed with

Muhammad as they grew older and involved themselves in activist movements, such as the anti- war organizing after the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan post-9/11. While living abroad in

Germany for a few years as a young adult, Muhammad witnessed from afar the shock and disaster of Hurricane Katrina and the US government’s failure to protect the primarily Black populations devastated by the hurricane’s effects. Seeing the pain in masses of Black people from afar drove Muhammad to action. In a moment that hearkened to James Baldwin’s abrupt return to the United States and travel to the US South after seeing the Black struggle for desegregation in North Carolina and the white backlash from it,83 Muhammad’s witnessed from afar of the struggle of Black people in the USA and it sparked their return and launch into action.

Muhammad returned to Philadelphia and got involved in whatever way they could with projects that centered on Black communities' political liberation.

When Muhammad first found out about their HIV-positive status in 2008, the nature of their activist fight began to change. They explained to me, “[Seroconverting] shifted my concern or focus on movements. I mean, I was still like deeply passionate about Black people, but now I was passionate about queer and trans Black people who are vulnerable for HIV.”84 Muhammad’s own experience being diagnosed with HIV and passing through the early difficulties of gaining access to treatment in Philadelphia allowed them to see first-hand the struggles of Black queer

the largest political actions of Black women in United States history. Source: Campbell, Horace. "The Million Woman March." Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, no. 35 (1997): 86-89. Accessed February 15, 2021. doi:10.2307/4066098. 83 James Baldwin, “James Baldwin: Letter from a Region in My Mind,” The New Yorker, November 10, 1962. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1962/11/17/letter-from-a-region-in-my-mind. 84 Personal Interview with Abdul-Aliy Muhammad. November 7, 2019. Philadelphia, USA. Poe 48

and trans people who are HIV-positive. While Muhammad initially began their political struggle for all Black people, living the experience of being a Black queer, non-binary person with HIV allowed them to see how these and many other communities are pushed to the margins when the conversation centers Black people. Stepping into the experience of being HIV-positive magnified the struggles within their community that Muhammad hadn’t fully grasped before. Being diagnosed did not steal Muhammad away from the liberatory political fight for Black people; rather, it helped them focus on a specific group of people within Black communities who needed even more support due to their marginalization. Therefore, Muhammad committed to this struggle by beginning to volunteer at as many AIDS service organizations within Philadelphia as they could, such as COLOURS, which serves the Black LGBTQ+ community, and the Mazzoni

Center, an AIDS service organization where Muhammad was diagnosed and where they would later be hired to work full-time. Muhammad’s journey of diagnosis illuminated the importance of standing in the intersections of where their oppressions meet, to fight for others who are also at those intersections.

Jean Vinicius, a Black gay man from Rio de Janeiro, took a while to come into his racial consciousness and, instead, got his activist start within the field of HIV-positive community collectives. In the fall of 2019, I met up with Vinicius in the Lapa district of Rio de Janeiro to better understand his journey to HIV activism and the struggles along the way. I had met

Vinicius months earlier at a Black LGBTQ+ sub-group meeting of the Movimento Negro

Unificado (Unified Black Movement) in the historically Black neighborhood of Madureira, Rio de Janeiro. When Vinicius began to speak at the meeting about the extensive work he had done within HIV-positive and LGBTQ+ communities throughout Rio in their short life, I was immediately interested in knowing more of their activist trajectory. Vinicius was born and raised Poe 49

in Belford Roxo, Rio de Janeiro. When he sat down with me for an interview in 2019, he explained that one of his first defining moments in becoming an activist was his HIV-positive diagnosis in 2014. While Vinicius described being diagnosed as an emotionally complex process, he insisted that it thrust him into a search of community with other HIV-positive people, leading him to his activism. In 2015, shortly after being diagnosed, Vinicius began to attend meetings with Rede Jovem Rio+ (Rio+Youth Network), a support organization for youth aged 12 to 29 who are HIV-positive throughout the state Rio de Janeiro. Soon after getting involved with the organization, he rose through the leadership ranks, becoming a coordinator of Rio’s Network and then a leader within the national organization Rede Nacional de Adolescentes e Jovens Vivendo com HIV/AIDS (National Network of Adolescents and Youth Living with HIV/AIDS).

As Vinicus became a young political leader within the national movement of people living with HIV, he began to notice more and question the prevalence of white decision-makers within the movement. He explained,

What I noticed is that despite the fact that the AIDS movement in Brazil, in my reading, is heterogeneous, when looking at the decision-making position and positions of power, the movement is led by white people. The fact that the movement is led by white people makes it so that often there is a universalizing of the subject [who has HIV]. This shows up in statements like, “We are all equal and if we point to our differences we will fortify them.” “We don’t need to talk about this because if we talk about this it means importing the problem.”85

While the HIV movement that Vinicius had dedicated himself to continues to nurture his growth as a community leader since his diagnosis, his realization that he is one of very few Black leaders within the movement proves disconcerting to Vinicius. Vinicius’s observations show that the lack of Black leadership within the HIV movement is a problem for the kinds of visions the movement holds and the solutions it proposes for a better society for people with HIV. Vinicius

85 Personal Interview with Jean Vinicius. September 21, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author Poe 50

argues that universalizing the HIV-positive subject does not work to create an inclusive movement for all who live with HIV. Rather, it works to silence those who speak from a different vantage point. The lack of Black people in leadership and the overrepresentation of white gay men in leadership made it so that this white standpoint became the universalizing voice for the movement. Just as SUS rejects an intersectional understanding of human struggles in their full diversity, the HIV movement’s white leadership refuses to center intersectional questions of race, gender, and class for the sake of “unity” which ensures that stories HIV- positive people who experience violent forms of intersectional oppressions will not be centered and adequately addressed by the group.

Vinicius, reflecting on this moment of epiphany about the downfalls of the HIV movement, says,

Because of the trips I took and consequently contact with other political and social contexts of the young people who organized in the HIV field, the field of Blackness, and other areas, made it so that I could construct a more critical perspective about the AIDS epidemic in Brazil and how this, in my opinion, intersects with racial themes, and where I fit in all of this - both from the standpoint of someone who is affected by racism, HIV, and other issues, as well as, besides experiencing these things as an individual, politically organizing to think of responses that attempt to resolve all of these things.86

The critical perspective that Vinicius offers the movement about recognizing race and other axes of power as instrumental in the lives of those living with HIV comes from both his own experience as a Black gay HIV+ man and his growing consciousness around that experience.

Vinicius shared with me that in the beginning of his activist trajectory, his political understandings of his Black experience were not as sharpened as they would come to be later on in his path. The lack of a critical racial consciousness helped to silence his questioning of the

86 Personal Interview with Jean Vinicius, September 21, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Translation by author. Poe 51

majority white leadership within the HIV movement. However, Vinicius’s interactions with other Black HIV-positive people throughout his experience as a leader within the movement began to help reframe his own understandings of his journey as a Black HIV-positive gay man.

This understanding of self-shifted the political and community investments of Vinicius and pushed him to recognize that he embodies all of his social exclusions at once and that for the

HIV movement to truly serve him and those like him, it must have racial awareness. He insisted,

It was important for me because it was able to make me understand myself even more as a Black person. I was able to make a more critical reading of the violences that I had suffered. I suffered them [the violences] but many times I didn’t pay attention to them. It also allowed me to do a more realistic reading, understanding the relationship between health, sickness, and everything.87

As the AIDS movement instilled Vinicius with the notion of a colorblind approach to HIV advocacy, he began to understand himself as another person with HIV, without race being a prominent factor. As he gathered a different racial lens, he understood the importance of race and

Blackness to the conversations around HIV. Vinicius’s process of stepping into a racial consciousness pushed his self-making from a gay man with HIV to a political identity that sits at the crossroads of Blackness, HIV, working class, and gay. Although Vinicius came into this intersectional consciousness later in his HIV activist career, he now urgently centers all of the oppressions he experiences at once in a movement that serves him and those like him.

Necessary Conflict

In the winter months of 2019, I met up with Marcus Borton, a Black gay male HIV- positive activist also born and raised in West Philadelphia, in a Jamaican restaurant in our shared childhood neighborhood of West Philadelphia. Borton is a bold character full of animation and

87 Personal Interview with Jean Vinicius, September 21, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Translation by author. Poe 52

humor so while the interview consisted of difficult and heavy topics, Borton found a way to sprinkle humor throughout our conversation. During our interview, he explains,

I’m not the girl who throws the rock and hides her head, I’m the kind of girl who says, “Yes I picked up that brick, and that’s where I got it from! I got another brick in my bag and would you like to meet her?” *laughter* You know? For better or for worse, but when I tell things that happened because I’m able like “and this is what I did” people are like “yup.” And if and when there are moments where people are like “girl, this happened and Marcus said this” people will be like “Marcus didn’t say that” *laughter*88

Borton’s comedic interjection explains his tendency towards conflict for community growth.

While many people hide from conflict in fear that speaking of it creates more conflict (as

Vinicius’s white counterparts in the AIDS movement insisted), Borton resists this idea, insisting that conflict is something one must embrace to be respected and create safe community spaces.

Borton practices his own politics of leaning into conflict and uncomfortability through the project he spearheaded, celebrating the life of Joseph Beam and other Black queer figures.

Borton’s project originally arose out of a desire to celebrate the birthday of Joseph Beam through an art project that imagined profiles for Beam and other Black queer figures such as Alvin Ailey,

James Baldwin, and Essex Hemphill, on Jack’d, the dating app popular particularly amongst

Black and Latinx gay and bisexual men. Through art and humor, Borton aimed to lift a conversation around the intimate lives of these important figures. He insisted that he understood that this approach of sparking a conversation would cause conflict because of the silences around the intimate lives of Black LGBTQ+ figures’ lives. He explained,

I think it’s always interesting within our own community just how much shame can be present...There were a lot of people who were like “this is offensive” and “why are you making these jack’d profiles for these people” *laughter*... It was a moment! *laughter*89

88 Personal Interview with Marcus Borton, November 29, 2019. Philadelphia, USA. 89 Ibid. Poe 53

Borton understands that his art project to celebrate the lives of these Black queer figures, in all of their complexity, would be met with hostility and conflict by many within the Black LGBTQ+ community. For Borton, this conflict is necessary because it calls attention to the real problem: the shame Black LGBTQ+ people feel in discussing their intimate lives. The guilt and silence that Black LGBTQ+ communities inflict upon the stories of those that came before them is stemmed from the siloed ways Black LGBTQ+ are constructed within Black historiographies to sanitize them for a conditional acceptance within these historiographies. The idea of Joseph

Beam, or Marlon Riggs, or Alvin Ailey procuring a sexual partner through a dating app like

Jack’d invites in an open queer sexuality in the ways these people are remembered. Black

LGBTQ+ people who continually navigate a conditional acceptance within Black community spaces take it upon themselves to shame and control the way they and other Black LGBTQ+ people are seen by the larger Black community.90 Therefore, the conflict Borton encourages aims to expand our understanding of the fullness of who these figures were and allow other Black

LGBTQ+ to be full and open in their own self-making processes.

Jean Vinicius adopted a similar approach to conflict when he began coming into his own racial consciousness. Although if he felt much less comfortable in the space of conflict in the beginning of that journey, he explains,

The moment that I started to transform, and this transformation showed up in my discourse about the things we’re doing, all of this causes a series of frictions in the relationships with people I had up to that point that are in social movements (not only in Rio but in other states too) who are white. For example, I explain that their experience is different from my experience...and this causes so much friction, because the response that I generally receive is that I wanted to create separatism between people because of skin color, and that there were no connections between these things [that I brought up].91

90 Dwight Mcbride, Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality 41 (NYU Press, 2005); Jeffrey Q. Mccune Jr. Sexual Discretion: Black Masculinity and The Politics of Passing (University of Chicago Press, 2014). 91 Personal Interview with Jean Vinicius. September 21, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 54

Vinicius’s experience outlines the ways in which the self-making processes of Black LGBTQ+ people who work within activist communities do not simply affect their individual consciousness but also work to question power dynamics and unaddressed issues within those movements.

Vinicius’s process of change from understanding himself through the context of HIV in a

“colorblind” lens to understanding himself as a Black HIV-positive gay man from a peripheral neighborhood forced him to reckon with the colorblind lens passed down to him from the white leadership in the movement. The conflict arises from the white leadership’s resistance to admit and address the problem.

This white majority leadership prefers to see Vinicius as the problem as opposed to the power dynamics they enforce and uphold. Vinicius elaborated upon the struggles in bringing up these issues with the leadership, saying,

It was difficult. Many times I suffered harassment from various important authority figures in Brazil, in São Paulo, and in other states, especially by doctors...because it’s them who say everything about how we experience our sexuality and how we will live, and the majority of them are white, come from wealthy backgrounds, and are instrumentalized to bind us through sickness. So speaking about all of these things put me in a difficult position.92

The white power structure that controls the AIDS movement that Vinicius organizes is resistant to the change he attempts to bring. The sharing of the gifts Vinicius has gained through his own self-making process and re-contextualizing of his own experiences and the experiences of others like him have been met with hostility as white leaders attempt to maintain power within a movement space that claims to advocate for an institutionally marginalized group. Vinicius effectively calls out the presence of white supremacy and marginalization of Black and peripheral subjects in the AIDS movement in Brazil. He understands these conflicts as necessary

92 Personal Interview with Jean Vinicius. September 21, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 55

because they not only relate to him but to all Black LGBTQ+ HIV-positive individuals who are served by the AIDS movement. Vinicius’s transformative self-making helps him to become a better advocate for himself and all who experience the intersectional barriers he faces.

For Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, embracing necessary conflict launched them into landscape- changing activism in Philadelphia that sparked the creation of the Black and Brown Workers

Cooperative.93 After taking a break from working with AIDS service organizations during a difficult two years in which they lost both their mother and father, Muhammad was invited back to work with the Mazzoni Center, the organization where they originally tested positive for HIV and began their activism with AIDS service organizations. However, due to much social transformation over the two years they, like Vinicius, began to see the work of the Mazzoni

Center in a much more different and problematic light. They explained to me,

I think I saw in that moment, it became more clear to me, I think I had a deeper analysis about race and class and how that impacts spaces… I became more critical of organizations using language that would suggest that they cared and looked at actions or who was in places of power at agencies or organizations.... Going back to Mazzoni, I noticed, again, the board [being all white] and I started speaking out about it. 94

Just like Borton and Vinicius, Muhammad believes in necessary conflict so that social justice- oriented spaces can live up to the image they project. Muhammad points out the white power structure to showcase the hypocrisy in Mazzoni’s social justice project. Philadelphia is a city that has a majority non-white population, and of that majority, about 43 percent are Black, according to the 2019 census data.95 The Mazzoni Center’s all white board of directors doesn’t match anywhere near the demographic makeup of the city’s majority non-white population. Therefore,

93 Formerly the Black and Brown Workers Collective 94 Personal Interview with Abdul-Aliy Muhammad. November 7, 2019. Philadelphia, USA. 95 “U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania,” Census Bureau QuickFacts, Accessed February 15, 2021, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/philadelphiacountypennsylvania. Poe 56

these white decision makers hold an unsettling amount of power over the majority non-white population they serve. Muhammad insists that this white domination is incongruent with the image the organization presents for itself.

Even more sinister than the white-dominated directorship of the Mazzoni Center,

Muhammad argues that the organization uses its Black and non-white staff, who largely work in positions without institutional power, to build up their racial justice image. Muhammad explained,

I saw that oftentimes those organizations wanted to extract narratives from us. Especially people who were POZ who were working at the organization, to use for funding or use to kind of make an impression on donors. That’s when I really started thinking deeply about how narratives of Black people are used to support organizations that then hire us in frontline positions but won’t elevate us or invest in us to be able to attain other positions at the organization.96

Muhammad continued explaining that the refusal to promote and build up the leadership of

Black queer HIV-positive staff maintains them in positions that are underpaid or precarious.

They insist that many times these positions end up being cut, putting these people already statistically prone to economically precarious situations back in these conditions. As an organization whose mission claims its purpose is to “provide quality comprehensive health and wellness services in an LGBTQ-focused environment, while preserving the dignity and improving the quality of life of the individuals we serve,”97 Muhammad’s exposing of the disposable ways the organization uses its largely Black and Brown vulnerable staff shows the organization does not live up to its mission. Muhammad insists that in these moments, the only approach is to embrace the conflict that comes from exposing these incongruencies. Muhammad explains that this necessary conflict comes from a place of care and love for the communities

96 Personal Interview with Abdul-Aliy Muhammad. November 7, 2019. Philadelphia, USA. 97 “About Us.” Mazzoni Center, December 16, 2020. https://www.mazzonicenter.org/about. Poe 57

most vulnerable amongst the served populations of the organization, like Black HIV queer and trans HIV-positive people. Muhammad’s processing of their own marginalization at the organization brings them to understand the necessity of pushing conflict in the face of injustice, for the well-being of those who are marginalized in similar ways as they are.

The Loneliness of Necessary Conflict

Muhammad, Vinivius, and Borton, as well as many other Black LGBTQ+ activists I interviewed, recounted the internal tug of war between the necessity of conflict and the difficulty of it. Activists recounted understanding that if they did not speak up in moments, they were fearful that others would pass through the struggles that they themselves had gone through. But at the same time, they explained the fear of loneliness that would result from bringing up the important issues relating to the intersectional oppression they were dealing with within different activist spaces. These fears usually came to pass, as activists were many times met with hostility and isolation from the group, rather than critical reflection in the moment. An essential part of the Black LGBTQ+ activist self-making process is learning to deal with and process this isolation resulting from speaking out against injustice.

Jean Vinicius recounts his own isolation after beginning to speak up against the white domination of AIDS organizations and their failure to adequately address questions of racial inequality in and outside of these organizations.

It was difficult. Many times I suffered harassment from various important authority figures in Brazil, in São Paulo, and in other states, especially by doctors...because it’s them who say everything about how we experience our sexuality and how we will live, and the majority of them are white, come from wealthy backgrounds, and are instrumentalized to bind us through sickness. So speaking about all of these things put me in a difficult position… My harassment was painful in my opinion because, besides the fact that I was in a moment that I was bringing up issues that weren’t completely defined for myself, I lacked Poe 58

literature [to cite]. So much of what I said was only understood as what you say about your own experience, and experience is generally diminished, it needs to be legitimated. If I say something and I don’t reference this or that, or I don’t reference statistics, etc, this is understood as lesser than, especially if the intention is to promote a non-hegemonic gaze.98

Vinicius is perceived to be a threat by the white AIDS movement leadership not only because he contradicts the “wisdom” of the leadership about how race impacts the lives of people who are

HIV-positive but because he critiques this leadership with something it does not have--personal experience. Vinicius feels shame and inferiority in relying on this type of knowledge to speak back against the academic theories of the white leadership and doctors of the movement. This shame is directly rooted in the invalidation of his personal experience as knowledge. However, the sharp critique that he makes of these decision makers, who in many times decide the fate and well-being of HIV-positive people (especially poor, largely Black populations living in the periphery who depend on the public healthcare system), threatens the legitimacy of the white leadership. The isolation of Vinicius and making the process of speaking up difficult for him, serves as a defense mechanism for the white leadership’s power security. While these spaces had been presented to Vinicius as spaces for open dialogue about the experience of living with HIV, the space for dialogue is cut off suddenly when it contradicts the narrative put forth by the leadership. This is particularly concerning because Vinicius is only beginning to fully comprehend this process in his own life. Instead of being an environment that facilitates the reflection of painful life experiences related to oppression, the AIDS movement’s hostile approach forces Vinicius to take the role of defender and expert of things he intellectually and emotionally working through. Singling out Jean Vinicius as a Black gay HIV-positive voice that sits in opposition to the white elite voices at the leadership forces an intellectual maturity to

98 Personal Interview with Jean Vinicius. September 21, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Poe 59

speak up, without the emotional support. In Vinicius’s case, his Black LGBTQ+ emotional self- making develops both in a place of isolation and (necessary) defensiveness.

At times, my interlocutors described their hesitancy to speak uncomfortable truths to those who held institutional power over them as well as those who shared the same or similar oppressions as them, such as other Black LGBTQ+ people. Marcus Borton describes this through his experiences of isolation by other Black LGBTQ+ people when he attempted to construct his project of Joseph Beam Day. Besides the reactions rooted in shame thrust upon the Black

LGBTQ+ community about being open about sex and sexuality, Borton experienced moments of isolation because of an air of rivalry that arose in the shadow of his project idea. Borton explains,

I think what’s very challenging for me is because a lot of the people who I don’t see [other Black LGBTQ+ people] as a rival, but they see me as a rival. Like we’re not doing the same work. And so much of academia can be like intentionally people going out of their way to not work on things that are anything resembling yours, so why is there an issue at all?99

Borton’s critique is aptly aimed at Black LGBTQ+ people who work within the walls of the academy or who have proximity and aspirations to it. Borton shared his ideas from a place of excitement to rethink and reclaim the histories of the Black LGBTQ+ world and make these histories widely available to the community in new ways. However, he felt that cultures of scarcity and rivalry that are common in academic and non-profit spaces made other Black

LGBTQ+ people feel like Borton was a threat rather than a potential collaborator. Boton continues,

People espousing to have these politics around Anti-Blackness or white supremacy, or healing, or community, or whatever buzzword, but then at the end of the day...I understand what capitalism does to people and us in general. But at the core coming down to it, you could impact my coin100. And if you are more interesting than me, if your work is more vibrant than mines, if it’s more

99 Personal Interview with Marcus Borton, November 29, 2019, Philadelphia, USA. 100 Money Poe 60

interesting, if you specifically are funnier, or more the thing that gets you tokenized within white spaces specifically, then you can be in and I can be out.101

While frustrated by the rivalry shown towards him, Borton soberly understands that Black

LGBTQ+ people exist in a world that refuses abundance to them. He explains that cultures of rivalry spark from cultures of tokenization that insists that there can only be one “exceptional”

Black LGBTQ+ person who gets the funding, gets into the non-profit coordinator positions in an

LGBTQ+ organization, or gets into the masters or doctoral program. Borton explains that it is these moments of tokenization, many of which provide economic stability and well-being to the

Black LGBTQ+ person chosen as the “exceptional” one, that break down collaboration and build up rivalry between Black LGBTQ+ people.

Borton’s observations are particularly poignant as his project focuses on the life and contributions of Joseph Beam. Beam dedicated much of his life to work against the cultures of rivalry and disposability amongst Black gay men and towards a collectivity, inspired by Black lesbian feminist writing and community.102 It was this aim towards a collectivity that sparked the creation of In the Life, one of the first anthologies of Black gay men’s writings. However, despite efforts to produce these works, secure funding for them, and get them published, Beam had to work within the cultures of scarcity, tokenism, and competition that Borton addresses. The stress and isolation that resulted from working, being underpaid, underappreciated and fighting AIDS to produce the second edited volume of Black gay men’s writing led to his death alone in his apartment in Philadelphia in 1988.103 Borton, at many points throughout our interview and conversations, spoke to the ways that the isolation and death of Beam haunted him regularly,

101 Personal Interview with Marcus Borton. November 29, 2019. Philadelphia, USA. 102Joseph Beam, In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology (Alyson Pubns, 1986); Essex Hemphill Ed., Brother To Brother: New Writings By Black Gay Men (Redbone Press, 2007). 103 Mumford, Kevin. Not Straight, Not White: Black Gay Men from The March on Washington To the AIDS Crisis. UNC Press Books, 2016. Poe 61

both as someone who works to reclaim the history of Joseph Beam and as a fellow Black queer

HIV-positive man. Borton explains the difficulty of navigating the landscape of the activist world saying, “I think what people forget about activism is that, these are people. And these people are flawed and sometimes these people, they have personal histories themselves with trauma.”104 Borton insists that while Black LGBTQ+ people can get wrapped up in and reproduce the violences of these systems of power that work to isolate and oppress Black

LGBTQ+ people, these systems are not created by or for them. For himself, as an act of radical

Black LGBTQ+ self-making, Borton had to find inner defenses against a world that sought his isolation and death. Borton exalts,

There is this way at times where the world tries to remind me like: you’re a Black girl, you’re a dark skinned Black person with like natural hair who’s from the hood and you don’t come from class, you don’t come from wealth, and during this moment of like whiteness wanting to know itself as superior just in general, it’s just like “oh that has to do with Blackness so it’s not important.” “That has to do with queerness so it’s definitely not important.” It has to do with all these different things that we’re taught to stigmatize or hate or erase...So that’s been very intense, and me just having a sense that I’m important has been important for me.105

Borton shows that even as Black LGBTQ+ attempt to create safe and loving spaces for one another, it is difficult to escape the systems of power that create a restricted and unsafe world for them. These systems of power even enter the projects that Black LGBTQ+ people create for one another. For Borton, a strong, almost defensive confidence in who they are in the face of these societal violences helps generate the strength to survive the isolation that is thrust upon Black

LGBTQ+ activists.

104 Personal Interview with Marcus Borton, November 29, 2019. Philadelphia, USA. 105 Ibid. Poe 62

Like Borton, Vinicius echoed moments of isolation bring up hard but necessary issues with other Black LGBTQ+ activists. After experiencing exhaustion and isolation from the AIDS advocacy movement and its white leadership dominance, Vinicius sought out different kinds of community organizations that could provide a space for him as a Black gay person and address power and oppression in society from an intersectional lens. Vinicius finally found this in a community organization and support group for Black gay men based out of Rio de Janeiro. The organization convened discussion groups and events geared at Black gay men to collectively understand the struggles of self-making for the community and support one another to find survival tools. After years of dealing with HIV activist organizations that ignored race and class questions in their actions, Vinicius celebrated this new organization that centered Blackness with open arms into his life. However, after Vinicius began attending the community organization's events regularly, he became frustrated with this organization's blind spots. Vinicius noticed that, even with an intersectional lens that thought through race and class together, the group openly resisted centering questions of HIV status into the intersectional concerns of the group. Vinicius explains,

What I began to realize is that in practice social movements, organizations, they treat issues in a fractured way. So the individual is never thought of in a holistic way, in a way that maintains wholeness. If in the AIDS movement it was possible that issues related to HIV and even issues related to sexuality were seen as important and central, the question of Blackness was put on the backburner. I couldn’t be a Black person there. On the other hand, in [this other group], the issue of HIV was also put on the backburner, so I couldn’t have HIV there… This was very difficult because the feeling I had was that I needed to erase some part of my existence to be accepted because I would never be understood in an integral way.106

106 Personal Interview with Jean Vinicius. September 21, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Poe 63

Vinicius’ statements about the fractured way movements approach identity resonate with the ideas of Flip Couto, Muhammad, and many other Black LGBTQ+ interlocutors I interviewed.

Still, Vinicius extends this assertion to the movements specifically for Black LGBTQ+ people.

He insists that Black LGBTQ+ people organizing together are not exempt from these fragmented visions of category importance hierarchies. For that reason, the Black gay men who founded the organization that Vinicius attended, which sought to build up Black gay men in all of their complexity, fall into the same trap that other movements that Vinicius frequented did. Vinicius insisted that the group refused to adequately address HIV and class as central tenets to many

Black gay men's experience, including those who attended the group. Vinicius insisted that beyond refusing to center HIV status as an essential advocacy point in the group's activism, when he tried to bring up HIV status as a talking point in the group, as an HIV-positive person, he was met with hostility. He explains, “Some people said to me directly or indirectly that I wasn’t welcome in that space because I had HIV. And that was difficult because it was there that

I had hoped to receive affection and care...and that’s not what happened.”107 The attacks against

Vinicius’s attempts to expand the organization’s lens and advocacy were harmful to Vinicius and all HIV-positive people in the organization and those who sought to join. This experience caused a significant amount of isolation for Vinicius, as he chose to leave the group rather than stay where he was not welcome integrally. Vinicius’s story reveals that in the process of Black

LGBTQ+ self-making in the community, they can be subjected to violence similar to those inflicted by people who don’t share multiple social locations.

Black LGBTQ+ Bodily Autonomy

107 Personal Interview with Jean Vinicius. September 21, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Poe 64

In 2016, Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, along with the newly founded Black and Brown

Workers Collective, participated in a series of actions throughout the Gayborhood in

Philadelphia. The actions targeted racism throughout LGBTQ+ businesses and nonprofits in

Philadelphia and the abuse of power by higher-ups of frontline workers and HIV-positive community members. The Black and Brown Workers Collective’s “Call to Action'' statement carefully outlined the specific ways that LGBTQ+ nonprofits exploited their Black and Brown staff members and refused to invest in them as leaders.108 The collective of Black and Brown

LGBTQ+ activists organized throughout the year in despite dealing with the trauma of shocking moments of violence targeted towards Black and Brown LGBTQ+ communities, such as the

Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida109 and the leaking of a video of the owner of popular Philadelphia LGBTQ+ nightclub ICandy spewing racial epitaphs about Black people that frequent the club.110 The collective pushed various actions such as staff walkouts at the

Mazzoni Center and calling for the resignation of Nellie Fitzpatrick, the Philadelphia LGBT

Affairs Director who refused to launch an investigation and action plan responding to the charges of racism in the Philadelphia LGBTQ+ sector following the leaking of the video of the owner of

ICandy.

One of the most impactful actions of the Black and Brown Workers Collective was to call for the Mazzoni Center Nurit Shein CEO's resignation in 2017. The calls for the resignation of

Shein came in light of Shein’s refusal to acknowledge the institutional racism embedded in the

Mazzoni Center's direction, instead claiming that racism at the organization was “more anecdotal

108 https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B39RP_uwuW60Ukx2am9rWXM3YWc/view. 109 Zambelich, Ariel, and Alyson Hurt. “3 Hours In Orlando: Piecing Together An Attack And Its Aftermath.” NPR. NPR, June 26, 2016. https://www.npr.org/2016/06/16/482322488/orlando-shooting-what-happened-update. 110 Ernest Owens, “Video Surfaces of ICandy Owner Darryl DePiano Saying the N-Word.” Philadelphia Magazine. Philadelphia Magazine, October 3, 2016. https://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/09/29/video-icandy-darryl- depiano-n-word/. Poe 65

than systematic.”111 The calls for her resignation were also linked to the allegations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate relationships with populations served by the Mazzoni Center against Medical Director Robert Winn. For Muhammad, these instances shined a light on racism and exploitation of Black and Brown staff and community members by the white leadership of the Mazzoni Center and LGBTQ+ non-profits in Philadelphia in general. The response of Shein and the Mazzoni Center's inaction to remove its leadership convinced Muhammad that something drastic had to be done to force action. On April 20, 2017, a Mazzoni Center staff walkout was organized to continue to push for the ousting of Shein as a Statement of No

Confidence in Shein was signed by 60 employees at the Mazzoni Center.112 On April 21, 2017,

Muhammad decided to go on an HIV medication strike in support of the Mazzoni Center staff's actions, refusing to take their HIV medication until Shein was ousted as CEO of the Mazzoni

Center. After four days of Muhammad’s HIV medication strike, Nurit Shein stepped down as

CEO of the Mazzoni Center, handing a win to Muhammad and the Black and Brown Workers

Collective.

For Muhammad, this medication strike was an exhilarating exercise of their bodily autonomy and corporeal power; however, it was also a terrifying tread into the unknown for

Muhammad. They explain the experience saying,

It was hard. Before then people close to me knew I was poz, but I wasn’t out about being HIV-positive. I had a conversation with Shani in January about the possibility to do this as a last resort, not the first thing we do… Everyone told me no, don’t do that. Do a hunger strike, ‘We don’t need you to put your body on the line in that type of way.’ But it was my decision and I thought a lot about my autonomy and my ability to do this as a resistance act.113

111 Cassie Owens, “Timeline: Months of Activism Led to Mazzoni Center Leadership Ouster.” Billy Penn. Billy Penn, April 26, 2017. https://billypenn.com/2017/04/26/timeline-months-of-activism-led-to-mazzoni-center- leadership-ouster/. 112 Ibid. 113 Personal Interview with Abdul-Aliy Muhammad. November 7, 2019. Philadelphia, USA. Poe 66

Muhammad’s simple yet radical act of putting their body on the line offered a vulnerability and openness about their life that was not required before this action. Before their medication strike,

Muhammad worked within LGBTQ+ HIV advocacy organizations and organized on behalf of

Black LGBTQ+ populations, emphasizing HIV-positive people. However, working on behalf of and in solidarity with these communities is different from openly putting one’s Black queer HIV- positive body on the line as an action. Muhammad continues,

People came at me on social media, my family was upset, threatening to like shove medicine down my throat...People were saying all kinds of stuff online about how problematic it was to do that and that “people died for you to have this medicine and you’re not gonna take it” and “don’t have sex because you don’t want to give someone HIV.” ... There was a lot of policing of my intimacy around that time. There was also like people not understanding why I did it...It was hard, it was intense. It was only for four days luckily because after the fourth day [the CEO] resigned, but at that moment when I decided to do it I didn’t know how long I was going to be off of meds, but I knew I could at the time risk that and that it was necessary to move folks out of power.114

While many of the people in Muhammad’s life who attempted to control their actions and convince them not to strike speak from a place of good intentions and desire to protect

Muhammad, Muhammad’s story shows how people feel entitlement over Black LGBTQ+ HIV- positive bodies and lives. Harkening back to Jean Vinicius’s clash with doctors within the AIDS movement who attempted to communicate the HIV-positive experience as one way that contradicted Vinicius’s own experience, Muhammad’s story shows the ways in which others attempt to control the narrative of Black LGBTQ+ HIV-positive lives and bodies and control their actions. While the intentions might have been good, the attempt to control Muhammad’s action in the moment reflects the same kind of “outsider” leadership that the Black and Brown

Workers Collective protests in the Mazzoni Center. Leadership at Philadelphia nonprofits of

114 Personal Interview with Abdul-Aliy Muhammad. November 7, 2019. Philadelphia, USA. Poe 67

white highly educated leadership leading largely Black and Brown working-class frontline staff to serve largely Black and Brown working class populations presents the problem that the

BBWC points out, outsiders making decisions for people who live lives the leadership has never lived and does not comprehend. The fears of Muhammad’s intimate interactions with other people as a potential “spreader of disease” furthers how the concerns of others do not center

Muhammad’s own autonomy, liveihood, and self-determination.

Muhammad, having lived with HIV for years before the medication strike, best understands their body and what it can withstand. Furthermore, Muhammad insists on deciding what they are willing to give up for their beliefs, even if it puts them in direct danger. While they knew that their medication strike was a risk for their own wellbeing, they understand that this is a necessary risk to work towards a freer way of living, not only for themselves but for all Black

LGBTQ+ HIV-positive people in Philadelphia. Muhammad, therefore, chooses to risk their most precious item, their own body and life, in the struggle for freedom. Muhammad’s act insists on a radical self-making that demands bodily autonomy in the struggle for individual and collective liberation.

Part 2: Collective Defragmentation - Black LGBTQ+ Community Making

The first time I stepped into a Batekoo party, I felt so affirmed to be a Black queer person in that space. During my first summer of research in São Paulo in 2016, I discovered the event through some Black friends at the University of São Paulo who were part of protests on campus to push the university to institute admissions racial quotas to guarantee spots for Black and

Indigenous students. Since the early 2000s, various public universities have instituted racial quotas for admissions, and private universities have allowed their students to take part in Poe 68

PROUNI, a scholarship program that offers discounted and free tuition to poor and Black students.115 However, University of São Paulo, one of the highest ranked public institutions in

Brazil, resisted this push for racial quotas as part of admissions to the university, so the national student movement and the Black movement at USP joined together to occupy the dean's office for several days, demanding that the university institute a policy of racial quotas.

Batekoo organized their party Ocupação Preta (Black Occupation) in solidarity with the movement for racial quotas for Black and Indigenous students at USP. The party took place in the outdoor area of the Funarte Cultural Complex in the center of the city, walking distance to two metro stations and in front of a bus stop--easily accessible to people coming from various parts of the city. When I arrived, loud Brazilian funk music blared throughout the space, and a sea of mostly Black people were dancing, twerking, laughing, and sharing in community.

Various ages of people were there, while most attendees were between eighteen and thirty years of age. Inside the cultural complex, protest art produced throughout the day-long takeover hung, which had statements such as, “Fora Temer” (Get Out Temer) in reference to Michel Temer,

Brazil’s vice-president and acting president after the ousting of Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and

“Contra o Genocídio da População Negra” (Against the Genocide of the Black Population). The space also exhibited art critiquing Rede Globo, the news and media company which reputedly supported the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and the installment of Michel Temer.

115 Penha-Lopes, Vânia. Confronting Affirmative Action in Brazil: University Quota Students and the Quest for Racial Justice. Lexington Books, 2017. Poe 69

Figure 1 - Batekoo Ocupação Preta

Figure 2 - Batekoo Ocupação Preta Poe 70

Figure 3 - Batekoo Ocupação Preta

The juxtaposition of the political art with the crowds of people dancing showed how Batekoo continually curates their political and lively spaces. There were groups of Black people with their hair in afros, twists, dreadlocks, and dyed whatever color they pleased. People’s clothing followed whatever gender expression they chose at that moment, seemingly refusing to be controlled by norms of society within the Batekoo environment. This space allowed freedom for

Black LGBTQ+ people to be who they wanted to be in the moment. People’s dress and gender expression spoke to the event's politics, which empowered Blackness in all forms. My eyes gleamed as I witnessed and danced in awe of the Black LGBTQ+ freedom this space invoked.

Batekoo is a party that began in Salvador in 2014 to make space for Black people, centering Black LGBTQ+ people and Black women as both producers and attendees. The party Poe 71

spread to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and nationalized the scope of the Batekoo project with each city having its own team to regularly organize the Batekoo events. The party gained financial sponsors such as Budweiser and Red Bull which helped to enlarge the scope of the events that Batekoo sought to actualize and soon after the party spread to almost every major city across Brazil. By 2018, when Red Bull sponsored a documentary about the Batekoo project, the social and political space that Batekoo sought to cultivate became famous throughout the country.116 Batekoo became a central example of what Black LGBTQ+ community-making looked like amongst the young generation of the Black movement in the 2010s, referred to by many as the Geração Tombamento.117

After attending multiple Batekoo parties in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and connecting with one of the co-founders of the Batekooo movement Wesley Miranda, I received the opportunity to interview him in São Paulo in the summers of 2016 and 2017 to talk about the specific ways Batekoo works to socially and politically advocate for Black LGBTQ+ communities. When I asked why Miranda first invested in a project like this, his answer was clear: there was an extreme lack of physical spaces where Black LGBTQ+ people could simply be themselves. He explained,

It’s so interesting, for example, that all across Brazil there are various gay parties; here in São Paulo, especially, there are many many gay parties, that think they are representative. These parties that are white even have “Black” themed parties, thinking that putting on this theme will bring out people. So I very much felt this necessity, especially after I moved [to São Paulo], because I had not yet gone to a party that was good, that represented me. And that was what gave me even more motivation to do Batekoo here and do it well. Because many parties that are said

116 “Brazil's LGBTQ Youth Finds Hope in Batekoo | Inspire the Night” Youtube. Red Bull Music, November 26, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLbcNuelXCs. 117 Joshua Reason, “A Geracao Tombamento: Black Empowerment Through Aesthetics in Salvador Da Bahia.” Essay. In Black Resistance in the Americas. New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2019; Santos, Ana Paula Medeiros Teixeira, and Marinês Ribeiro dos Santos. "Geração Tombamento e Afrofuturismo: A Moda Como Estratégia de Resistência às Violências de Gênero e de Raça no Brasil." dObra [s]–revista da Associação Brasileira de Estudos de Pesquisas em Moda 11, no. 23 (2018): 157-181. Poe 72

to be inclusive - just to contextualize: two or three months ago there was a panel conversation between party producers here in São Paulo, of these so called “alternative” and “inclusive” parties. I was invited to the panel to represent Batekoo. Except, it was the only Black party, truthfully, there. Ok. And then the topics they brought up were super irrelevant to me. I even made this clear on the day of the debate, because, for example, they were discussing “queer theory,” they were saying, “why can’t we find a trans DJ…” Then after much time passed I was able to say something, and I said basically what I think about my activism, that today is much more active in the party and because I have many political stances in my personal life, such as seeing injustice and actually getting involved...I prefer doing this “real” activism rather than writing a big document or status, which is something that I don’t like. Then I said: “People, you all need to reflect on, for example, everyone here is white, I’m the only Black person here, and you all are discussing “queer theory.” I don’t know how relevant that is to our political stances because, if you think about it, only you white people can be what you call “queer,” because in the favela where I lived in Salvador, many people called us “bichinhas” (little sissies). If you all look, you would say that it’s “queer,” but there I suffered a lot walking out in the street and being judged.” So I explained that I thought it very complicated to keep using this very academic debate.118

Miranda’s reflections point to the necessity of physical spaces for Black LGBTQ+ people to find happiness and exist freely. These spaces must be run by the community they represent and speak to Black LGBTQ+ communities in the languages they identify with and understand. Even though gay or “queer” parties in São Paulo claim to be inclusive of alternative forms of gender and sexuality, Miranda argues that without both a lens toward race as well as Black people in the leadership of these spaces, inclusivity does not stretch beyond whiteness.

While US based scholars such as Siobhan Sommerville, Cathy Cohen, José Muñoz, and

Marlon Bailey have worked to develop “queer” as an shift from the rigid categories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender towards an epistemology that breaks down the heteronormative structures around gender and sexuality and goes beyond the boundaries of whiteness, Miranda’s argument suggests that this scholarly work does not always speak to the poor and peripheral

118 Personal Interview with Wesley Miranda. July 12, 2016. São Paulo, Brazil. Poe 73

Black LGBTQ+ communities that collectively understand themselves through different terminologies and ways of being.119 Making community space for poor and peripheral Black

LGBTQ+ people requires using the language that speaks to their own self and community making. Miranda points to terms like “bichinha,” not necessarily to suggest that this is the most potentially empowering terminology for Black LGBTQ+ to understand themselves but to acknowledge that, for many, this is how they are identified in their neighborhoods, whereas queer remans a foreign concept to their sociocultural experience. Other terms such as “bicha preta” or “viado” also represent alternative histories of reclamation and empowerment that are locationally rooted within the peripheral Brazilian space for Black LGBTQ+ people. Batekoo’s central use of bicha preta, a term that was reclaimed and resignified within the poor, peripheral

Black LGBTQ+ space and then popularized by Black LGBTQ+ artists such as Linn da

Quebrada, Jup do Bairro, and Ricon Sapiência, locates the origins of their transformative political work around race and sexuality within the Black LGBTQ+ periphery, not within the academy.

Investing in Black LGBTQ+ Community Growth

Miranda clearly articulates the importance of Black LGBTQ+ leadership within these social spaces and that to effectively cultivate Black LGBTQ+ leadership one must invest in the development Black LGBTQ+ leaders. Batekoo places a strong emphasis on being a community space for Black LGBTQ+ people precisely because it is a space that is run by Black LGBTQ+ leadership. Miranda shared with me that many of the DJs and event organizers who work to put

119 Marlon M. Bailey, Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, And Ballroom Culture in Detroit. University Of Michigan Press, 2013; Cohen, Cathy J. "Punks, Bulldaggers, And Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential Of Queer Politics?," GLQ: A Journal Of Lesbian And Gay Studies 3, No. 4 (1997): 437-465; Muñoz, José Esteban. Disidentifications: Queers of Color and The Performance of Politics. Vol. 2. U Of Minnesota Press, 1999; Somerville, Siobhan B. Queering the Color Line: Race and The Invention of Homosexuality In American Culture. Duke University Press, 2000. Poe 74

together Batekoo in each city got their first experience in planning an event or DJing in the

Batekoo party space, and that sharing skills and teaching one another is essential to creating a

Black LGBTQ+ community space in a society that puts up barriers based upon class, gender, race, and sexuality. He said,

About them not being able to find a Black woman DJ, or a trans woman DJ or a trans man DJ, in Salvador we don’t have a DJ scene or party scene like you all have here [in São Paulo], so everything there is very precarious, everything there is very ‘do it yourself’: so, if you need a trans DJ and I know a trans woman, I teach her to DJ, it turns out she becomes a DJ. She is a trans woman who became a DJ, how wonderful, a trans DJ! And that’s what we do with Batekoo, you know? Batekoo is a very raw party, and I think that everyone likes it like that, you know? And they’ve even complained: “We understand, it’s so great that you do this, but it devalues the work of people who are actually DJs.” So I said: “Then I don't care about you all.” Seriously, I care about Black people that always go to these parties, a person who is a DJ, has a great musical taste, that matches the space, but doesn’t have the opportunities to show off [their skills]. And they can make some money too, because we pay too. You all [white people] have your scene, nobody I know, Black people, has a scene. There is no Black scene for DJs for parties like Batekoo, so all of the DJs that we have in Batekoo today, not all but a majority, it was us who made them a DJ, you know? So, this is the importance of intersectionality, because people don’t analyze these issues of race and class; they don’t. 120

Miranda insists that many Black LGBTQ+ cultural producers from peripheral neighborhoods are eager to DJ but lack access to what is needed to grow a skill set. Therefore, for Batekoo to effectively sustain leadership, it requires a sustained politics of educating one another about how to execute leadership in the event context. This also becomes a matter of economic empowerment, because for these Black LGBTQ+ new event producers, Batekoo shares skills that they can use as ways to make a living both within the Batekoo space and outside of it.

Miranda shows that although Batekoo is a party space, the transformative politics of Black

LGBTQ+ community-making lie at the center of the social space they are creating. The

120 Personal Interview with Wesley Miranda. July 12, 2016. São Paulo, Brazil. Poe 75

leadership of Batekoo, therefore, promotes a community-making politic of economic and educational justice, spreading the wealth of knowledge and access to money amongst the Black

LGBTQ+ leadership.

Centering Black LGBTQ+ Bodies

One of the central tenets to creating community space for Black LGBTQ+ people for

Batekoo relates to cultivating a space that provides freedoms that are not available for the community outside of the Batekoo space. At a 2019 São Paulo Batekoo event sponsored by Red

Bull during that year’s LGBTQ+ pride festivities, the large warehouse type space that hosted the party was full of attendees dancing gleefully to the fast Afro-diasporic rhythms blasting from the center stage. The stage was filled with Black DJs and Black people dancing with one another, showing off their dance skills and simply letting the music flow through their bodies. While the crowd of attendees was still filled with a majority of many familiar Black LGBTQ+ faces that I had seen at other Black LGBTQ+ parties throughout São Paulo and even people who had come in from Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, or Salvador, the high number of white attendees at the event reflected the growing mainstream popularity of Batekoo. I noticed that both the entrance fee to the party and the drink prices were higher than usual for a Batekoo party, most likely due to the event's location, what seemed to be a much higher scale type event space, and the sponsorship by Red Bull. Despite mostly Black attendees, the number of white attendees was much higher than usual. At one point, a visibly drunk group of white people attempted to get on stage to participate in a dance-off competition between the Black people on stage. However, having gone to many Batekoos in Brazil, I knew that this would cause problems. Almost immediately after the group of white attendees made their way to the stage to dance, the event Poe 76

emcee, a full-figured Black woman with beautiful purple-colored two-strand twist extensions down her back, took the mic, ordered the group to be escorted off the stage, and stopped the music. She affirmed to the crowd that Batekoo is a party that celebrates Black femme and

LGBTQ+ joy, bodies, and community. She insisted that all are invited to celebrate and participate in this joy but must understand that this joy centers Black women and Black

LGBTQ+ people. She clarified that this meant that white people are welcome in this space as long as they know that different from almost every other space in Brazil, this space does not center them and their joy; therefore, the stage is not for them to mount. It was a powerful moment and an affirmation that I had witnessed at almost every Batekoo I had attended.

However, this time stood out to me because it showed the insistence for Batekoo to remain unapologetically a Black LGBTQ+ centered space despite mainstream success and popularity amongst white people. The goal of Black LGBTQ+ community making remained tantamount to the monetary success of the space.

Miranda insists that the goal of centering Black LGBTQ+ has remained constant from the beginning of Batekoo, especially because of the lack of physical spaces in Brazil for Black

LGBTQ+ people to exist without shame. He said,

So, I noticed since I was in Salvador, truthfully many people that went to the first Batekoo only met before on the internet, they were friends on the internet, and then they went to Batekoo and met in person. So they began to have a more intimate relationship on the internet. So just like that, people began bringing other people that they only knew through the internet, and they came there to a safe space to be together and to have fun, a space full of freedom, the girls can be without much clothes or with a bra or with their breasts out and nobody did anything; so they felt this freedom, to have a space to be with one another that, I think at another party, a white party for example, they wouldn’t feel [that freedom]. Just having dyed hair, you are already judged or seen as “exotic” and such when you’re Black, because when you have dyed straight hair it's super normal, everyone has it. So, I think that this space of community was when people began to see so many things in common [with others in the space] that they had. It was a very strong camaraderie, because everyone already had a Poe 77

network of friends that integrated with other networks of friends, but without having the same thing, the same sentiment of collectivity. So, this was incredible. And this, obviously, was with the help of the production, always thinking of this, the “Batekoo family” and, whether we wanted it to be or not, it is a family because everywhere that we go the same people go and we can do a party in who knows where and everyone goes and it’s incredible.121

Miranda points out that Batekoo served as the first physical space of community for Black

LGBTQ+ people who shared their experiences. The lack of physical space for Black LGBTQ+ people speaks to the precariousness of existing as Black LGBTQ+ people. The constant racism and rejection from white-oriented LGBTQ+ spaces and the lack of safety within peripheral working-class neighborhoods where Black people predominantly live creates the problem of multiple exclusions for Black LGBTQ+ people and the necessity to create spaces that center

Black LGBTQ+ people and experiences.122 Many of my beginning Black LGBTQ+ activist- interlocutors in São Paulo and Salvador insisted that before the existence of Batekoo, they found community with other Black LGBTQ+ in Facebook discussion groups online. These groups served as places for people to meet one another and talk about their experiences and struggles of being Black LGBTQ+ people and to act as (virtual) support systems for other Black LGBTQ+ people. Much of my beginning research and connection with activists was enabled through these discussion groups. When I began regularly going to Batekoo, I saw many of these faces from the online groups for the first time in person. Batekoo provided a physical space for these people where no other existed. This fact then outlines the importance of maintaining the space as sacred for Black LGBTQ+ people, even as it grows. The act of removing these white people from stage

121 Personal Interview with Wesley Miranda. July 12, 2016. São Paulo, Brazil. 122 Joilson Santana Marques Júnior, "Notas Sobre Um Itinerário Bibliográfico: Onde Estão Os Homossexuais Negros?." Revista Em Pauta: Teoria Social E Realidade Contemporânea 28 (2011): 183-194; Ratts, Alex. "Entre Personas E Grupos Homossexuais Negros E Afro-Lgttb." Homossexualidade Sem Fronteiras. Rio De Janeiro-RJ: Booklinks 1 (2007): 97-118; Veiga, Lucas. "As Diásporas da Bixa Preta: Sobre Ser Negro E Gay No Brasil." Tabuleiro De Letras 12, No. 1 (2018): 77-88. Poe 78

by the emcee of the event continued the community making work of centering Black LGBTQ+ joy in the space, even if it is at the expense of white people’s participation in the festivities.

Yet, even as the Batekoo leadership attempts to center Black LGBTQ+ joy, the growth of the party and the notoriety it receives puts in conflict its futuristic goals of Black LGBTQ+ freedom with the realities of white supremacist heteropatriarchy and capitalism that lie just outside the event’s doors. After a Batekoo party in São Paulo on July 29th, 2018, the producing team of Batekoo got a sobering example of how these systems of oppression can seep into the

Black LGBTQ+ transformative space that the Batekoo leadership tries to uphold. Following each

Batekooo, the production team posts the pictures from the event days after. The pictures extend a politic of Black LGBTQ+ joy by showcasing Black LGBTQ+ people in pure bliss, dancing, showing off their Batekoo fashions, and reveling in one of the few places they are celebrated for existing as they are. The photos always make a point to specifically center the least normative

Black bodies (by white heteropatriarchal standards) at the event, emphasizing the event’s intent of rejecting the norms of society and working towards a new type of community. These photos were essential in growing the popularity of Batekoo, as both many Black LGBTQ+ people and people from outside of the community saw how exciting and radical the project of Batekoo was through these photos on social media. The photos from the July 29th edition of Batekoo were no different, as the majority of the pictures centered Black femmes, fat Black people, Black queer intimacies, and close-ups of Black body parts of all body types dancing joyfully. After posting these photos, two images from the Facebook photo album went viral. Poe 79

Figure 4 - Batekoo São Paulo on July 29, 2019

Figure 5 - Batekoo São Paulo on July 29, 2019 Poe 80

These two images prominently feature the butts of Black people: Figure 5 of a fat Black woman and Figure 4 of a Black femme wearing see-through underwear. Both images are clearly in- motion pictures that feature the bodies of people dancing and leaning into the corporeal freedom that Batekoo provides Black LGBTQ+ people. However, hateful and violent comments poured in on the photos criticizing the bodies perceived as non-normative, and therefore inferior, by the largely white commenters. The photo of the Black femme with see through underwear received the lion share of the hate, with more than a thousand hate comments. Commentors made jokes about these Black people’s bodies and joked about the prospect of the death of the people featured in the photos. Some commenters even made hateful jokes about needing to burn all the attendees of the party to clean the space from their smell, alluding to the real death and incineration of the body of Matheusa Passareilli in April of 2018 in a hate crime by a drug trafficking faction in Rio.123

Some of the Black commentators who came to the defense of Batekoo and the people in the photograph pointed to how most of the hate commenters on the two photos were white gay men and how their hateful reaction showed their necessary expulsion from the Batekoo space.

One commenter wrote,

These white gays come to Batekoo thinking that they’re oppressed for being gay. Then the people who frequent the space question [white gay peoples’] presence there, being that it is a party for Black people to have their space and dance and such. Then these white gays say that it’s reverse racism (over it) and that they're ignored (amen). Then they take a picture of a fat Black woman doing what everyone does at Batekoo (dancing and shaking ass): what do the white gays decide to do? ATTACK HER! Go find your own ghetto you sour white gays and stop being misogynistic, racist, and fatphobic.124

123 Nascimento, Victor, and Aline Ramos. “As Fotos Desta Festa Expuseram o Preconceito Que Ainda Existe Dentro Da Comunidade LGBTQ.” BuzzFeed BRASIL. Accessed February 15, 2021. https://buzzfeed.com.br/post/as-fotos-desta-festa-expuseram-o-preconceito-que-ainda-existe-dentro-da-comunidade- lgbtq. 124 Ibid, Translation by author Poe 81

The commenter clearly outlines the contempt that many white gay men entering the space of

Batekoo feel at not being centered and openly sought after within the space, as they are accustomed to in other gay social spaces. Black queer scholar Dwight McBride in his article “It’s a White Man’s World” speaks to how white gay men impose power that centers them in the marketplace of desire and to controls how and when Black people are desired. He writes,

Black men pander to white fantasies about what white men want them to be … white men freely acknowledge without being condemned as hubristic that they are “very good-looking” (“VGL”) since it is only an admission of the obvious logic of the marketplace of desire at work… indeed, it would seem that whiteness is the all-around salient variable that increases one’s value in the gay marketplace of desire.125

McBride aptly explains the situation of white gay men whose bodies are expelled from the center in the imaginary of the space. Whereas white gay men are accustomed to the normalization of their bodies as more normative and desirable in other spaces, Batekoo rejects this idea in their space and celebrates, instead, the bodies that white gay men seek to devalue to uphold their space at the top of the hierarchy of the gay marketplace of desire. This draws out the white backlash against a space that is empowering for Black people, showing intricately the ways that white gay men work to uphold white supremacist heteropatriarchal power dynamics within the spaces they frequent, even if parts of these norms work to disempower and devalue their own bodies. In choosing to dismantle systems that work to give them some power or to uphold these oppressive systems in spaces like Batekoo that work to fight all oppression, these white gay men choose the latter.

Yet, despite the ways in which Batekoo has difficulty closing out the systems of domination that control the lives of Black LGBTQ+ outside of the Batekoo space, Batekoo still

125 Dwight Mcbride, Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch: Essays on Race And Sexuality 41 (NYU Press, 2005). Poe 82

works toward a Black LGBTQ+ community making that works to transform the experiences of

Black LGBTQ+ people within the Batekoo space. The leadership works to center Black

LGBTQ+ people who prior to Batekoo were without many physical spaces to find community with one another. The leadership works to grow talent and opportunities for Black LGBTQ+ creatives while also ensuring they are paid for their work. Finally, Black LGBTQ+ bodies, especially those deemed non-normative by society, are celebrated and uplifted in the Batekoo space, creating a space of corporeal freedom for their participants.

Conclusion

Through the lives and personal experiences of Black LGBTQ+ people and their work towards creating community with one another, Black LGBTQ+ activists outline a blueprint for instituting change and resisting domination. Continual processes of enforcing one’s self- determination and community autonomy against white supremacist heteropatriarchal cultures are ever prevalent in the lives of Black LGBTQ+ activists. Resistance ensures a constant presence of conflict between systems of power and those who work to reject their control to provide spaces for Black LGBTQ+ people to exist and live with joy. Black LGBTQ+ individual self-making processes in non-Black LGBTQ+ spaces work toward both the individual goals of living freer, but also the collective goals of making these non-Black LGBTQ+ activist spaces safer for future

Black LGBTQ+ entering the space. Therefore, both Black LGBTQ+ self-making and community making work to move activist spaces closer towards objectives that work to dismantle all systems of power and find moments of freedom for Black LGBTQ+ people.

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CHAPTER 2

The Journey Home: Black LGBTQ+ Navigation of Broader Movements for Social Justice

Minha luta não morre, vinga My battle doesn’t die, it avenges Para que eu possa quebrar o muro So that I can break the wall E ver seu negro sorriso And see your Black smile Teu olhar negro Your Black look Sentir o teu negro calor Feel your Black heat Provar o teu negro suor Taste your Black sweat Sentir que eu sou ti Feel that I am you E tu és mim. And you are me.

-- Adé Dúdú, 1981126

“What legacy is to be found in silence?”

-- Joseph Beam, 1986127

In 1986, during the height of the AIDS epidemic and the Regan administration’s refusal to acknowledge the devastation of the crisis,128 Joseph Beam published the first edited volume of writing from Black gay men in the United States: In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology. Beam, a

Philadelphia based Black gay and HIV positive activist-writer, spoke out about the need for spaces of belonging for Black gay men and the constant trauma of exclusion, rejection, and loneliness Black gay men face. In 1984, Beam addressed these exclusions in the Philadelphia

Gay News saying, “We ain’t family. Very clearly, gay male means: white, middle-class, youthful, nautilized, and probably butch; there is no room for Black gay men within the confines of this gay pentagon.”129 For Beam, white gay men’s erasure and rejection of Black gay men

126 “Negros Homossexuais: Pesquisa Realizada Pelo Grupo Adé Dúdú,” Grupo Adé Dúdú, 1981. Translation by author. 127 Beam, Joseph. In the life: A Black gay anthology. Alyson Books, 1986. 128 Cathy J Cohen, The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics (University of Chicago Press, 1999). 129 Joseph Beam, In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology (Alyson Publications, 1986). Poe 84

necessitated a space in writing to celebrate the contributions of Black gay men and to document the emotional struggles of rejection by their communities. These experiences of rejection for

Beam and the Black gay male contributors to the edited volume paralleled the impact of the

AIDS epidemic on their lives. Themes of loneliness and abandonment in a time of great need frequent Beam’s anthology. Through writing, he provides this first public forum to call attention to the struggle of Black gay men, with both Black spaces and gay men’s spaces. Beam worked on a follow-up anthology in the late 1980s, but he died of HIV-related complications in 1988.

Black gay poet and friend to Beam Essex Hemphill completed the anthology Brother to Brother:

New Writings by Black Gay Men, and it was published 1991.

“Home” was theorized by both Essex Hemphill and Joseph Beam as integral to the mental and physical health of Black gay men. For Beam and Hemphill, “home” as a concept went beyond the physical spaces for biological families. Home, for both men, meant community spaces where oppressed people can find those who can relate to their struggles. However, while these homes provide stability for Black gay men, many do not deliver full acceptance to them.

Essex Hemphill’s construction of home concerns the people and ideas that make up the communities that Black gay men come from or insert themselves into. Black gay men’s insertion into these Black or LGBT homeplaces is riddled with erasure and silencing. Hemphill writes,

When I speak of home, I mean not only the familial constellation from which I grew, but the entire Black community: the Black press, the Black church, the Black academicians, the Black literati, and the Black left. Where is my reflection? I am most often rendered invisible, perceived as a threat to the family, or am tolerated if I am silent and inconspicuous. I cannot go home as who I am and that hurts deeply.130

130 Hemphill, Brother to Brother. Poe 85

To prevent the loss of homeplaces, Black gay men sacrifice their full selves to fit within these homeplaces. They place the religions and cultural norms of their Black communities above the truth of their sexuality to exist within these spaces because, as Hemphill argues, to be separated from their homeplaces would mean a quicker death. In the 1980s and 1990s, HIV’s severe infiltration of Black gay communities combined with the ousting from Black homeplaces ensured a lonesome death for many Black gay men in the United States. Brother to Brother and

In the Life is filled with stories of Black gay men who faced the choice of suppressing, rejecting, or silencing their sexuality, partnerships, and love that came with it to return home. For those who searched for a new home within the LGBT community, they were not spared these conflicting pulls of silence required by Black gay men. Hemphill explains,

The contradictions of ‘home’ are amplified and become more complex when black gay men’s relationships with the white gay community are also examined. The post-Stonewall white gay community of the 1980s was not seriously concerned with the existence of black gay men except as sexual objects.131

While entering the gay community can challenge the qualms of loneliness and silence around sexuality, the predominant white makeup of the space and unchallenged racism demand other types of silences from Black gay men. Beam, speaking on Black gay men’s interactions with gay groups, insists, “We ain’t family. Very clearly, gay male means: white, middle-class, youthful, nautilized, and probably butch; there is no room for Black gay men within the confines of this gay pentagon.”132 Neither gay communities nor Black homeplaces deliver a place of open acceptance for Black gay men. The conditional acceptance of Black gay men in both spaces disallows full existence within either space. While this avoids physical loneliness, it requires another type of mental loneliness and negation of self.

131 Hemphill, Brother to Brother. 132 Beam, In the Life. Poe 86

Hemphill and Beam offer that silence is not the only way home for Black gay men.

Instead of an interaction with Black communities and LGBT spaces that requires silence,

Hemphill and Beam argue that an openness of self in the return home serves to transform these spaces and radicalize the love within them. Hemphill acknowledges the possibility of communities to think beyond issues that affect only themselves when he reflects on white gay and lesbians. He writes,

Coming out of the closet to confront sexual oppression has not necessarily given white males the motivation or insight to transcend their racist conditioning. This failure (or reluctance) is costing the gay and lesbian community the opportunity to become a powerful force for creating real social changes that reach beyond issues of sexuality. It has fostered much of the distrust that permeates relations between black and white communities. And finally, it erodes the possibility of forming meaningful, powerful coalitions.133

While gay and lesbian spaces provide important critiques to the heteropatriarchal structures in society, Hemphill understands that if gay and lesbian community spaces also challenged their relationship to power as it pertains to race and other systems, the transformative effect they could have on society would be much greater. Therefore, the essential role of Black LGBT people in these community spaces can provide a challenge to their white counterparts to be self-critical of their relationship to power. The potential of Black LGBT voices, unsilenced and unfragmented, within these LGBT homeplaces help to bring forth those “real social changes” Hemphill addresses. Beam suggests that the return home for Black gay men should be rooted in a radical love that asks Black people to accept the difficulties of their community as their own, even if they don’t personally face those issues. Beam writes,

Black men loving Black men is an autonomous agenda for the eighties, which is not rooted in any particular sexual, political, or class affiliation, but in our mutual survival...Black men loving Black men is a call to action, an acknowledgment of responsibility. We take care of our own kind when the night grows cold and

133 Hemphill, Brother to Brother. Poe 87

silent. These days the nights are cold-blooded and the silence echoes with complicity.134

The love that Beam speaks of is not necessarily romantic in nature but rooted in a familial and communal connection. He suggests that the return home for Black gay men should reject the normalization of one Black subject and embrace and fight for a plurality of Black subjectivities.

This sort of love requires an acknowledgement of a shared destiny and acceptance of the fight of your sibling as your own. Hemphill and Beam chart a path home to Black and LGBT homespaces that reject the fracturing of self to provide for a love that fights for the freedoms of all Black people and all LGBT people. While Hemphill never suggests that the journey to this kind of open interaction is easy, he acknowledges the importance of this journey home for Black gay men, saying “There is no place else to go that will be worth so much effort and love.”135

Inspired by Beam and Hemphill’s provocation, this chapter takes up the question of returning or remaining home for Black LGBT activists, the sacrifices it takes to expand and change these community spaces, and reasons Black LGBT activists remain committed to remaining or returning to these homespaces. What are the radical possibilities of Black LGBTQ people staying in Black or LGBT community spaces, and what are the limits of staying? I analyze the involvement of Black LGBT activists in social movement and community spaces dedicated to the LGBT community or the Black community in Rio de Janeiro, Salvador da

Bahia, Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Through analysis of interviews, organizational manifestos and statements, and other archival materials, I outline the ways Black

LGBT activists stake their claim and commitments to Black or LGBT focused movements. I centralize their experiences of racial and/or sexual oppression to build upon the power analysis

134 Beam, In the Life. 135 Hemphill, Brother to Brother. Poe 88

present in the movement space. For Black LGBT activists who choose one movement over another, Black or LGBT, I analyze what drives Black LGBT activists from one movement and keeps them tethered to another. I analyze the sacrifices and silences that still arise for many of them in attempts to authentically remain in these community spaces. Finally, I ask how Black

LGBT leadership influences Black LGBT activists’ struggle of returning and transforming home.

I begin analyzing the stories of Wilson Mandela and Ermeval da Hora, the founders of one of the first Black gay groups in Brazil, Adé-Dúdú, and their creation of this group in the Movimento

Negro Unificado in Salvador (Unified Black Movement) in 1979. Next, I examine the story of

Cláudio Nascimento and his departure from the Movimento Negro Unificado in the 1980s and entrance and lifelong involvement in LGBT movement groups in Rio de Janeiro from Grupo

Arco-Iris (Rainbow Group) to Rio Sem Homofobia (Rio Without Homophobia). Analyzing the herstory and manifesto of the Black Lives Matter Network, founded in Oakland, California, in conjunction with the stories of Black queer feminist founders Patrisse Cullors and Alicia Garza, I expand on what Black queer leadership does to the power analysis and movement goals of racial justice movements. I then analyze the silences that Black LGBT women face around sexuality using the story of Neusa das Dores Pereira and her involvement in Black women’s movements in

Rio de Janeiro. The chapter finally shifts to Philadelphia, utilizing the stories of founders Abdul

Aliy-Muhammad and Shani Akilah of the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative to understand how a Black queer led racial justice movement deals reject the silences of gender and sexuality in the broader Black community.

Adé-Dúdú: A Black Gay Movement Poe 89

After almost ten years of political repression under threat of imprisonment, torture, or death, Brazil’s military dictatorship under the rule of Ernesto Geisel began a slow process of redemocratization in 1974 which became known as the Abertura (Opening) period. The years before had violently disbanded democratic political activity and gave the military sweeping power to silence any types of community activism as a threat to the military regime.136 Although political activity in no way stopped during this period of the dictatorship,137 the Abertura period allowed activism driven underground to resurge with less fear of political repression.

Community organizing of Black movements, LGBTQ movements, and feminist movements began to rise near the end of the decade.138 In 1978, The Movimento Negro Unificado Contra

Discriminação Racial (Unified Black Movement Against Racial Discrimination) held its first action at the Viaduto do Chá in São Paulo protesting the military police torture and assassination of Robson Silveira da Luz at the farmers market where he worked and the barring of four Black youth from the Tietê Yacht Club.139Throughout the year, chapters of MNUDCR sprouted up throughout states in Brazil as organizers prepared to protest and call attention to the 90th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, and the failed promises of the Brazilian government to its

Black populations.

In Salvador da Bahia, known by many as the center of Black life and culture in Brazil, the Movimento Negro Unificado Contra Discriminação Racial gave rise to the first known Black

136 Thomas E Skidmore, The Politics of Military Rule In Brazil, 1964-1985. Oxford University Press, USA, 1990. 137 James N. Green, We Cannot Remain Silent: Opposition to The Brazilian Military Dictatorship in The United States. Duke University Press, 2010; Langland, Victoria. Speaking of Flowers: Student Movements and The Making and Remembering Of 1968 In Military Brazil. Duke University Press, 2013; Serbin, Kenneth. Secret Dialogues. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000. 138 Paulina L. Alberto, Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century Brazil. UNC Press Books, 2011.; Trevisan, João Silvéro. Perverts In Paradise. Alyson Publications, 1986.; Alvarez, Sonia E. Engendering Democracy In Brazil: Women's Movements In Transition Politics. Princeton University Press, 1990. 139 Lelia Gonzalez, "The Unified Black Movement: A New Stage In Black Political Mobilization." Race, Class And Power In Brazil (1985): 120. Poe 90

gay group in Brazil and throughout Latin America, Adé Dúdú, in 1979. In 2018, I had the chance to sit down with two original founding members of Adé Dúdú, Wilson Mandela140 and Ermeval da Hora to talk about the history of Adé Dúdú and how, in these early years of Black activism, they argued for the acknowledgement of Black gay men within the Movimento Negro Unificado.

While both Mandela and Hora insisted that the journey of creating Adé Dúdú through the

Movimento Negro Unificado was a complicated and tumultuous battle, both emphasized the importance in having a frank conversation about Black homosexuality within the larger Black movement. As Wilson Mandela continually emphasized to me before and during our interview,

Adé Dúdú was a Black gay movement, as opposed to a gay Black movement, emphasizing the hierarchical importance of Blackness for the founding members of this Bahian organization.

When The Movimento Negro Unificado began it arose out of a need to speak up about histories and current realities of racism and anti-blackness within Brazil, conversations that had been silenced through the military dictatorship and years of the nation upholding a myth of racial democracy. However, despite providing a space to speak up about issues concerning Black communities in Brazil, the group had difficulty addressing intersectional analyses of Black experiences. Speaking on being a Black gay man in the Black movement during the Abertura period, Ermeval da Hora begins by saying,

It was in the Black movement that I found my belonging as a Black person. And, after some time, as a Black homosexual, because in the beginning we Black homosexuals in the Black movement faced difficulties in having our fellow activists converse as a whole the topic of Black homoseuxals. I heard it said that there were no Black homosexuals because homosexuality was a sickness of capitalism, and that was devastating to us.141

140 While Wilson Mandela’s Legal Name Is Wilson Bispo Dos Santos, His Preferred Name Given To Him Throughout Years Of Activism In Homage To Nelson Mandela Is Wilson Mandela. 141 Personal Interview with Ermeval da Hora. October 7, 2019. Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 91

Hora’s sense of belonging within the MNU is reflected by Mandela and scores of other activists within the early years of the organization.142 His assertion highlights how for activists participating in this budding Black movement, the MNU represented a homeplace where they could create a sense of belonging for one another through Black community activist work.

However, just as Joseph Beam and Essex Hemphill gesture to in their invocation of a Black homeplace, these homeplaces were still spaces of conflict for topics of non-normative Black genders and sexualities. The “sickness of capitalism” statement Hora hears within the MNU shows that despite serving as a home for these Black gay activists, this homespace embraced forms of homophobia similar to what activists faced in the outside world. While this Black activist space served to welcome and fight for Blackness, it struggled with the intersection of

Blackness and homosexuality.

Rather than abandon the MNU, Black gay men decided to stay within the group and challenge their fellow Black activists on questions of sexuality, giving rise to Adé Dúdú in

Salvador, a sub-group of the MNU. According to Mandela, conversations led by the outspoken organizer and dancer Edson Santos Tosta, affectionately referred to by his community as

Passarinho,143 started as early as August 1979, shortly after the founding of the MNU. Mandela describes hearing and participating in these conversations at his first meeting at the Salvador

MNU chapter:

Shortly after I sat down and introduced myself I heard a woman organizer in the group speaking out against the machismo in the chapter, in the larger Black movement, and amongst Black people in general. After she spoke, [Passarinho] continued by speaking out, speaking against [homophobia], complaining about the lack of space [for homosexual men], and rebuking the discrimination that homosexuals faced and still face in the Black community and amongst non-black homosexuals. He spoke of the necessity of the Black movement to take up this

142 David Covin, The Unified Black Movement in Brazil, 1978-2002. McFarland, 2015. 143 Translation: Little bird Poe 92

subject and insert the issues of Black homosexuals in the goals of the Movimento Negro Unificado.144

The initial conversation that sparked the creation of a group for Black gay men within the MNU is linked with a conversation about fighting sexism and the oppression of women in MNU spaces. Mandela’s anecdote shows that the lack of integration of an intersectional analysis by the

MNU’s leadership in Salvador did not only affect Black gay men, but scores of Black people whose lived experiences under oppression necessitated a power analysis that went beyond simply race and racial discrimination. The Black woman activist in Mandela’s story that brings light to the struggles of Black women gives space for Passarinho to speak to the struggles of Black gay men in MNU. As Mandela points out, both activists critique the movement to ensure that the group lives up to its promise to all Black communities in Salvador and Brazil. Passarinho’s statement ended with a call to revisit the goals of the organization and to include the concerns of

Black gay men.

Following Passarinho’s passionate plea to re-visit the agenda of the MNU, in late 1979 and 1980, Black gay men continued their organizing as the “Homosexuals of the MNU,” a sub- group of the MNU of Bahia. While the group faced many conflicts within the MNU and objections from other members who insisted that homosexuality was a white problem or that they were attempting to turn the Black movement into the homosexual movement,145 the Black gay activists held fast and used these conflicts as moments of education for non-homosexual members of the MNU. Mandela explains,

For some people it was a question of their framing and the fear that [Black gays] would cause damage. It wasn’t what we would name today as homophobia. And other people had a large dose of homophobia...and used these moments to

144 Personal interview with Wilson Bispo dos Santos. August 7, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. 145 Ibid. Poe 93

antagonize us. It’s important to note that we always responded by taking the high road.146

As opposed to taking the bait of the hateful rhetoric about homosexuals by some members of the

Black movement, Mandela insisted that the Black gay members of the sub-group continually pushed back to educate fellow activsts or demand respect. Mandela recounted how Passarinho served as an example for other Black gay men in the MNU by always challenging the arguments rooted in homophobia by others and insisting that Blackness is not restricted to a few archetypes.

Passarinho’s insistence on standing up for himself and other Black gay men led to moments of emotional and physical violence. Mandela remembered various times seeing Passarinho arrive to

MNU meetings with bruises and scars from defending himself from physical homophobic attacks from passersby.

Passarinho’s openness about his sexuality and defense of Black homosexuals marked him as an easy target for homophobic hostilization in the MNU. However, Mandela’s more normatively masculine gender expression led to different experiences and expectations around what types of conversations he would bring up. Mandela explains,

In the MNU there was the expectation of some that I wouldn’t provoke these questions...In the minds of people...I didn’t have the appearence of a homosexual, so they tolerated me more and thought I wouldn’t provoke this. One person told me, ‘You all can’t be openly homosexual in the events with the larger public because you’re not just any activist.’ I was part of the leadership [of the MNU]. But I said no, I’m not going to repress myself for any reason. One day the MNU will understand this issue.147

The expectations of Mandela in comparison to other Black homosexuals in the MNU stemmed from what he believed to be his gender expression and educational class difference. Mandela insists that his masculine demeanor and his college education in economics led people to believe

146 Personal interview with Wilson Bispo dos Santos. August 7, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. 147 Ibid. Poe 94

that he could not be a homosexual. The image of a homosexual in their minds did not fit

Mandela, and therefore the expectation of him was that he would hold up the image of a heterosexual person that they had in their heads, especially when representing the MNU.

Mandela’s image allows him to step into leadership roles in the Black movement without being perceived as a leader who would cause problems with controversial questions regarding Black gay men as Passarinho did. However, just as Passarinho worked to challenge the idea of what a

Black activist could be by being openly gay, Mandela challenged people’s ideas of what a homosexal could be. Despite differences in experience and gender expression, both Mandela and

Passarinho openly fought to deconstruct gender and sexuality stereotypes within the Black movement.

Continual conflicts with the MNU over how the Homosexuals of the MNU sub-group could speak for or represent the group led the activists of the group to desire more autonomy over their decision making. After a little more than a year of organizing under the banner of the

Homosexuals of the MNU, in March of 1981 the group decided to become an autonomous group separate from the MNU while still remaining part of the larger Black movement. The group took the name Adé Dúdú - Grupo de Negros Homosexuais. The group chose the name due to

Salvador’s strong Afro-Catholic and Candomblé religious traditions that utilize cultures passed down through communities of enslaved Africans in Bahia from the coast of West Africa. At a performance of the Black bloco148 Ilê Aiyê that same month, Adé Dúdú decided to release their first pamphlet promoting the group. Adé Dúdú’s name, which meant Black homosexual in

Yoruba, intrigued attendants at the Black bloco’s performance. As Mandela recalls, many people asked in response to the group's allusion to Black homosexuals, “that exists among Black

148 A Carnaval performance group Poe 95

people?”149 Adé Dúdú’s decision to debut the group at an important Black cultural space such as

Ilê Aiyê and provoke these sorts of conversations returns to their goal of deconstructing what

Black is and what the goal of a Black community organization should be, bringing Black gay people into that spectrum.

While the contributions of Black women’s intersectional analysis in the MNU are essential in igniting the creation of a subgroup for Black homosexuals, Adé Dúdú chose to focus on Black homosexual men, instead of a coalition of Black homosexual men and women.

Mandela insisted that this lack of Black lesbian and bisexual women was not intentional on the part of organizers, but rather reflected the specific difficulties for Black women of the time. He says, “We weren’t able to attract [Black] women. There’s everything that makes it so that for women it was and still is more difficult. If for [Black gay men] it was difficult to come out, imagine for women, for Black women.”150 Adé Dúdú faced an uphill battle finding a group of

Black homosexual men capable of and willing to be openly associated with a group that put their sexuality on display, but eventually pulled together a small inaugural group of 12 in 1981. In a violently homophobic era of Brazilian history,151 these Black gay men risked emotional and physical violence to fight for full inclusion in the Black movement. The combined experiences of racial, gender, and sexual oppression for Black lesbian and bisexual women in Salvador who would be able and willing to also put themselves and their sexuality in the limelight fell to zero, speaking to the higher risk and levels of violence that Black homosexual women faced compared to men. Mandela’s assertion about the increased difficulty for Black women to come out and more so be associated with a group that centers Black homosexuals shows how who is able to

149 Personal interview with Wilson Bispo dos Santos. August, 7, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. 150 Ibid. 151 Macrae, Edward. A construção da igualdade-política e identidade homossexual no Brasil da “abertura”. EDUFBA, 2018. Poe 96

speak up is oftentimes limited by the oppression and societal violence one faces. Mandela, Hora,

Passarinho and the other 9 founding members of Adé Dúdú did not possess more courage than their Black homosexual women counterparts, but the different expectations and levels of violence they faced as Black homosexual men provided different conditions that facilitated their leadership in the creation of a group for Black homosexuals.

As Adé Dúdú sought to create a Black homosexual movement within the larger Black movement to address the gaps in the agenda created by the MNU related to sexuality, Mandela,

Hora, Passarinho and other members of the group also participated in and played founding roles in Grupo Gay da Bahia (Gay Group of Bahia). However, despite playing a role in the creation of the group, the members of Adé Dúdú left Grupo Gay da Bahia shortly after its creation due to conflicts regarding issues of race in the group. Grupo Gay da Bahia, founded in 1980 in

Salvador, is hailed as the longest continually running gay organization in Latin America.152 Both

Mandela and Hora spoke to their participation in the founding year of the organization but insisted their participation was fraught with conflict. Mandela explains,

We found out that a group wanted to create a group and we also wanted to, so we went. Inside Grupo Gay da Bahia we of course questioned racial issues, but [Adé Dúdú] was not part of Grupo Gay da Bahia. Some of us from the group that would soon after become Adé Dúdú did not go to Grupo Gay da Bahia. Only about five of us...Shortly after we left [the group]. We didn’t even stay a year.153

Just as the activists formalized Adé Dúdú’s fight against homophobia in Black communities and in the Movimento Negro Unificado, they similarly spoke out against racism or the lack of an anti- racist practice in GGB. However, both Mandela and Hora were adamant in their claim that while few future members of Adé Dúdú played a role in GGB, the group did not begin as nor later

152 De la Dehesa, Rafael. Queering the public sphere in Mexico and Brazil: Sexual rights movements in emerging democracies. Duke University Press, 2010. 153 Personal interview with Wilson Bispo dos Santos. August, 7, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 97

become part of Grupo Gay da Bahia because they ultimately decided to leave the group. The activists stressed the importance of Adé Dúdú in continuing its link with the MNU despite conflicts with homophobia. However, the organizers of what would become Adé Dúdú were less present with GGB, a gay movement organization that did not center questions of Blackness and racial discrimination. Hora says, “When we began to notice that GGB did not want to enter into this conversation or avoided the conversation about Black homosexuals, we decided to leave, we who were conscious as Black people and homosexuals.”154 Mandela builds on Hora’s statement saying,

We left because of the lack of willingness to discuss other issues. There was a lot of sexism against women and a lot of racism against Black people...We [Adé Dúdú] were always the warriors against racism, but it would have been a waste of time to stay in a space that wouldn’t lead to anything. This conversation wouldn’t have brought any changes there...We left, not because of fear, but because we need to take advantage of things. You can’t waste your energy. So we left and were able to form Adé Dúdú and develop a bigger and much better project for us.155

While Mandela and Hora begin their activism in the Black movement, working on expanding the movement's goals to include Black people like them, they both attempt that same work within

Salvador’s gay movement. The activists from Adé Dúdú are drawn to GGB in its budding moment because it addresses their identities as gay men. However, their quick abandonment of

GGB shows an unwillingness of the GGB to take up a racial liberation lens in their fight against homophobia, despite the group’s creation in the Brazilians city with one of the largest Black population percentages. These Black gay men’s abrupt and final exit from GGB due to racism shows that this gay movement did not serve as much as a homeplace for these activists as the

MNU did. Mandela and Hora and the others from Adé Dúdú who participated in GGB still saw

154 Personal Interview with Ermeval da Hora. October 7, 2019. Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. Translation by author. 155 Personal interview with Wilson Bispo dos Santos. August, 7, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 98

themselves as Black gay men from the Black movement, as opposed to Black gay men from the gay movement and considered their viewpoint as much different than those Black gay men who chose to stay in GGB.

As Hora hints at in his suggestion that everyone who was “conscious” as both Black and homosexual left after seeing GGB’s handling of racial issues in the group, many of the activists from Adé Dúdú saw those who stayed in GGB as not having a Black racial consciousness. Hora and Madela’s critique of the Black gay men who stayed in GGB is that rather than fighting these moments of racism in Grupo Gay da Bahia, these men stayed silent or supported these moments of racism. Both activists recall moments of the Black gay men who stayed in GGB laughing and participating in racist jokes at the expense of Black people. The invocation of a difference in consciousness by Hora to explain why some Black gay men left and others did not show the connection between consciousness and priorities for these activists. Hora and Mandela continually insisted that the weight and priority of racial discrimination for them came before homophobic discrimination. Despite their differing priorities, Hora insisted that he continually worked with these Black gay activists who prioritized homophobia and gay community over their Blackness. Speaking of these Black gay activists, he says,

I’m not going to stop being in touch with these [Black] people. I’m going to get close...to try to pass consciousness to these people who don’t yet have this political consciousness that we need to have to build more energy for our movement and minimize the white racist lgbt-phobic violence in our country.156

Regardless of other Black gay men's political consciousness in GGB, Hora chose solidarity with them to disrupt the power systems that hold them oppressed. While the Adé Dúdú activists critiqued these Black gay men in GGB’s lack of action around racism in the group, they

156 Personal Interview with Ermeval da Hora. October 7, 2019. Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 99

continued to work with and engage them to work toward the larger goal of freedom for Black gay communities.

As Adé Dúdú worked to organize Black gay communities inside of both the Black movement and the gay movement, the group decided to produce a study looking at the struggles of Black homosexuals and their interactions with groups within the Black movement and the gay movement to highlight the importance of declaring an autonomous group for Black gay men. In the opening of their study, Adé Dúdú states,

Our first big task, which we expect will continue for much time, would be to explain, to make it clear to people why a group for black homosexuals, when there are already various Black groups and various homosexual groups. Moreover our hypothesis turned out to be right: many people questioned the autonomy of the group. “Why not be part of another group?”157

The group’s continual experience with the silencing of issues related to their intersectional experiences with oppression in both the Movimento Negro Unificado and Grupo Gay da Bahia evidenced the need for the organizers of Adé Dúdú to seperate into their own autonomous group.

However, the lack of visibility of Black homosexuals and the discrimination they faced within social movements and in the larger Brazilian society led Black and homosexual people to question the necessity of an autonomous group, given the existence of Black and gay movement groups. In 1981 Adé Dúdú launched and self-published their own study about the experiences of

Black gay men. In the study they showed that even within these community spaces that are theoretically places of belonging for them, their own existence is questioned or met with hostility. Their study argues,

We think that the fight of Black people, homosexuals, women, and other stigmatized sectors are transient (until when?), being that if we are fighting for liberation it is because we believe that liberation will come. And the fight for Black homosexuals is also a transient fight, especially inside liberation

157 “Negros Homossexuais: Pesquisa Realizada Pelo Grupo Adé Dúdú.” Grupo Adé Dúdú, 1981. Translation by author. Poe 100

movements. As we see it, the end of oppression inside of liberation movements should not wait for the end of racism, machismo, sexual prejudice, and economic exploitation. The self-liberation of the oppressed should be a quick task, immediate, through questioning and systemic reflection. From there we insist in the necessity of periodic discussions broaching the specificity of each oppressed sector, which will help us obtain general comprehension of what is oppression and the necessity of first eliminating it amongst ourselves.158

This declaration from the organizers of Adé Dúdú serves as a bold declaration of the necessity of a group autonomous from the MNU and without ties to the GGB, but it also serves as a call to all social movement groups to examine the ways in which they uphold and reproduce the systemic oppression they fight against. Instead of using their study to denounce the discrimination they experienced within the Black movement and the gay movement, they offer it as a template to better their struggles and expand the movements’ reach. Adé Dúdú argues that as movements struggle for a freer world for oppressed groups, they are obliged to do auto-reflexive work to not reproduce oppression. Adé Dúdú’s work of creating space for Black homosexuals within the

MNU and in the GGB before and during the creation of their autonomous group is continually invested in the infusion of an intersectional lens that deconstructs all the oppressions that affect the people in the space. For, as Hora aptly explains,

Every reaction we had [to discrimination] was a moment of political consciousness building of our Black sisters and brothers. Because first we suffer racial discrimination, and then after in the Black movement we suffer homophobic discrimination. Two conflicts.159

Cláudio Nascimento: Gay Black Leadership in the LGBTQ+ Movement

Cláudio Nascimento, a seasoned Black gay activist from Rio de Janeiro, started as a student movement and leftist activist in the late 1980s. As a young high school student in the

158 “Negros Homossexuais: Pesquisa Realizada Pelo Grupo Adé Dúdú.” Translation by author. 159 Personal Interview with Ermeval da Hora. October 7, 2019. Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 101

working class municipality of Nova Iguaçu in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Nascimento witnessed

Brazil pass through the transition from a non-democratic military rule to a democratic republic with a new constitution in 1988-1989.160 The student movement played an integral part to the dictatorship’s eventual demise as masses of young people rejected the dictatorship and called forth a new political reality.161 When Nascimento turned sixteen in 1987, he found his way to the

Movimento Negro Unificado in Rio and eagerly got involved. As a young student leftist activist from a peripheral region of Rio de Janeiro, Nascimento understood the barriers of race and class facing his community and sought to organize with other Black people to deconstruct these barriers. Years later, after coming out, he would become very involved with the LGBT movement in Rio de Janeiro, rising as a leader. While conflicts regarding his sexuality made his time in the MNU short, Nascimento would bounce between the Black movement and the LGBT movement throughout his life. He worked to fight for other Black LGBT people throughout the world. However, Nascimento’s leadership within the realm of the LGBT movement would come to show how his intersectional experiences and analyses grew the work of the LGBT movement beyond the focus of sexuality.

When Nascimento first became involved with the Movimento Negro Unificado at sixteen-years-old in 1987, he was not aware of his own LGBT identity. When he became self- aware of his gay identity and came out two years later, he quickly looked for ways to get involved. Taking his experience from the student movement, Nascimento got involved with the organization Associação de Gays e Amigos de Nova Iguaçu (Association of Gays and Friends of

Nova Iguaçu). At the time, Nova Iguaçu dealt with an immense amount of violence towards gay

160 Green, James N. We cannot remain silent: opposition to the Brazilian military dictatorship in the United States. Duke University Press, 2010. 161 Langland, Victoria. Speaking of Flowers: Student Movements and the Making and Remembering of 1968 in Military Brazil. 1 ed., Durham: Duke University Press, 2013. Poe 102

men and travestis as groups of serial killers targeted the population.162 In a personal interview with Nascimento, he pointed out that amongst these brutal killings, the large majority of those who were killed were Black travestis and gay men. These deaths, Nascimento recounts, were done in the most violent way possible. “If one stab wound in the chest would have killed the person, the person was stabbed 20, 25 times.”163 The urgency of the moment for gays and travestis in Nova Iguaçu brought Nascimento to the LGBT movement with the Associação de

Gays e Amigos de Nova Iguaçu at eighteen-years-old.

While organizing with the Associação, Nascimento still continued organizing with the

Movimento Negro Unificado. With the new understanding of his own sexuality, and his understanding of how Black LGBT people were being violently affected by murders in Nova

Iguaçu, Nascimento pushed the MNU to organize conversations about Blackness and sexuality.

Nascimento recounts,

Around this moment I went back and forth between the Black movement and the LGBT movement and I pushed for some conversations about this multifaceted or correlated identity of Blackness and homosexuality. This was very difficult and in the end at the last meeting I attended I left the MNU group because it wasn’t possible to have space to discuss homosexuality and Blackness.164

Nascimento understood the necessity of such a conversation between the Black movement and the LGBT movement as Black LGBT people bore the brunt of homophobic and transphobic violence, but he faced similar difficulties that Adé Dúdú confronted pushing forth these conversations in Salvador ten years earlier. People in the Black movement resisted the idea that the conversation around homosexuality was necessary to be had or even related to the goals of the Black movement at the time. Nascimento explains,

162 Mott, Luiz, and Marcelo Cerqueira. "Matei Porque Odeio Gay." 2013. 163 Personal Interview with Cláudio Nascimento. August 8, 2016. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. 164 Ibid. Poe 103

Today, viewing this era from far away, I understand because the long process of repression and cultural oppression inflicted upon Black men and women and the images that are pushed of Black women and men, of the eroticized and hypersexualized body, that even Black men and women themselves begin to believe that this is their way to show themselves to the world and find pride in themselves…In the space of so much racism, all that was left was the image of this virile macho heterosexual man.165

Nascimento’s assertion echoes the arguments that Mandela, Beam and many before him had heard from Black people in their community: homosexuality is an issue imported from white people. Nascimento’s suggestion that those in the Black movement saw virile heterosexuality as their legacy reflects the white supremacist vision of an eroticized Blackness which continually works to provide pleasure.166 His argument also shows the ways sexual and gender complexities have been erased from histories of Black people.167 For Nascimento, the difficulty of making space for a conversation around sexuality in the MNU at such a violent time for LGBT people served as a catalyst for his departure from the Black movement and his motion towards the

LGBT movement.

After leaving the MNU, from 1989 to 1993 Nascimento served as leader within various

LGBT movements in Nova Iguaçu. Shortly getting involved with Associação de Gays e Amigos de Nova Iguaçu, Nascimento and a group of LGBT activists decided to found a new group for

LGBT people, Grupo 28 de Junho. The group’s name referenced the date of the Stonewall

Rebellions in New York City and the international day of LGBT pride. Nascimento helped to found this group because he wanted to make more space for LGBT people from the periphery to become political organizers and leaders. However, as Nascimento’s profile as an LGBT leader in

Nova Iguaçu grew, so did threats of violence. Nascimento remembers having his house

165 Personal Interview with Cláudio Nascimento. August 8, 2016. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. 166 Christen A. Smith, Afro-Paradise: Blackness, Violence, And Performance in Brazil (University of Illinois Press, 2016). 167 Lamonte Aidoo, Slavery Unseen: Sex, Power, And Violence in Brazilian History (Duke University Press, 2018). Poe 104

vandalized with the words “you nasty faggot, if you keep talking you are going to wake up one day with your mouth full of ants”168 spray painted across the walls. Yet, despite the threat of violence, Nascimento continued working for justice for his community within the context of the periphery.

In 1993, Nascimento moved his work for the LGBT movement from the peripheral municipality of Nova Iguaçu and became a young Black gay leader in the LGBT movement of the city of Rio de Janeiro. In 1993, at the Primeiro Encontro Nacional de Travestis e

Transsexuais (First National Conference of Travestis and Transsexuals) in Rio de Janeiro,

Nascimento met Adauto Belarmino Alves, another Black gay activist169 from Grupo Atobá, an

LGBT organization serving the periphery of Rio de Janeiro in its eastern zone. Alves would become the first great love of Nacimento’s life. Shortly after, Nascimento moved to the city of

Rio de Janeiro to live with Alves and they decided to publicly celebrate their union to one another as a marriage.170 Gay marriage was illegal at the time and a deeply taboo topic within the

Methodist religious denomination of Alves belonging. As two Black gay activists from peripheral LGBT organizations in a serodiscordant relationship, where one partner is HIV positive and one partner is HIV negative, the two saw their union as not simply a personal act of love bout a political act as well, leading to their decision to publicly celebrate their wedding.

Nascimento says,

It is so important to provide visibility for your own community and for the general society...I as a Black gay man know how much prejudice is in my own gay community, in Brazil and outside of Brazil. It’s the idea that [Black gay men] only serve to be an object of sexual service but when it comes to affect and constructing a relationship, I’ve heard so many horrible things. Today, of course

168 Personal Interview With Cláudio Nascimento. August 8, 2016. Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. 169 Nascimento In His Interview Described Alves As Sarará, A Light Skinned Person With Black Racial Features, And Explained That For Him This Meant That He Was Black, Despite His Light Complexion. 170 Rolando França, “Homossexuais Fazem 'Casamento' No Rio - 30/4/1994,” Folha De São Paulo, Www1.Folha.Uol.Com.Br/Fsp/1994/4/30/Cotidiano/32.Html. Poe 105

we’ve advanced in the question of interracial relationships, but our community is very influenced by a standard that is extremely sanitized and extremely white. This ends up influencing us.171

Nascimento’s public act of Black gay love worked against the narrative of homosexuality as the antithesis of Blackness. At the same time, Nascimento and Alves’s public act of love pushes for a visibility within the LGBT community that combats the hypersexualized image of the Black body. The couple amplified the images of Black gay intimacy at a time when being a visible

LGBT person ran the greater risk of violence.

After moving to Rio de Janeiro in 1993, Nascimento and his partner Alves got involved in the creation of one of Rio’s longest lasting LGBT organizations, Arco-Iris. Nascimento took on an active role from the beginning of the organization, but continually combatted racial discrimination from other organizers within Arco-Iris whose prejudice served as fuel to advance his leadership efforts. While Nascimento fondly remembers the important work he did with the organization, he also remembers how he faced an uphill battle to be taken seriously amongst the group as a young Black gay activist from Nova Iguaçu amongst the largely white activists from

Rio. Nascimento recalled feeling as if he needed to work ten times harder and more efficiently to be given respect amongst the organizing group. Eventually, Nascimento earned respect as a leader within Arco-Iris. In 1995, he went on to be the lead organizer in the first LGBT Pride

Parade of Brazil in Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro.172 Despite the essential work Nascimento put in as a leader within Arco-Iris in Rio de Janeiro, the racism he faced from the larger LGBT movement and community continued to be a continual confrontation. Nascimento recounts one of his experiences dealing with Anti-Blackness:

171 Personal Interview with Cláudio Nascimento. August 8, 2016. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. 172 “Veja Como Foi a Primeira Parada LGBT Do Brasil, Feita Há 20 Anos.” Guia Gay São Paulo, 27 June 2015, www.guiagaysaopaulo.com.br/noticias//veja-como-foi-a-primeira-parada-lgbt-do-brasil-feita-ha-20-anos. Poe 106

One time I was at a gay club here in Rio de Janeiro (I was already a very well known leader) at a club called the Week, shortly after its opening. I was talking to some friends and behind me there was another group of friends conversing. I’m a person who can converse and hear everything that’s happening around me. This is because I’ve always been worried about violence and discrimination so I always pay lots of attention...because unfortunately something could happen at any moment. So then someone comes over to the group behind me and asks, “Who is this bicha?” One of my friends asked who and he said, “this bicha preta...That paraiba173 over there!”...“That’s our gay leader, he’s one of the most important leaders of our community.” One white man to another white man complimenting me! And then he said, “Jeez, isn’t there anybody else more attractive, like us, to represent our community?” Finally, not being able to take hearing this anymore, I turned around and said, “As long as there are futile people like you all, sorry, not you all, you, there will always be a need for a bicha preta and paraiba in leadership.174

Nascimento laughed heartily with me in completing his story and showing the deboche, or shade, that he threw in the face of the unknown white man who offended him. His laughter suggested that, despite the racial violence of the moment, he had learned throughout the years ways to carefully turn moments of racial antagonism into learning moments that don’t weigh heavily on

Nascimento. Similar to Passarinho’s reactions to gay antagonism within the MNU in Salvador,

Nascimento refuses to let racism be used to disrespect him and uses these moments to educate people about their prejudices. Nascimento’s choice to remain within the LGBT movement is drawn from the desire to fight for freedoms and liberties for the LGBT community and to deconstruct the racial violence that happens within the LGBT community.

While Nascimento left the Black movement in 1989, his involvement with LGBT social movements within Rio and continual advocacy on behalf of poor and Black LGBT people ensured that he had continued contact with the Black movement. In 1999, he helped plan for

173 Paraiba technically means a person from the state of Paraiba in Brazil, but is used in a derogatory context in Rio de Janeiro to mean somebody who racially appears to be from the Northeastern part of the country, alluding generally to Black racial features. The offensive term generally suggest laziness and backwardness, reflecting the prejudices towards people from the northeast in the southeast region of Brazil, which holds the country’s major cities and economic hubs. 174 Personal Interview with Cláudio Nascimento. August 8, 2016. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 107

Brazil’s contingent in the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. The committee elaborated upon Brazil’s official report for the conference, representing the broad interests of social movements in Brazil. The conference occurred at an opportunistic moment as president Fernando Hernique Cardoso’s government of the time had begun to show commitment to acknowledging and deconstructing racial inequalities that Brazilian governments had silently upheld and denied the existence of throughout generations.175 The National Human Rights program launched in 1996 proposed specific programs to target Black Brazilian populations to help eradicate racial inequality in the country.176 This opening within the government, to work towards racial equality, ensured that reports produced at the World Conference Against Racism from Brazil’s contingent would have legitimacy and power to enact change in governmental policy. Various leaders and scholars from within the Black movement, the Black women’s movement, Afro-Brazilian religious communities, and the indigenous movement, were represented on Brazil’s committee. Nascimento noted that he was invited as the LGBT community representative, as he was the only LGBT person in Brazil’s contingent of 550 people.

Nascimento used this moment to bring attention to the ways that LGBT and racism issues intersected, centering Black LGBT people in his discussions. He recounts his involvement in including intersectional conversations at the conference:

We debated with the government saying that if the conference was against racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia, and intolerence generally correlates, then there needs to include the perspectives of other discriminations that intersect with the issue of racism. And that was how I was able to generate a debate on the committee.177

175 Sales Augusto dos Santos, "Ações Afirmativas nos Governos FHC e Lula: Um Balanço." Revista TOMO (2014). 176 Mala Htun, "From "Racial Democracy" to Affirmative Action: Changing State Policy on Race in Brazil." Latin American Research Review 39, no. 1 (2004): 60-89. Accessed April 24, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/1555383. 177 Personal Interview with Cláudio Nascimento, August 8, 2016. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 108

Nascimento and his allies’ argument challenges a single-issue focus of the conference against racism to understand that the conversation around racism must also include a conversation around gender, sexuality, class, ability, amongst other intersecting issues. This argument fuels

Nascimento’s advocacy for Black LGBT perspectives within Brazil’s report and recommendations for the conference. But not all were welcoming to Nascimento bringing the

LGBT community’s issues to the table.

A part of the delegation didn’t want to get close to me because they were afraid that conversation about correlated discriminations would get in the way of the central goals that for example, the big fight of the moment was for the UN… to recognize trans-atlantic slavery as a crime against humanity. Therefore, Europe and various countries in the Americas would have to pay reparations in these countries and to Africa for that crime.178

Despite Nascimento being a Black person, advocating for Black LGBT people, his intersectional power analysis is seen by some as a distraction to the larger goal of Black activists in Brazil and abroad at the conference. While Nascimento acknowledged the importance of the battle for reparations and how it would affect all Black people, including Black LGBT people, Nascimento understood that multiple battles can be fought at once, and refused to lose the chance this moment presented to speak openly about LGBT issues. He commented that despite the pushback he initially received in discussing LGBT issues, the collective advocacy of Black women’s groups for an amplified understanding of racism’s intersections helped him to communicate his priorities for the planning committee. Cláudio felt the responsibility to represent the LGBT community because this was the first time the LGBT community had the chance to make public recommendations to the Brazilian government that explicitly advocated for programs for LGBT people.179 His advocacy eventually paid off, as the 2001 report presented by the official Brazilian

178 Personal Interview with Cláudio Nascimento, August 8, 2016. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. 179 Nascimento noted that the only exception to the government’s silence on LGBT issues before the Durban conference’s report was in addressing the AIDS public health crisis. Poe 109

contingent at the Worldwide Conference Against racism outlined an extremely progressive and intersectional document that amongst other issues, admitted openly to the discrimination and violence that LGBT people face within Brazil and made bold proposals to the Brazilian government for eradicating this discrimination. The Durban conference’s section “Homossexuais

Masculinos (Gays), Lésbicas, Travestis, Transexuais e Bissexuais” (Homosexual men (Gays),

Lesbians, Travestis, Transexuals, and Bisexuals) explicitly outlines the struggles of LGBT people in Brazil, the governmental actions that have been taken to protect the population, and proposes bold new initiatives for the government to take to continue to protect the community.180

Nascimento noted that many of these proposals in relation to the LGBT community from the

Durban conference Brazilian report have become law or common practice within the almost 20 years since the conference. Nascimento’s efforts proved essential to the gains of institutional rights for the LGBT community.

Nascimento, as a representative of the LGBT movement on the Durban planning committee, and as a Black gay man, worked not just to advocate for institutional rights of LGBT people, but for stronger interpersonal understanding of LGBT people within the Black community. He fondly remembers the relationship he developed with Benedita da Silva, former state representative, future governor, and current federal representative from Rio de Janeiro, during the two-year process of planning and executing Brazil’s contingent at the Durban conference. Silva, an evangelical Christian, played a strong role in the Black representatives from churches around the world. Nascimento retells his interaction with her around the subject,

I remember one time I went to a UN session in Geneva that would discuss the draft of the program for the Durban conference...It wasn’t even the final draft, and there was already a huge argument between the representatives from each

180 “Relatório Do Comitê Nacional I - II Conferência Mundial Das Nações Unidas Contra o Racismo, Discriminação Racial, Xenofobia e Intolerância Correlata.” DHnet. Accessed April 27, 2020. http://www.dhnet.org.br/direitos/sos/discrim/relatorio.htm. Poe 110

country. I remember that [Benedita] was part of the Worldwide Council of Christian Churches, and I remember one day she invited me to go to a meeting of the council in Geneva to explain the position of Black LGBT people to the Christians sitting there...It was one of the most emotional experiences of my life to be able to share in that moment.181

Nascimento reiterated various times that the process for the planning of the conference between all the countries in attendance, and even amongst just the Brazilian contingent, was full of ideological arguments about what should be the main goal and strategy. Different experiences, worldviews, and understanding of the functions of the axes of oppression made for tense arguments about priorities as a collective. At the behest of Silva, Nascimento once again utilized a moment of conflict as a space of education and growth for Black people. Silva, a Black woman leftist politician from a poor and peripheral neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro has utilized her own intersectional experiences throughout her career in the Workers Party (PT) to educate those unfamiliar to experiences like her own.182 Taking these lessons from educating others in her own career, she puts them to use to give space to Nascimento to speak to experiences different from her own but essential to understanding the larger Black community. For Nascimento, the space

Silva and other Black women provided for him to advocate for Black LGBT people and the

LGBT community was essential to getting his point across. His actions were felt throughout all worldwide contingents at the conference. Nascimento recounts, “I remember in that first moment, Black LGBT people from the USA, Canada, and Europe weren’t sufficiently mobilized to participate in this moment. The initial participation in this preparation moment was mostly from Latin America and South Africa.”183 Nascimento and his allies’ conversation with the worldwide community of Black activists served to open an important conversation about what it

181 Personal Interview with Cláudio Nascimento, August 8, 2016. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. 182 Benedita da Silva, Medea Benjamin, and Maisa Mendonça. Benedita da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian Woman's Story of Politics and Love (Food First Books, 1997). 183 Personal Interview with Cláudio Nascimento. August 8, 2016. Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 111

means to be a Black LGBT person throughout the world, in a time where arguments of homosexuality being a white or European practice were still commonplace.184

The World Conference Against Racism centralized Brazilian social justice movements, including the LGBT movement. Nascimemento notes that the bold proposals from the Brazilian contingent’s report pressured the Brazilian government to acknowledge discrimination and work towards equity like never before. With the entrance of the leftist Workers Party (PT) government under new president Luiz Inácio da Silva in 2003 oppositional social movements found new traction and even more governmental support. With the advocacy of Nascimento, using the findings of the report from the World Conference Against Racism, the federal government greenlit the creation of the Brasil Sem Homofobia (Brazil Without Homophobia) Program in

2004.185 The program expanded projects for combating homophobia throughout the country and supported Non-Governmental Organizations empowering LGBT communities. In 2007, through pressure on state governments mounted by Nascimento, Grupo Arco-Iris, and various LGBT organizations in Rio de Janeiro, the state government of Rio expanded on the federal program with its own program Rio Sem Homofobia, with Cláudio Nascimento as the program’s superintendent. For Nascimento, the existence of Brasil Sem Homofobia and Rio Sem

Homofobia are the result of the Durban World Conference Against Racism and the willingness of anti-racist movement actors to listen and advocate for the rights of LGBT people as part of their push against racism. Nascimento’s Black LGBT voice at the conference ensured that the

LGBT community could have a voice in future governmental human rights programs.

184 Molefi Asante, The Afrocentric Idea. Temple University Press, 1989; Hemphill, Essex, Ed. Brother to Brother: New Writings By Black Gay Men. Redbone Press, 2007; Reid-Pharr, Robert F. Black Gay Man: Essays. Vol. 6. NYU Press, 2001; Welsing, Frances Cress. The Isis (Yssis) Papers. Third World Press, 1991. 185 Alexandre Nabor M. França, “[Dissertação] Movimentos Sociais E O Programa Rio Sem Homofobia: Uma Trajetória De Luta Por Políticas Públicas E O Reconhecimento Da Cidadania LGBT No Rio De Janeiro.” Dissertação De Mestrado, 2018. Poe 112

Shortly before my second interview with Nascimento in 2019, Nascimento left Rio Sem

Homofobia and returned to Grupo Arco-Iris as a coordinator. During the week of the

International Day of Black Caribbean and Latin American Women, which many organizations in

Brazil celebrated the entire month as Julho das Pretas (July of Black Women), Nascimento invited me to participate in a panel discussing racism, sexism, and transphobia within the LGBT movement. This was not my first time attending an event at Grupo Arco-Iris at Nascimento’s invite, but the first time I participated as a presenter. Nascimento, myself, Wilson Mandela, founder of Adé-Dúdú, Tracey Ellen Goulart, Black lesbian member of Grupo Arco-Iris’s archival project, and Leonardo Peçanha, the Black trans man founder of Black masculinity blog

Blogueiros Negros comprised the panel. The two times I had attended talks at Grupo Arco-Iris, I took note of the Black leadership within the organization like Nascimento and Marcelle Esteves, the vice-president of Arco-Iris and how the conversations they broached were from an intersectional lens. I took note of comments regarding members’ participation in the Black

Women’s March in Copacabana or the lack of conversations about race in the archives of the

LGBT movement. The Black leaders in the organization continually shifted the conversation to how other identities intersected with LGBT identities and highlighted voices from these communities. As I participated in this third event, I paid close attention to how participants and leadership staff at the organizations responded to the intersectional questions about racism, sexism, and transphobia in the LGBT movement.

By the end of the event, it became abundantly clear how important it was for Nascimento, as well as the other panelists, to be afforded the space to discuss their resistance to discrimination within the LGBT movement for the betterment of the space and how they emotionally dealt with double and triple marginalization. At one emotional moment during the event, Nascimento Poe 113

shared his own struggles with speaking about discrimination against gay and lesbian people while organizing with the MNU and his eventual departure from the latter movement due to his experiences. Mandela and the MNU’s current LGBT liaison spoke up after Nascimento’s statement, empathizing with his experiences, and inviting him to come back to the Black movement in whatever capacity he could, even if it entailed continuing events that speak to the intersecting issues Black LGBT activists deal with in social movements. The serendipitous meeting of Nascimento’s lifelong experiences struggling against racism in the LGBT movement and Mandela’s fight against LGBT antagonism in the Black movement showed the essentiality of fighting for Black LGBT communities’ inclusion on multiple fronts. The continued involvement in the LGBT movement by Nascimento and in the Black movement by Mandela ensured that both movements struggled with questions of intersectionality to better understand how to include Black LGBT populations.

Black Lives Matter - Black Queer Feminist Leadership in the Black Movement

In 2012, Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old Black boy, was shot and killed by George

Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida while walking home at night. Outrage rippled throughout the

United States at the news of Martin’s brutal killing by Zimmerman, and this outrage grew exponentially as Zimmerman was acquitted of charges in the murder in 2013 on the basis that he was “standing his ground.”186 It was one of many cases of injustices and anti-Black genocide that rippled through the media, social networks, and activist circles within a few short years. Names of Black people killed by police and white vigilantes before and after Martin’s assassination

(Oscar Grant, who was killed by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer in Oakland, California

186 Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2016). Poe 114

in 2009, Mike Brown, who was killed by a Ferguson police officer in 2014, Reinisha McBride, killed by a white man in Dearborn Heights, Michigan in 2013, and Sandra Bland, found hanged in a prison cell after being taken in for a minor traffic violation by white police officers in

Walker County, Texas in 2015) became rallying calls to protest the anti-Black violence Black people were subjected to across the United States. In this fervor of movement building, three

Black women based out of Oakland, California decide to rally around #BlackLivesMatter and form what would become the Black Lives Matter Network.187

The Black Lives Matter Network is a global network that describes itself as a “chapter- based, member-led organization whose mission is to build local power and to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.”188 The Black Lives Matter

Network sprouts up as movements against police violence and anti-Black genocide are resurging throughout the United States. While protesting against police and state-sanctioned anti-Black vigilante violence against Black people has a long history in the United States, from Ida B.

Wells’ journalistic crusade against the lynching of Black men in the South of the United States in the 1890s,189 to the Watts Rebellion against racialized police violence in Los Angeles in 1965,190 to the Black Panther Party’s armed self-defense struggle against racist police forces in Oakland,

California and throughout the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s,191 the Black Lives

187 Alicia Garza et al., "A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement." Are All the Women Still White (2014): 23-28. 188 “About,” Black Lives Matter, blacklivesmatter.com/about/. 189 Jacqueline Jones Royster, Southern horrors and other writings: The anti-lynching campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892-1900. Macmillan Higher Education, 2016; Wells, Ida B. Crusade for justice: The autobiography of Ida B. Wells. University of Chicago Press, 2020. 190 Gerald Horne, Fire this time: The Watts uprising and the 1960s. University of Virginia Press, 1995; McLaughlin, Malcolm. The long, hot summer of 1967: urban rebellion in America. Springer, 2014. 191 Robyn C. Spencer, The revolution has come: Black power, gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland. Duke University Press, 2016; Nelson, Alondra. Body and soul: The Black Panther Party and the fight against medical discrimination. U of Minnesota Press, 2011. Poe 115

Matter generation of activists mobilized in ways that spoke to their generation. The inauguration of President Barack Obama, the United States’ first Black president, with the simultaneously heightened visibility of anti-Black violence during his tenure as president, led to a generation of

Black activists deeply disillusioned with the promise of reform and change possible through slow and “strategic” change.192 The advent of social media allowed for movements to change the culture of leadership and boost the voices of many leaders instead of one charismatic leader.193

The “leader-full” movements of the Black Lives Matter generation allowed their leadership to be full of Black, queer, poor, and various other voices that generations prior had deemed too controversial for leadership.194 This shift in the culture of who is at the table deciding the fate and direction of the Black movement(s) opens the door for a redefining of the goals of Black movements that have historically centered the issues of straight cisgender Black men.195 The founders of Black Lives Matter, three Black feminists, two of which are queer, enter at this moment of transformation of Black activism in the United States. A close analysis of the stated goals and “herstory” of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as attention to what drives the politics of the two Black queer women leaders, Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors, show how

Black queer feminist leadership shapes the Black Lives Matter Network and shifts the Black activism of their generation.

In 2014, Alicia Garza released an official “herstory” of the founding of the Black Lives

Matter Network. Refusing the various accounts of the movement released by the media and community members who misaligned and misunderstood the investments and inspirations for the

192 Cathy J Cohen, Democracy remixed: Black youth and the future of American politics. Oxford University Press, 2010. 193 Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2016). 194Ibid. 195 Garza et al., "A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement,” 23-28. Poe 116

network, Garza took back the narrative about the founding of the network with Cullors and Opal

Tometi. In the document, Garza unabashedly centers her approach for Black liberation squarely in a Black queer feminist approach that urges the fight for all Black lives. Garza states,

Black Lives Matter is a unique contribution that goes beyond extrajudicial killings of Black people by police and vigilantes. It goes beyond the narrow nationalism that can be prevalent within some Black communities, which merely call on Black people to love Black, live Black and buy Black, keeping straight cis Black men in the front of the movement while our sisters, queer and trans and disabled folk take up roles in the background or not at all. Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, Black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum. It centers those that have been marginalized within Black liberation movements. It is a tactic to (re)build the Black liberation movement.

When we say Black Lives Matter, we are talking about the ways in which Black people are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity. It is an acknowledgement Black poverty and genocide is state violence. It is an acknowledgment that 1 million Black people are locked in cages in this country– one half of all people in prisons or jails–is an act of state violence. It is an acknowledgment that Black women continue to bear the burden of a relentless assault on our children and our families and that assault is an act of state violence. Black queer and trans folks bearing a unique burden in a hetero-patriarchal society that disposes of us like garbage and simultaneously fetishizes us and profits off of us is state violence; the fact that 500,000 Black people in the US are undocumented immigrants and relegated to the shadows is state violence; the fact that Black girls are used as negotiating chips during times of conflict and war is state violence; Black folks living with disabilities and different abilities bear the burden of state-sponsored Darwinian experiments that attempt to squeeze us into boxes of normality defined by White supremacy is state violence. And the fact is that the lives of Black people—not ALL people—exist within these conditions is a consequence of state violence.

When Black people get free, everybody gets free.196

Garza insists that Black Lives Matter’s intervention in the long trajectory of the Black Freedom

Struggle is the insistence to center all struggles Black people face, regardless of the legibility or respectability of the subject. Garza reiterates that the movement’s spark was the murder of

Trayvon Martin in 2012 but explains his murder as part of interlocking systems of power that

196 Garza et al., "A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement,” 23-28. Poe 117

oppress and kill various other Black subjects daily. While simultaneously capitalizing on the outrage of the acquittal of this young Black boy’s murder to mobilize, Garza also acknowledges the many other deaths of Black people from various intersecting identities and levels of legibility ignored by the media and society at large. Garza centers the struggle of Black Lives Matter on all of these deaths, rejecting a narrow approach to the movement.

Garza’s bold declaration of the Black Lives Matter movement’s focus on all Black people, including Black queer and trans people, sets the movement apart from previous nationwide movements for Black life and liberation. Nearly 20 years earlier in 1995, Black male leaders from across the United States mobilized and participated in the Million Man March in

Washington DC on October 16, 1995.197 Under the direction of Minister Louis Farrakhan from the Nation of Islam, a coalition of Black religious leaders, scholars, and political movement leaders from Black and Pan-Africanist movements proposed the event as a march to mobilize a million Black men, intending to be one of the biggest Black organized protests in Washington

DC since the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.198 The goals were to protest against the state and police violence Black men are subjected to, encourage unity amongst Black communities and other communities of color, and support Black men’s accountability for their actions “in personal conduct, in family relations and in obligations to the community and to the struggle for a just society and a better world.”199

While the Million Man March and the Black Lives Matter Movement call for accountability and reparations from the US government for racial violence, unity in the fight

197 Hanes Walton, "PUBLIC POLICY RESPONSES TO THE MILLION MAN MARCH." The Black Scholar 25, no. 4 (1995): 17-22. Accessed May 26, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/41069989. 198 Juan Williams, Eyes on the prize: America's civil rights years, 1954-1965. Penguin, 2013. 199 Maulana Karenga, "THE MILLION MAN MARCH/DAY OF ABSENCE MISSION STATEMENT." The Black Scholar 25, no. 4 (1995): 2-11. Accessed May 26, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/41069987. Poe 118

against white supremacy, and a transnational movement that works against white supremacy and imperialism internationally, the two differ in the Million Man March’s refusal to acknowledge the gender and sexual diversity of the Black community to understand and protest against all the forms of violence in which Black communities are subjected. Despite pushes from Black LGBT organizations such as the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum for the march to address questions of sexuality and gender, and specifically include Black gay men in their proposals, Black LGBT people were left out of the official program.200 Black gay scholar activist

Robert Reid-Pharr reflects on the absence of serious engagements of the issues facing Black women and Black LGBT people and the overarching focus on Black cisgender heterosexual masculinity: “This all-powerful masculinity was offered as the solution to, and compensation for, the stark curtailments of resources and opportunities that confront Black American men (and everyone else) in this country.”201 Whereas the Million Man March saw the future for the Black community in Black masculinity being restored to a leadership role, Black Lives Matter sought to build up Black women, queer, and trans leaders who have historically been pushed from visible leadership and to question the ways in which masculinity has contributed to the oppression that many Black people face.

Garza reflects on the damage of masculinity and the silencing of the contributions and leadership of Black women, queer and trans people.

Straight men, unintentionally or intentionally, have taken the work of queer Black women and erased our contributions. Perhaps if we were the charismatic Black men many are rallying around these days, it would have been a different story, but being Black queer women in this society (and apparently within these movements) tends to equal invisibility and non-relevancy.202

200 Robert F. Reid-Pharr, Black Gay Man: Essays (New York: New York University Press, 2001). 201 Ibid. 202 Alicia Garza et al., "A Herstory Of The #Blacklivesmatter Movement." Are All The Women Still White (2014): 23-28. Poe 119

Whereas the Million Man March relied on the same strategy of charismatic cisgender straight

Black male leadership that stretches back to the days of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X,

Black Lives Matter charts a path that rejects the idea that Black male leadership is needed to consolidate and mobilize Black movements. Garza’s herstory also acknowledges that the history of charismatic Black male leaders has relied on the erasure of less respectable and legible Black people’s contributions to the movement. Figures from the background of the US Black Freedom

Struggle, whose stories were buried and recovered in recent decades, represent the theft and erasure of the work of Black women and non-heteronormative subjects. Black gay activist

Bayard Rustin’s worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. on the planning of the Montgomery bus boycotts to the March on Washington. However, the insistence by those close to Dr. King that Rustin be kept in the background show the Black Freedom Struggle’s rejection of LGBT leaders at the forefront.203 Civil Rights icons Pauli Murray and Lorraine Hansberry both struggled in silence around questions of sexuality, and gender in Murray’s case, as they knew bringing these issues to the forefront would mean a certain ostracization from the movement.204

The leaders of Black Lives Matter acknowledge the histories of Black women being relegated to the sidelines and queer people choosing between their sexuality and their prominence in the movement. To tackle the invisibilization of Black women and queer work and leadership, Garza,

Tometi, and Cullors purposely chart leadership differently for this iteration of a national movement of Black people.

The bold Black queer feminist leadership of the founders of the Black Lives Matter

Network is shown throughout the stated goals and intent of the movement. In Black Lives

203Kevin Mumford, Not Straight, Not White: Black Gay Men from The March on Washington To the AIDS Crisis. UNC Press Books, 2016. 204 Perry, Imani. Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry. Beacon Press, 2018; Rosenberg, Rosalind. Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray. Oxford University Press, 2017. Poe 120

Matter’s “What We Believe” document, the network outlines the core ideology of the Black

Lives Matter Network. They state,

We are guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location.

We make space for transgender brothers and sisters to participate and lead.

We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.

We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered.

We practice empathy. We engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.

We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).205

The core beliefs of the Black Lives Matter Network show that the founders do not only work to change the face of who is in power, but they also change the central ideologies of the movement.

More than their identities as Black queer women, their ideologies, heavily influenced by their identities and social positions, as Black, queer, and feminist work to make the ideologies of the

Black Freedom Struggle comprehensive and inclusive of all Black people. This queering and

205 “What We Believe.” Black Lives Matter, blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/. Poe 121

feminist lens of their goes beyond identities that the founders themselves inhabit. Black abolitionist scholar-activist Angela Davis, in a conversation with the Black woman led organization Girltrek, insists that “feminism is not simply about gender, and certainly not simply about women, and certainly not simply about white women. But it is about understanding the connections between race and gender and sexuality and imperialism and capitalism.”206

Feminism then, as manifested by Black women, is about a connection of one’s social position to an analysis of power. Davis’s observations explain the Black feminist approach of the Black

Lives Matter movement leaders as one that analyzes how the intersection of varying systems of power leads to myriad forms of oppression that Black people face. Although the three founders don’t experience all of the ways that Black people suffer state violence, their Black queer feminist analysis destabalizes the understanding of racial violence as an experience to be viewed through the lens of cisgender heterosexual Black manhood. For Black Lives Matter, racial violence is about heteropatriachal violence, trans antagonism, ableism, exploitation of immigration status, and imperialism, and this encompasses the deaths of people like Trayvon

Martin and Mike Brown, but also the numerous Black women and Black queer and trans people met with violence and death daily. Therefore, the Black queer feminist approach of the leadership of the Black Lives Matter Movement amplifies the focus and goals of the Black

Freedom Struggle.

The Black queer feminist lens in the Black Lives Matter movement comes partially from the interior journey the movement’s founders took to understand the politics of their personal experiences. Cullors, speaking in an interview with the Huffington Post in 2018, insists that her

Black queer woman identity has been instrumental to her political understanding of the world.

206 “Angela Davis and Nikki Giovanni's LIVE Discussion with GirlTrek.” Youtube. GirlTrek, May 9, 2020. https://youtu.be/esPHDvx_aZc. Poe 122

Cullors credits Black queer and Black feminist authors as her guides along her activist journey, stating “I read everything and anything related to being queer. I found solace in reading authors like Audre Lorde and bell hooks, who would become my activist staples ― their words helped me grow up and taught me how to be bold and courageous.” Cullors’ personal journey to understand her own experience as a Black queer woman led her to Black queer feminist authors whose power analysis of the world bridged the gap between the struggles against white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and capitalism. Cullors’ search for these writings, for her own personal understanding of her experience as a Black queer woman, leads to the infusing of these ideas as central to the Black Lives Matter movement. For example, Black lesbian feminist writer

Audre Lorde dedicated much of her writing to the importance of understanding difference, and how social movements embrace difference and the different struggles a coalition of people face.

In a 1980 presentation at Amherst College, Lorde states,

Within Black communities where racism is a living reality, differences among us often seem dangerous and suspect. The need for unity is often misnamed as a need for homogeneity, and a Black feminist vision mistaken for betrayal of our common interests as a people...It is a disease striking the heart of Black nationhood, and silence will not make it disappear. 207

Lorde’s call for unity so that Black people embrace the heterogeneity of the community is reflected in the stated beliefs of the Black Lives Matter Network. The network’s constant attention to all Black lives and the varied ways that racial violence affects different communities of Black people, Black cisgender men, Black women, Black trans people,

Black queer people, Black disabled people, Black undocumented people, and many more categories that name the intersections of Blackness with varying systems of oppression, show the intentional use of difference as a way to expand the Black Freedom Struggle as

207 Audre Lorde, "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference." Women In Culture: An Intersectional Anthology For Gender and Women’s Studies (1980): 16-22. Poe 123

opposed to single out one common denominator. The insistence of claiming all of the issues that different Black communities face as problems for the entire community is a direct response to Lorde’s and many other Black feminist activists’ call for social movements to embrace heterogeneity, not simply to make all feel welcome but to ensure that freedom is fought for all in the community.

For Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors, the journey “home” to the Black movement as two Black queer women meant stepping into leadership and shaping the direction of one of their generation’s most important Black Freedom Struggles. Instead of working within the confines of a racial justice movement that spoke of the goals of racial justice as narrow and attempting to expand the focus of that movement, the founders of the Black

Lives Matter Network began their movement with the understanding that this Black movement must fight for all Black people. Embracing the politics of their personal experience and insisting on the importance of Black queer women’s leadership, the founders of Black Lives Matter construct a drastically different homespace for Black communities and movement for freedom for them all.

Silences in the Name of the Movement

On August 29th, 2019, I had the pleasure of attending an event called “Pochete das

Pretas” at the Casa das Pretas in Rio de Janeiro’s historic center. The Casa das Pretas is a community space for Black women funded by the non-governmental organization Coisa de

Mulher (Women’s Things). The organization was founded in 1994 by Neusa das Dores Pereira, a pioneer from Rio’s lesbian and Black women’s movement, and a group of Black women who sought to create an autonomous organizing and cultural space for Black women in Rio de Poe 124

Janeiro.208 The event at the Casa das Pretas, the night I attended, celebrated Lesbian Visibility

Day. Lesbian Visibility Day is a holiday that Pereira played a large part in creating, as it celebrates the I Seminário Nacional de Lésbicas (First National Seminar of Lesbians) which occurred on this day in 1996 in Rio de Janeiro.209 While Black bisexual city councilwoman

Marielle Franco attempted to make Lesbian Visibility Day a city recognized holiday,210 it is a non-governmentally recognized holiday, celebrated by LGBT communities throughout Brazil.

Pereira’s involvement in the creation of the Casa das Pretas, Lesbian Visibility Day and lifelong commitment to the Black women’s movement made her an extremely important figure within

Brazil’s lesbian circles and Black women’s movement spaces. Upon her entrance, many rushed over to calmly greet her with hugs and kisses and help her to her seat. I had been in the same space with Pereira three times before this event, all at events celebrating Black women, and the community reaction to her remains the same. At 75 years old and in treatment for cancer,

Pereira’s community seems determined to take care of her as she has taken care of them throughout her life as an activist.

In the opening of the event, Edmeire Exaltação introduced the space for those who had never been to the Casa das Pretas or had been absent from the house for many years. Honoring

Pereira, she explained how Pereira and a group of Black women in 1994 founded the space to provide Black women with a place to find and empower their voices. Exaltação also explained

Pereira’s founding role in the holiday the Casa das Pretas celebrated. Pereira interjected to

208 “Casa Das Pretas.” Benfeitoria. Accessed May 14, 2020. https://benfeitoria.com/casadaspretas. 209 “Neusa Das Dores Pereira.” Mulheres Negras - do umbigo para o mundo. Accessed February 15, 2021. http://www.mulheresnegras.org/neuza.html. 210 Marielle Franco, “Projeto De Lei Nº 82/2017.” A CÂMARA MUNICIPAL DO RIO DE JANEIRO, March 14, 2017. https://mail.camara.rj.gov.br/APL/Legislativos/scpro1720.nsf/249cb321f17965260325775900523a42/a29ca84abd38 c4ad832580de00664201?OpenDocument&CollapseView. Poe 125

remind everyone that Lesbian Visibility day, although celebrated by all lesbians, was a holiday created by Black lesbians, insisting that the holiday was always a Black woman centered holiday.

Exaltação continued, stating that although there have been rumors that the space is only for

Black lesbians because of the sexuality of the leadership and founding team, the space is not just for Black lesbians, but all Black women. Pereira scoffed under her breath and said that it is ridiculous that such a thing needs to be clarified. Exaltação, somewhat thrown and uncomfortable, responded to Pereira and the audience that what she meant to say by her comment was simply that the space is for all Black women, regardless of sexuality. Pereira, once again rejected the premise of the clarification, responding that although most of the leadership team are lesbians or bisexuals, that does not change the centering of Black women in the space.

Pereira, visibly frustrated, essentially argues that Black women who stay away from the Casa das

Pretas because of the Black lesbian leadership remain away out of lesbophobia. Exaltação carefully tried to respond again, acknowledging the premise of Pereira’s critique but stating that she just wanted to make it clear for Black women who want to use the space to further the outreach of the Casa das Pretas. Exaltação moved on to present the first performance of the night, while the tension remained in the air from the interaction.

Pereira’s comments at the beginning of the event echoed throughout the night, and seemed, to me, to have a clear intention of breaking historical silences that Black lesbian and bisexual women were subjected to in Black and Black women’s movements. As an important elder of the movement and a member of the leadership team, Pereira held back little of what she thought or felt, especially if it had to do with breaking down power imbalances in the space. The rest of the leadership team, all younger than Pereira, appeared to have less comfortability challenging those same imbalances, even if the imbalances worked to silence them. A couple of Poe 126

weeks after the event at the Casa das Pretas, I interviewed Pereira to understand the cause of her refusal to be silenced throughout her activist days.

Pereira came from a long history of activism stretching back to the days before the military coup in 1964. Like many other activists, she got her start organizing with student activist groups and leftist organizations. After graduating from college and becoming a teacher, she became involved with union and education activism. For a brief period of time, she was involved with the Movimento Negro Unificado in Rio de Janeiro in 1979 but ended up leaving because of what she classified as a classist and essentialist approach to Black activism that did not take into account the diversity of Black communities in Brazil and the socioeconomic issues that shaped their lives. In 1988, Pereira got involved with the planning for the Primeiro Encontro Nacional de Mulheres Negras (First National Meeting of Black Women) in Valença, Rio de Janeiro. In the

1990s, Pereira organized with the non-governmental organization Coisa de Mulher and helped found the Coletivo de Lésbicas do Rio de Janeiro (Lesbian Collective of Rio de Janeiro) in 1995.

Throughout Pereira’s trajectory of activism, she continually concerned herself with Black women’s wellbeing and the issues most affecting them.

While discussing her involvement with Black women’s activist communities throughout the years, I brought up what happened at the event at the Casa das Pretas. I asked if she could elaborate more on her comments. The question launched her into a discussion about the silencing of Black lesbians in Black and Black women’s movement spaces. She insisted that the journey of

Black lesbians is filled with pressures to silence talk of their sexuality. She emphasized that many Black lesbians in Black community spaces and in society at large live by the rule of

“nobody knows and nobody says it,”211 referring to their sexuality. She commented that Black

211 Personal Interview with Neusa das Dores Pereira. September 25, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 127

gay men are generally more visible in the histories of Black LGBT people due to the expectations placed upon Black women.

Pereira: Men are freer to live their life, own their sexuality, make money, live together, but women aren’t. We [Black women] haven’t had the courage to do this. This is a very new thing amongst women.

Poe: Even in movement spaces?

Pereira: Yes!212

Pereira’s insistence upon the differences between Black men and Black women emphasizes a critical layer of how gender affects the life choices and activism of Black LGBT people. Black men and women's economic differences affect the amount of “freedom” Black women have to share certain truths that people consider taboo. While Pereira doesn’t negate the difficulties of anyone facing the backlash from sharing their truth about their sexuality, she provides a crucial clarification that economic independence can facilitate truth-telling. Pereira’s point returns to

Wilson Mandela’s explanation of the lack of involvement of Black women in Adé-Dúdú in

Salvador, despite the original intent being to give a space for Black gay men and lesbians.

However, Pereira’s argument about the difference in economic freedom and mobility between

Black gay men and Black lesbian women provides important context for the archival invisibility of Black lesbian women during the Abertura period in Brazil. Pereira continues to argue that the economic barriers and familial expectations placed upon Black women further the process of silencing conversation around sexuality.

To go out and be open? How was I going to do that to my mother? She lived with me. I could only be more open when she died…[Men] leave their mother. They leave her with an aunt, leave the aunt with another old woman in the community. We don’t.213

212 Personal Interview with Neusa das Dores Pereira. September 25, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. 213 Ibid. Poe 128

On the shoulders of Black women, the caregiving expectations work to control the type of risks many can take. Pereira’s citation of her mother as the reason she could not come out due to how taboo it would appear and the shame it would cause her mother shows how many Black women, fulfilling caregivers' expectations, put the needs of the family before their own. While Wilson

Mandela and Essex Hemphill both cited the importance of boldly claiming their sexuality in

Black community spaces to access the transformative potential of those spaces, Pereira’s reflections show the limits of this for Black women. The possibility of returning “home” for

Black lesbian with an open approach to their sexuality is stunted and silenced by the lack of financial autonomy granted Black women and the gendered expectations placed upon their shoulders.

While Pereira spoke of the freedom, she felt to be more open about her sexuality after her mother’s death, she felt that she did not reinvent the wheel with her own familial interactions with her children and grandchildren. Pereira saw herself reimposing the same caretaking expectations upon her young granddaughter. Pereira explains,

I lived doing the same things. [Imitating a conversation with her granddaughter] “You’re going to leave your grandmother?” Many people in the movement stopped talking to my granddaughter because [imitating them] “now that you’ve taken care of her, she’s going to leave you?” But she’s not leaving me, she’s going off to live her life. In truth this is the story of us all. It’s hard. And I was doing the same thing.214

Pereira’s reflection on holding her granddaughter back from living a freer and more authentic life builds upon how Black women people unconsciously reproduce the dominant cultures that work against their freedoms. Pereira’s story also illuminates how caregiving responsibilities placed on

Black women’s shoulders are held up by Black and Black women’s movements. The reference to

214 Personal Interview with Neusa das Dores Pereira. September 25, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 129

Black women’s movement friends rejecting her daughter for seizing her own independence shows how the cultures of the Black women’s movements can hold them hostage to expectations that men do not bear. Pereira expands on these reproductions of contradictory cultures within

Black women’s movement spaces, saying that, while things are changing for newer generations of Black lesbian activists, the remnants of these cultures that silence their freedoms still linger.

While openly discussing the names of various Black women leaders from the Black movement, the Black women’s movement, and from Candomblé and Umbanda houses, she asked me to omit the names she cited, insisting that it was not her place to speak someone else’s truth and hurt them in the process. Pereira understands that asking for their anonymity upholds the same culture that works to silence and erase Black lesbian history and acknowledges that Black lesbians many times live in these contradictions. She elaborates, “Many of these women have died, and their daughters are lesbians, but their daughters don’t say ‘my mother was a lesbian.’”215 Pereira celebrates the changing culture that allows Black lesbians to be open within Black women’s movement spaces but laments the loss of archival history of Black lesbian involvement in movements for Black women’s freedom. While many of the women Pereira mentioned are celebrated throughout Black Brazilian movements for their contributions to Black communities, the full extent of their activism and political ideologies cannot be understood without an unearthing of the silences they labored beneath.

Pereira left me with a final consideration on the connection between the silences Black women face around sexuality in their communities and the important role they hold in Afro-

Brazilian religion of Candomblé as mães de santo (priestess). Scholars have long documented the high standing afforded Black women mães de santo and the importance these mães de santo held

215 Personal Interview with Neusa das Dores Pereira. September 25, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 130

for Black communities in cities like Salvador and Rio de Janeiro.216 Andrea Allen’s research on

Black lesbian women in Candomblé houses in Salvador shows similar themes of silences around sexuality and intimacy for Black lesbian practitioners.217 Pereira theorizes that the silences in the

Black women’s movement are rooted in the same silences expected of Black lesbian mães de santo in Candomblé. She tells me a thought that a famous mãe de santo from Rio shared with her.

“Nobody sees the woman, everyone wants to see the sagrado (sacred person).” That’s very important, they only want to see the sacred woman. Come close to her and receive a blessing. But they don’t want to see the woman that is here...Here is a woman that feels desire, that wants to be touched, to be hugged, to be squeezed. But [none of us] can say that.

The same caregiving that is expected of Black women in the family and in community spaces is expected from the mãe de santo in a spiritual capacity. However, Pereira’s argument does not necessarily find a problem with caregiving, but with the discomfort that people have with the caregiver’s intimate life. Whereas male practitioners in Candomblé find freedom to embody the complexities of sacred and sexual, women are bound to the sacred which works to serve others.218 When asked what will work to change this for Black lesbians in Black community spaces, such as Candomblé terreiros and the Black women’s movement, Pereira responds,

“Time. And letting the sacred be less asexual. Because Black sacred things are not so asexual.”219

216 Paulina L. Alberto, Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century Brazil (UNC Press Books, 2011); Rachel E. Harding, A Refuge in Thunder: Candomblé and Alternative Spaces of Blackness (Indiana University Press, 2003); Landes, Ruth. The City of Women (UNM Press, 1994). 217 Allen, Andrea Stevenson. "’Brides’ Without Husbands: Lesbians in the Afro‐Brazilian Religion Candomblé." Transforming Anthropology 20, no. 1 (2012): 17-31. 218 Machado, Maria das Dores Campos, and Fernanda Delvalhas Piccolo. Religiões e Homossexualidades. Editora FGV, 2011. 219 Personal Interview with Neusa das Dores Pereira. September 25, 2019. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 131

Refusing the Silences

While Pereira connected the silencing of Black queer women’s sexuality to the spiritual caregiving expectations of Black women inside Candomblé, Black queer non-binary activist from Philadelphia Shani Ahilah identifies the work of refusing the silences on Black queer and trans communities as connected to the spiritual world as well. Akilah worked for various non- profits for domestic violence prevention and AIDS Services Organizations before founding the

Black and Brown Workers Cooperative (formerly Collective) in 2016, which dedicated itself to empowering Black and Brown workers to speak out against racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other imbalances of power that exist within workplaces. The BBWC led a collective effort against racism in various LGBT organizations and businesses in the Philadelphia gayborhood in 2016. In an interview I conducted with Akilah in Philadelphia in 2019, she described her founding of this organization as a “spiritual practice”220:

I’m a Yoruba devotee, preparing for initiation, and I’ve heard the whisperings my whole life. But those whisperings have always pushed me to be political. Those whisperings have pushed me to confront. So this was no different. It was through prayer and visioning and hearing my ancestors very clearly say ‘you cannot be complicit in this system so you do have a choice you have to make.221

The Yoruba religious traditions that Akilah practices originally come from parts of Nigeria,

Benin, and Togo where many enslaved Africans were taken.222 These traditions spread throughout the Americas because of the transatlantic slave trade, syncretizing with other religious traditions of European colonizing forces and indigenous groups to form traditions such

220 Personal Interview with Shani Akilah. December 17, 2019. Philadelphia, PA. 221 Ibid. 222 Rachel E Harding, A Refuge in Thunder: Candomblé And Alternative Spaces of Blackness. Indiana University Press, 2003; Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́. The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. U Of Minnesota Press, 1997. Poe 132

as Candomblé and Umbanda in Brazil and Voodoo in the United States, to name a few. This

African diaspora spiritual tradition is invoked by Akilah to reject the silences imposed on them in and outside of social justice-oriented spaces. Akilah helped found the Black and Brown

Workers Cooperative to originally fight against the racist mistreatment of Black and Brown workers at LGBT non-profits and services organizations in Philadelphia. Much of their social justice ideology depends on the act of rejecting silence in the name of expanding liberation ideologies of organizations that serve LGBT populations.

Akilah insisted that for Black LGBT people to truly find freedom, they speak out against their own silencing, even amongst communities that share their identities. In 2016, Akilah worked at Philadelphia FIGHT, an AIDS services organization serving largely LGBT populations founded in 1990, as a manager for the Youth Health Empowerment Project. While at

Philadelphia FIGHT, they decided to speak up about the ways racism within the organization impacted Black and Brown staff. Akilah insisted that the organization’s treatment of them shifted drastically when they decided to speak up against the power dynamics at play. They recount,

[Philadelphia FIGHT] kind of saw me as the starchild, which I think a lot of white institutions do that when we as Black queer magical beings enter with a vision, they’re like ‘oh we’re gonna need to get all of this!’ But they’re not quite ready to handle the truth of it…Black and Brown people [are] the first to be hired for street cred, but first to be fired the minute they spoke up, when we speak up to advocate for our communities.223

Akilah argues that “diverse” hires at LGBT organizations do not work to redistribute power and question power dynamics within the organization related to race, but instead work to change the visual of the organization to invalidate the claims of racism within the organization. Therefore, when workers like Akilah speak out against racist power dynamics with the intent of showing up

223 Personal Interview with Shani Akilah. December 17, 2019. Philadelphia, PA. Poe 133

as fully Black, queer, and trans people, these workers face backlash by the white LGBT leadership of the organization. Black and Brown workers at these LGBT organizations, whose livelihood depends on their work, put themselves at risk by speaking up and marking themselves as a target to the leadership. However, Akilah insists that for them, there was no other choice to make in the face of the racist injustices in the organization:

I couldn’t stomach it. At this point Michael Brown was all over the news and all of these mass shootings that had happened and, you know, just state sanctioned violence, and for me it just felt very connected to walking into this HIV/AIDS organizations and not hearing a word about any of the things that really plague our Black community, yet seeing them profit off of disease in our community. It’s interesting to me that the highest rates of HIV are in the Black community yet these ASOs (AIDS Services Organization) don’t talk about the socioeconomic causes. The systemic reasons why HIV prevalence exists in the Black community.224

For Akilah, speaking out against racism within Philadelphia FIGHT wasn’t simply about getting better treatment for themself as a Black queer non-binary person, but about improving the organization’s approach and service to Black communities. Akilah understands that the organization’s tokenization of their presence and devaluation of their voice as a Black queer person is directly connected to how the organization serves Black HIV+ populations. The desire of Philadelphia FIGHT to ignore the racist socioeconomic conditions that place Black populations at risk for HIV come from the same racist ignoring of Akilah’s voice and contributions. The direct effect of them calling attention to the anti-Blackness in their own treatment in the organization ripples beyond individual impact and works to change the organization’s relationship with Black HIV positive populations. Therefore, Akilah speaks up in a desire to fight for the collective of Black communities who find themselves exploited by white

LGBT organizations. Akilah offers an insight into the cost of silence, as well as the cost of

224 Personal Interview with Shani Akilah. December 17, 2019. Philadelphia, PA. Poe 134

speaking up. Akilah chose to speak up and paid the price by losing their job. However, they found a new movement helping Black and Brown workers speak out against injustices in self- proclaimed “social justice” organizations in Philadelphia’s gayborhood.

Just as Pereira insisted on outlining the reasons Black lesbian women stayed silent about issues surrounding sexuality in Rio’s Black women’s movement, Akilah also reiterates that within white LGBT led spaces and cisgender heterosexual led Black spaces, pressures exist to maintain silence around intersectional issues and those who speak up are met with hostility:

The payoffs are very little. A lot of people don’t realize that. The hits we take over and over again, which wear on you over time so I’ve had to do a lot of spiritual work to stay as grounded as possible…We’ve been threatened with rape. We’ve been threatened with being shot. Then there’s the thing of constant erasure, even from our own community.225

Akilah explains that the work of speaking out against the racism in LGBT organizations or queer antagonism in racial justice movements is work that is often filled with self-sacrifice without immediate reward. For Akilah, this erasure and violence from those in their “own community” reflects the complications of returning to homespaces fully for Black queer and trans individuals.

The selfless and collectively centered work of speaking up from an intersectional lens and the refusal to be fragmented in their home spaces is met with violent rejection by those who proclaim to be their community.

Despite the intra-community violence that the work of rejecting silences around intersectionality brought to Akilah, holding on to spirituality and personal power gave them the strength to endure. Akilah identifies the first moment when they spoke up against violent language as the moment they found their own power. While working as a Crisis Intervention

225 Personal Interview with Shani Akilah. December 17, 2019. Philadelphia, PA. Poe 135

Services Director at a domestic violence prevention organization, Akilah spoke out against the racist and transphobic language used by a police officer during a training:

It was really a moment of stepping into my own power, you know? When I think about what that means, that was one of the key moments. I was removed from the training. I was brought back to the office. I thought it was because they were trying to protect me but instead they asked me “if you had a chance would you do that again or would you have made a different decision?” And in that moment I knew that if I said that what I felt I did was just I’d lose my job. But I knew I had to tell the truth. Because a big part of this work for me is moving in integrity at all times.226

Akilah’s lessons about power and integrity from this encounter are exemplified in their founding of the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative and challenging racism in the Philadelphia

Gayborhood. Akilah credits theorizations of Black feminist and womanist politics for allowing them to “see [themself] from places of power versus disempowerment.”227 For Akilah, harnessing their own personal power meant understanding the power dynamics at play in social justice nonprofits led by white women or white LGBT people whose lack of self-reflexivity and whose investments in controlling the movement lead to the exploitation of Black and Brown staff and communities served. Calling attention to these power dynamics led to multiple instances of

Akilah being dismissed from roles within these organizations, despite these organizations’ voiced concern about empowering their Black queer and trans staff to bring all of themselves and their visions to the job. Women of Color Incorporated, a Harrisburg based organization dedicated to empowering women of color in leadership roles, provided support to Akilah following their ousting from the domestic violence organization. It addressed the issue with women of color leaders in social justice focused nonprofits being ousted from the organizations, defining these

226 Personal Interview with Shani Akilah. December 17, 2019. Philadelphia, PA. 227 Ibid. Poe 136

women as “endangered species.”228 Women of Color Incorporated outlines how Black and

Brown women in nonprofits are more likely to be pushed out of their positions for advocating for those who are similarly silenced and who the organization is supposed to serve. Akilah insisted that this was continually the case for them as a Black non-binary queer person who urged the organizations, they worked for to seriously consider the conditions, words, and power of Black queer and trans populations.

Akilah’s collective effort with the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative in protesting racism in the Philadelphia gayborhood yielded many victories. Most notable, Nellie Fitzpatrick, the white head of the Philadelphia mayor’s office of LGBT affairs who the BBWC called to resign229 due to her lack of robust response to racism within the gayborhood and refusal to adopt an intersectional approach to LGBT affairs that considered race and class, was replaced by

Amber Hikes, a Black queer woman activist. Akilah points to these victories as validation of their holding steadfast to spirituality in their struggle to speak up for the intersectional plight of the Black queer and trans community, even in spaces that claim to fight for LGBT rights. Akilah recounts,

I chose to do the thing that wasn’t easy. There were days when I didn’t know how I was going to get my next check, or how I was gonna eat, and I just kept trusting spirit. And four years later, here we are, and we’ve had several community wins…This work has been thankless in a lot of ways. We do it because of our pure love for our community.230

Akilah’s example highlights the economic and emotional cost that standing up to one’s own community brings in the fight to make the space welcoming for all in the community. However,

228 “Call to Action Statement 2008 by Those Aspiring to Be Allies to Women of Color Advocates and Allies,” Women of Color Network, July 2008. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OrHD9ZPw6LQIvokpyZFcEyepRES9vxAx/view. 229 “BBWC Press Release.” Black and Brown Workers Collective. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qSmg9q9mQEZBEkFtSEy-gfrflpoaHyMF8wstTCmOKx8/edit 230 Personal Interview with Shani Akilah. December 17, 2019. Philadelphia, PA. Poe 137

the reverberations of Akilah’s fight, which led to the creation of the Black and Brown Workers

Cooperative, show that their struggle was not singular, and many in their community were facing similar struggles of not being allowed to be their whole selves within spaces that claim to be community spaces. Akilah’s founding of a Black and Brown centered space, led by Black and

Brown LGBTQ+ people helped to ensure that in this Black homespace, Black LGBTQ+ have free range to be all parts of themselves at once. The victories of the BBWC show the radical potential of Black LGBTQ+ activists returning to LGBTQ+ or Black community homespaces as full versions of themselves.

Conclusion

When Hemphill makes his grand declaration of his return home, he insists on the importance of bringing all of himself, unfragmented. The process of coming home for Hemphill was as much about finding a space for himself, as it was about transforming the homespace to include other Black gay men returning home. Hemphill recognized that there was a special power in returning home and transforming home from the inside. From the stories of various

Black LGBT activists throughout this chapter, the call to come home or to remain in home spaces to expand them from the inside is a clearly fraught and complex process filled with sacrifice. Nonetheless, it is a process that many Black LGBT activists find deeply important for themselves and the community. They show that the process of resisting fragmentation means transforming Black or LGBT spaces into places of Black queer and trans freedom as well.

While the stories of these activists show the radical possibilities of expanding the ideologies of broader social justice movements to be inclusive of Black LGBT struggles, they also outline the limits of these journeys. While both Mandela and Nascimento strived to Poe 138

challenge the invisibilizing of Black LGBT issues within their respective movements, both experienced limits from other movements such as Grupo Gay da Bahia and the Movimento

Negro Unificado. They were able to push the boundaries of one movement while suffering ousting from another. While men of Pereira’s generation were able to be open about their non- heterosexual orientation to and include it in their political fight, Pereira’s involvement in Black women’s movements saw a continual silencing of her own and other Black women’s sexuality due to societal and generational expectations placed upon Black women. Both Pereira and Akilah found power in Yoruba based African diasporic religious traditions, but Pereira found the cultural practices from her religious traditions to further silences around her sexuality while

Akilah harnessed the power she found in these traditions to continually be open and bold about all parts of her identity. These stories show that social position, generation, and location are all important factors to consider when understanding the limits and possibilities of Black LGBT activists’ interactions with homespace.

Poe 139

CHAPTER 3

Representação vs. Representatividade: Black LGBTQ+ Identity Politics in the Political Sphere

“Não é sobre um sujeito, é sobre uma lógica de poder.”

“It’s not about one individual subject, it’s about a logic of power.”

-- Erica Malunguinho, 2020231

Introduction: Clashes Over Representation

On April 3rd, 2019, on the floor of São Paulo’s Legislative House ALESP, State

Representative Erica Malunguinho from the leftist political party Socialism and Liberty Party

(PSOL) and the first Black trans woman elected to a Brazilian legislative body,232 rose to the podium to speak out against a proposed law by Representative Altair Moraes from the conservative Brazilian Republican Party (PRB). The proposed law would restrict classification of gender on team sports in the state of São Paulo to the assigned sex at birth. Representative

Malunghinho passionately argued against the law and pointed to examples across the world, including the Olympics, that reject assigned sex as the only classification of gender. She gave examples of how scientists have proven that hormonal treatments eliminate any bodily difference between cisgender and transgender players in gendered team sports, positing that laws must change and adapt to the cultural and social norms of the times in which they are made. Ending her statement with a potent reminder of the importance of changing the law to fit the transformation and growth of society, she stated, “This is a house of laws. We are absolutely

231 Britto, Débora. “Erica Malunguinho: Alternar o Poder é Ter Raça e Gênero Como Fundamento.” Marco Zero Conteúdo, 17 Jan. 2020, marcozero.org/erica-malunguinho-alternar-o-poder-e-ter-raca-e-genero-como-fundamento/. 232 While two other Black trans women were elected the same year in Brazilian Parliament, Erika Hilton with the collective Bancada Ativista in São Paulo and Robeyonce Lima with the collective Juntas in Pernambuco, Erica Malunguinho was the only winner from a candidacy run under her name. Poe 140

conscious of the fact that the laws decreed and written here will reverberate in the future, but remember, tragedies like slavery have been protected by law.”233

In direct response to Malunguinho’s statement, State Representative Douglas Garcia leapt to the microphone to speak out against her statement. Garcia was elected the same year as

Malunguinho from the ultra-conservative Partido Social Liberal or PSL (Social Liberal Party), the former political party of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.234 Garcia came to power through organizing with the conservative movement Direta São Paulo (The São Paulo Right) and brands himself as a young conservative voice from the poor and peripheral235 São Paulo. Garcia began his statement lauding Representative Moraes for his proposed law to prohibit “gender ideology.”236 For Garcia, allowing trans people to play sports on the gendered team aligned with their gender identity or allowing them to use the bathroom of their gender, upholds “gender ideology” which he is vehemently against. He repudiates bathrooms that welcome all categories of women and men beyond those who are cisgender and blames the advent of this on “gender ideology.” He continued his speech by violently asserting, “If by chance, my mother or sister is using a women’s bathroom and a man that feels like a woman, or that has taken out or puts on whatever he wants, even still, I don’t care, I will first remove him with force and then call the police to come get him, because this is the point we’ve arrived at in Brazil.”237 He flagrantly

233 “DEPUTADO TRANSFÓBICO AMEAÇA TRANS A TAPA - Erica Malunguinho.” Youtube. YouTube T, April 4, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZnw-DtMELs&t=18s. 234 In November 2019, after much internal fighting in his far right political party of PSL, Jair Bolsonaro decided to create his own political party, Aliança do Brasil. As of 2020 the creation of the party has not been approved. 235 Working class neighborhoods in São Paulo use the language “periphery” as a moniker for their neighborhoods. Their reasoning points to both a geographical periphery, being that most working class neighborhoods in São Paulo are far from the center of the city, and a political periphery, speaking to the ways in which the political needs of those in these neighborhoods are treated as peripheral to the needs of those in middle and upper-class neighborhoods. 236 Gender Ideology refers to what the right in Brazil has deemed as any divergence from cisgender and heterosexual gender and sexuality norms. Movements for understanding trans and gender non-conforming identites are widely rejected by the right and grouped as gender ideology. 237 “DEPUTADO TRANSFÓBICO AMEAÇA TRANS,” 6:16. Poe 141

ignored the gender of trans people by referring to trans women as “men wanting to be women”.

Garcia’s response ignited boos and jeers from other representatives from Erica’s political party

PSOL and other representatives from leftist parties. By the time Garcia completed his statement,

Representative Malunguinho arrived at the microphone ready to respond to his violent discourse.

Malunguinho began by calling for an investigation for the breaking of decorum by Garcia, insisting that his statement incites hateful violence. She argued that discourses like those of

Garcia are the same discourses that empower people to murder and commit violence against trans people daily:

Representative...I want to tell you one thing: you know nothing, absolutely nothing...you don’t know about biology, you don’t know about sociology, I don’t even know what you are doing here...I just said that slavery was fixed into law. Values, just like law, modify and conform to the time and culture. Learn this! If you are here now, you who came from the ghetto238, it is because there was the possibility of access due to the activism of many poor people that deconstructed imaginations so that poor people like you and me could be here...this house, with the amount of time that it has been in existence, it has always been at the backs of the elite...You are here because there was a popping of this bubble. Understand this and put yourself in your place.239

Malunguinho’s statements were met with applause from leftist representatives on the floor of

ALESP.

The contentious confrontation on the floor of ALESP between Malunguinho and Garcia was covered in news cycles for various days following the interaction. Politicians from

Malunguinho’s party and leftist parties throughout Brazil made their solidarity with her known and spoke against the transphobia spouted by Garcia. On April 4th, Malunguinho convened a press conference with other members from leftist parties PSOL, PT, and PCdoB in ALESP, including Erika Hilton, a Black trans woman elected with the collective campaign Bancada

238 Quebrada 239 “DEPUTADO TRANSFÓBICO AMEAÇA TRANS,” 8:08. Poe 142

Ativista and Maria Clara Araujo, a Black trans woman activist and advisor to Erica’s parliamentary team--both sat in the middle at Malunguinho’s side. The press conference reiterated the parties’ repudiation of the transphobia and sexism spouted by Garcia and the PSL’s charge against “gender ideology.” On April 5th, Janaina Paschoal, a lawyer who gained fame three years prior for helping to file the petition for the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and for becoming a PSL state representative with the most votes for a representative in the history of the current Brazilian republic, took the podium at ALESP to defend Garcia. In her speech, she stated that he had been shaken the days following the confrontation on the floor of

ALESP due to messages he received from people threatening to expose details about his personal life to the public. He asked Paschoal to help him publicly come out as gay. She said,

[Douglas] decided and I’m just here making this announcement publicly, so that in the future nobody can come in with the purpose of blackmailing him or showing that he defends one thing but is another type of person and do an exposé of his personal life...The fact that he is homosexual doesn’t mean that he can’t think one way or another about a proposed law.240

While relaying Garcia’s coming out, Paschoal downplayed his violent transphobic discourse by claiming that he is simply a young representative learning the best ways to support or disagree with something in Congress, effectively stealing the attention away from

Malunguinho and the leftist parties’ complaints against Garcia’s break of decorum. Paschoal’s presentation of Garcia’s actions on the floor of ALESP delivered the simple message: it doesn’t matter what your gender, sexuality, class, or race is--what matters is your conservative political ideology.

---

240 “Janaína Paschoal se emociona ao revelar vida pessoal de deputado do partido de Bolsonaro…,” Youtube video, 4:00, posted by “Folha Política,” April 5, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCdk4zahb2M. Poe 143

That same month, across the Atlantic Ocean and up the Mississippi River, Chicago celebrated a historic election night. On April 2nd, 2019 Lori Lightfoot won a groundbreaking election that not only gave power to the city’s first Black lesbian mayor but also elected a wave of five Black and Brown democratic socialists to the Chicago City Council. The night was historic not only for Chicago but also for the entire country as Lightfoot’s election marked the first time a Black lesbian woman would become mayor of a major city in the United States of

America. The election of democratic socialists also marked a turn in national politics, showing the growing support for socialism after many decades of rejection of the political ideology due to conservative and nationalist propaganda.241

Media around the country began to celebrate Lightfoot’s election as a win for Black communities and LGBTQ communities. But quickly after the rush of media to claim this as a

“victory” for Black and LGBTQ communities, Black activists from Chicago used twitter and other social media to form a counter-narrative. Charlene Carruthers, a Black queer feminist organizer from Chicago and founding national director of the BYP 100 tweeted,

Do Chicago a favor and save all excited posts and articles about our next mayor being Black lesbian. You’re not helping. She loves and has worked to protect the very systems that suck resources and harm our communities. #stoplightfoot #LGBT242

Carruthers’ opposition to the media’s spin of Lightfoot’s election as a win for Black and queer communities was echoed by various Black and Brown organizers from Chicago who expressed a tepid fear about Lightfoot’s election and her passive past support to the Chicago Police

241 Throughout the 20th century in the United States the government has vehemently attacked rhetoric around communism and socialism, reaching a peak during the 1950s with Joseph McCarthy’s tirade on people suspected of communist beliefs or involvement. The United States’ conflicts with the USSR fueld the Anti-communist and continued through US objection to revolutions in Cuba, Grenada, Korea, Vietnam, amongst other countries. Source: Johnson, Haynes, The Age of Anxiety: Mccarthyism to Terrorism. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., 2005. 242 Charlene Carruthers, Twitter post, April 2, 2019, 9:55 p.m., https://twitter.com/CharleneCac/status/1113243527733862401. Poe 144

Department.243 For many Black queer and trans activists in Chicago, Lightfoot’s Black lesbian identity was not reason enough to celebrate her win, as they viewed the political ideology she upheld as dangerous to Black LGBTQ communities.

---

That same week while in São Paulo, my friend Daniel and I were discussing the montage of events we had been witnessing unfold across Brazil and the United States. Daniel is a Black queer scholar-activist and translator from the interior of the state of São Paulo who has served as a Fulbright fellow in the USA before moving to the city of São Paulo. Daniel understood the sociopolitical contexts of both countries and followed the unfolding of both new stories. We found ourselves thrilled about the increasing political power of Black LGBTQ political actors across the world, but we subsequently did not know how to navigate the complexities that political actors like Douglas Garcia and Lori Lightfoot brought to the idea of Black queer power.

Though we understood that not every Black LGBTQ person stands for the Black LGBTQ community through our various interactions with our community, these moments in the political sphere showed this idea in practice. The common motto of the time, “I’m rooting for everybody

Black”244 became complicated when we put it in the context of people’s political ideologies because, as my friend Daniel put it, “not everyone who is Black is rooting or fighting for us.”

Daniel argued that thinking through the differences between someone like Erica

Maulnguinho and Douglas Garcia gestures to the two words that are used for representation in

Brazilian Portuguese. As a translator and language teacher, Daniel is someone who is fascinated

243 “HELL NO, NOT IN OUR NAME: CDMC in Solidarity with #StopLightfoot.” Chicago Dyke March Collective, March 31, 2019. https://chidykemarch.wordpress.com/2019/03/31/hell-no-not-in-our-name-cdmc-in- solidarity-with-stoplightfoot/. 244 In a red carpet interview with Variety Magazine at the 2017 Emmy Awards, Issa Rae when asked who she was rooting for that night, she responded to this statement that quickly popularized through social media and became a popular motto for Black communities in the United States. Poe 145

with words, especially as they relate to Black diasporic communities, and he was intrigued that in English there only exists one word to represent these two meanings of representation. He explained that in Portuguese, representação is a simple version of representation that means a person representing something such as race, sexuality, gender, or class, appearing in important or prestigious spaces, like Brazilian parliament. The term for Daniel does not suggest any kind of representational duties of the person to their communities and only suggests a representational optic. The term suggests Black faces in high places. However, representatividade speaks to a different kind of representation, altogether. Daniel explained to me that representatividade served as more of an ideology than a simple practice like representação. Representatividade is when candidates’ ideological investments are in line with the community they represent. Therefore, representatividade is not simply about being a certain race, sexuality, gender, or class, but representing the best interests of the communities you represent.

Daniel’s explanation of the differences between representação and representatividade helped me to contextualize the recent rising foray of Black LGBTQ people into electoral politics.

Analysis of Black LGBTQ politicians within the past five years shows a straddling between the two sides of the spectrum of representation between a representatividade and representação. In this chapter, I focus on the question of representational politics and how politicians from the right and the left of the political spectrum fight for or against the communities and identities they represent. What are the radical possibilities of Black LGBTQ politicians using representational politics to positively impact their community? What are the limits of representational politics and how do these limitations negatively affect Black LGBTQ communities? I analyze the writings and news interviews of politicians as well as the interviews I have conducted to gauge their commitment to Black LGBTQ communities. I question the type of representation these Poe 146

politicians embrace and how their politics impact Black LGBTQ communities. I utilize concepts introduced by Black LGBTQ politician interlocutors, Black feminist articulations of identity politics, and Black Brazilian feminist conceptualizations of representatividade to understand the political and ideological investments of Black LGBTQ political actors in São Paulo, Rio de

Janerio, Chicago, and Minneapolis. I begin with revisiting the various Black queer feminist definitions of identity politics and representation throughout Brazil and the United States to give a foundation in understanding the uses of identity in politics and further explain the range between different kinds of representational politics. I then offer two examples of representatividade, Erica Malunhinho and Andrea Jenkins, and one example of representação,

Douglas Garcia, to show how these different forms of representations play out in the political sphere. Next, I reflect on the complexity of Lori Lightfoot’s mayoral campaign and its impact on

Black and LGBTQ communities in Chicago to understand how community impact and lack of engagement with that community impact can work against the intention to invoke representational politics. I finally think through the danger and precarity of working towards a radical representational politic that advocates for vulnerable Black LGBTQ communities by analyzing the city council tenure of Marielle Franco.

The Origins of Identity Politics and Representation

Black feminist thinkers of the 1970s began articulating a nuanced understanding of identity politics long before the contemporary media began misinterpreting it.245 When the

Combahee River Collective, a Black lesbian feminist collective founded in 1974 in Boston,

Massachusetts, began writing, they built upon the work of generations of Black women activists

245 Rashmee Kumar, “How Identity Politics Has Divided the Left: An Interview With Asad Haider.” The Intercept, May 27, 2018. https://theintercept.com/2018/05/27/identity-politics-book-asad-haider/?comments=1. Poe 147

and thinkers that came before them. The concept of identity politics speaks to the collective work of Black women fighting on behalf of other Black women. Explaining the centering of their

Black woman identity as central to their political ideology, the collective states,

This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else's oppression. In the case of Black women, this is a particularly repugnant, dangerous, threatening, and therefore revolutionary concept because it is obvious from looking at all the political movements that have preceded us that anyone is more worthy of liberation than ourselves.246

The Combahee River Collective’s centralization of identity politics is particularly useful in thinking through representational politics for Black LGBTQ actors in electoral politics. For the collective, Black womanhood identity is not just a surface level metric, but a profound shift in political perspective. The compounded oppression faced by Black women offers a radical political ideology that differs from the political ideology that the people who generally occupy the political sphere (largely white men) possess. Therefore, the standpoint of Black women’s identities does not simply serve as a box to check on a census form, but can produce, if analyzed politically, an alternate understanding of how politics function and affect communities. Because

Black women have historically been underrepresented in the electoral political sphere, a Black woman analyzing society through the lens of her own experiences with racial violence and sexual exploitation can suggest a political path different from white progressives who argue to have people of color in mind, but do not speak from the experience of racial or sexual oppression. The collective also acknowledges that Black women who center their experiences challenge multiple systemic oppressions and inequalities in society. Identity politics falls in line

246 Combahee River Collective, "The Combahee River Collective Statement." Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (1983): 264-74. Poe 148

with representatividade in showing how marginalized people channeling the voice of their community can present a radical alternative to the status quo.

However, the idea of representação reminds us that not all Black LGBTQ people will participate in this transformative political project. As Djamila Ribeiro, the Black Brazilian feminist philosopher, says,

It’s not enough to be Black just like it’s not enough to be a woman. Sometimes you have a Black person occupying an important space, but reproducing ideologies that go against the Black community. You can have women occupying important spaces, but reproducing conservative ideologies that go against the historic claims of the feminist movement.247

Ribeiro reminds us that not every person representing a marginalized identity will advocate for the best practices for those marginalized communities. The simple election of a woman, a Black person, and/or a LGBTQ person does not automatically translate to a commitment to representatividade or representational politics. While the election of Black LGBTQ candidates can be transformative if those elected are committed to representational politics, relying on a simple representação that could potentially fight against the interests of the Black LGBTQ community can be even more detrimental to the community and future candidates who wish to enact the radical possibilities of representational politics.

However, through a representação or representatividade, the entrance of marginalized communities as decision makers in the political sphere is instrumental to institutions changing.

Megg Rayara Gomes de Oliveira, the first Black travesti248 to earn her doctorate in Brazil,

247 “Djamila Ribeiro: Representatividade No Feminismo Negro.” Youtube. TV Boitempo, June 16, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sni41OkZnE. 248 While Don Kulick in his seminal text Travesti translates the word travesti as a “transgender prostitute” many of my interlocutors have protested that translation, insisting that travesti instead is a gender identity that is untranslatable to the English context. Some consider the word as part of the transgender umbrella, while others consider it a gender category different than trans. For this reason, I leave travesti untranslated in my work. Readers should understand the term as non-cisgender feminine identity held by people who were assigned male at birth. Poe 149

discusses these potential positive effects through analyzing the effect of bichas pretas as teachers in the classroom. Speaking of her own experience as a bicha preta who was a teacher, she argues,

“Circulating through academic spaces, I brought the margins with me. The bicha is not from the center, but they can be in the center and bring the elements that constitute themselves.”249 Gomes de Oliveira points to the fact that, by entering a space of power as a schoolteacher, a Black

LGBTQ person can shift the happenings of a space that is initially hostile to Black LGBTQ communities. She points out that the bicha, and much less the bicha preta, is not from the center of society that controls institutions such as education-- their cultural makeup is from a marginalized experience. The act of bringing that marginalized experience to the center offers the opportunity for the marginalized person to shift the dominant ideologies taught and produced in the center and to potentially enhance the experiences of other marginalized folks without them faltering amid institutional power.

Gomes de Oliveira points to the importance of both representação and representatividade in this moment by showing the radical potential of the entrance of historically excluded groups into positions of power. She simultaneously points to the difference between potential and activating potential by saying that those from the margins “can” but will not necessarily bring their cultures and experiences from the margins to the center. To enter the center, a teacher from the margins could choose to uphold the power dynamics of the center and remain tokenized--not advocating for the shifting of power and never realizing the radical and disrupting potential of their entrance into the center. This path is presented as even more enticing, as Gomes de Oliveira

249 Megg Rayara Gomes de Oliveira, "O diabo em forma de gente:(r) existências de gays afeminados, viados e bichas pretas na educação." PhD diss., Tese (Doutorado em Educação)–Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação, UFPR, Curitiba, 2017. Poe 150

explains, because the center will already work to de-radicalize the marginalized subject through processes such as social whitening. She states,

Discourses renew and utilize arguments that tend to confirm how inadequate your presence in the school space is. Whitening arises as a justification of acceptance. Terms like “moreninho”250 substitute “Black” to reveal that the school remains reticent to the presence of Black professionals, especially Black gay femmes, viados251 and bichas.252

Gomes de Oliveira explains through the educational sphere that institutions are set up to defend themselves from the invasion of marginalized communities by organizing themselves to view the invasion through a conservative lens. These institutions invite the invader to participate as one of them, teaching the marginalized to play a role in the reproduction of their own oppression. By being an actor within the center, reproducing the same power dynamics that oppress the margins, the marginalized strengthens the oppression of the margins. This helps to remove the potential of deconstructing the center that the entrance of the marginalized presents and ensures that the representation, or representação, of the marginalized person does not tap into transformative potential. Their representation helps the structures of power to continue the oppression of those at the margins.

Cathy Cohen, in her groundbreaking article “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens,” provides a theoretical foundation for representatividade and the radical potential of Black queer and trans identity politics. She posits that their radical potential lies in their viewpoints from the margins and their ability to understand other oppressed communities. Cohen states,

I envision a politics where one’s relation to power, and not one’s homogenized identity, is privileged in determining one’s political comrades...Thus if any truly radical potential is to be found in the idea of queerness and the practice of queer

250 Brown-ish 251 Faggots 252 Megg Rayara Gomes De Oliveira, "O Diabo em Forma de Gente.” Poe 151

politics, it would seem to be located in its ability to create space in opposition to dominant norms, a space where transformational political work can begin.253

For Cohen, queer people’s power analysis, if tapped into, can bring forth a transformative potentiality. A representatividade and identity politics that analyzes society from the bottom, or the margins, potentially sees beyond the interests of simply the marginalized community one represents but the nature of marginalization and oppression itself. Instead of working toward a simple inclusion into an unequal society, a radical representatividade can work towards deconstructing the systems in place to transform the larger state of society and how it affects all.

Cohen’s spin on identity politics furthers the work of the Combahee River Collective by calling oppressed queer people to lean into the analytic lens that the space of oppression offers to reject simple reforms and reimagine the structures of society. Cohen also says, “Beyond a mere recognition of the intersections of oppressions, there must also be an understanding of the ways our multiple identities work to limit the entitlement and status that some would receive from obeying a heterosexual imperative.”254 Through this statement, Cohen shows the danger of representação and a simple politics of representation that doesn’t connect itself to a political goal of societal transformation in favor of oppressed communities. Cohen suggests that the mental connection of understanding intersectional oppression in one’s life as inseparable from power structures is not automatic and that queer and other marginalized communities must radicalize their perspective to break away from furthering a white, heterosexual capitalist agenda. Reading

Cohen in line with Gomes de Oliveira illuminates how multiple marginalized communities uphold the dominant power structures of society. Their writings also highlight the thought process of politicians whose representação only goes as far as their identity. However, these

253 Cohen, "Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens.” 254 Ibid. Poe 152

Black queer and trans feminist texts speak to the radical potential of the identity politics and standpoint of Black queer and trans people within the political sphere to transform society.

Representatividade: Erica Malunguinho’s Quilombo Politics

On December 18th, 2018 Erica Malunguinho began her tenure as the first Black trans state representative in the state of São Paulo at the ceremony officializing winning candidates. In a striking photo from that event,255 Malunguinho stands centerstage, her brown skin shining bright against the background of a majority white male congress sitting behind her. She wears a blue dress with the Black feminine Orixá256 Iemanjá embroidered prominently in the center of the dress. With her locs braided royally over to the side, Malunguinho stands with her fist held high, strikingly emanating an image of Black power against a white dominated system. The day following the ceremony, that picture of Malunguinho on stage went viral. The image of a Black trans woman openly and proudly professing a Black feminine power, unapologetically and without wish to whiten or soften her image, was a slap in the face to Brazil’s national image and century long claims of a lack of race-consciousness and race problems.257 Malunguinho’s self- presentation in that moment visually centered her refusal to silence her political identities as a multi-marginalized person. Her moment of emergence as a state representative embodies the radical approach to identity politics she strives to uphold.

255 Shown in Figure 1 https://www.instagram.com/p/Briq-tynkS2/ 256 Deity in the Afro-Brazilian religious traditions of Candomblé and Umbanda 257 Paulina L. Alberto, Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals In Twentieth-Century Brazil (UNC Press Books, 2011). Poe 153

Figure 6 - Erica Malunguinho Stepping Into Her Role as State Representative

While running her campaign, Malunguinho’s slogan was, “Alternância do poder,” or a rotation of power. In an interview conducted with Midia Ninja prior to her election in 2018,

Malunguinho explains the necessity of those words saying,

A rotation of power so that there is a reformulation into another possibility of being in society. It’s necessary that this power is rotated, it’s necessary that people, especially the people who have always been on the margins...it’s necessary that these people be the ones to produce this new place, because naturally they are more skilled, more sensitive, and more capable to do this once you understand their lived experience.258

For Malunguinho, her arrival into the political sphere is not simply about being the Black trans woman image of success for others, but rather redefining what success is and who is entitled to it. She also democratized the opportunity for success for all, especially those at the margins.

258 “Campanha De Mulher | Erica Malunguinho — 50888 - YouTube.” Youtube. Mídia NINJA, September 18, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euEWak_HUQ4. Poe 154

Despite running a solo campaign, Malunguinho refuses to make her political journey alone; she continually centers and brings her community with her. Her Mandata Quilombo, the parliamentary staff she hired to run her mandate, is filled with Black people from various intersectional identities. Her staff reflects her commitment to a rotation of power as well as a gesture to the ideas of Quilombismo. Quilombismo,259 a term popularized by the Black Brazilian scholar activists Abdias do Nascimento and Beatriz Nascimento, calls for a democratic approach to community building that centers Black people and cultural practices. The term invokes quilombos, communities of enslaved Africans who ran away to create societies outside of the reach of slave catchers. One quilombo in particular, Palmares, lasted for more than a century in what is now present-day Alagoas state, evading both the Dutch and Portuguese colonizing forces that tried to take it down. This quilombo became a symbol of Black resistance for the Black movement that came along in the late 1970s in Brazil and eventually became the impetus for the creation of Brazil’s Black consciousness day, celebrated on the day Zumbi dos Palmares, the leader of the Quilombo dos Palmares, died. Malunguinho, who views these quilombos as

Brazil’s first experiment with democracy, models her own foray into Brazilian democracy after their example. In a personal interview with the representative, speaking on how she is manifesting Quilombismo, she says, “This Quilombo speaks to the fight for land, LGBT people, women’s movements, education, immigration, penitentiary subjects, masculinities, people from

Afro-Brazilian religions, the Black movement.”260 Malunguinho, politically grounding her staff and ideology for her parliamentary tenure in the knowledge and histories of Quilombos, also

259 Abdias Do Nascimento, "Quilombismo: An Afro-Brazilian Political Alternative," Journal of Black Studies 11, no. 2 (1980): 141-78. Accessed April 20, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/2784225; Christen Anne Smith, "Towards a Black Feminist Model of Black Atlantic Liberation: Remembering beatriz nascimento." Meridians 14, no. 2 (2016): 71-87. 260 Personal interview with Erica Malunguinho in São Paulo, Brazil. April 29, 2019. Poe 155

works to rotate power in the intellectual history of Brazilian democracy and re-center Black histories and political philosophy. For Representative Malunguinho, the rotation of power is not simply about the ideas that are prevalent in government, but also the people who are behind the ideas that are circulating. Black people and Black ideas in government are central to her government, ensuring that her tenure as a representative is reflective of her community in both identity and ideology.

Centering an alternância do poder, Malunguinho understands the kind of representation she wants her campaign to promulgate as well as representation that has historically wronged her communities. In an interview I conducted with the representative in 2019, she said,

When we say representatividade matters, what I mean by that is that not all Black people or LGBT people can claim this space to speak on what is important to these groups. With this, I’m not negating the Blackness of anybody or the womanhood of anyone, but I’m saying that the movements of these groups mark their territory in line with these historic constructions. This speaks to the battle and constant negotiation for participation and basic rights.261

Malunguinho’s understanding of representatividade is aligned directly with both people’s identities and lived experiences but also with a collective movement and ideology that is connected to these identities. Malunguinho agrees that people’s individual experiences of race, gender, class, and other classifications are important; however, what is more important than those individual experiences is collective political goals and ideologies that work to refute the power dynamics that control these communities. For Malunguinho, to be able to adequately represent a community, one needs to understand the community’s history of resistance and build upon that history of resistance. As Malunguinho says, “Representatividade only makes sense if it represents. To represent, inside this idea of Black trans womanist/feminist Quilombo...means

261 Personal interview with Erica Malunguinho in São Paulo, Brazil. April 29, 2019. Poe 156

being bound first to these historic fights.” For representatividade to truly work, one must be connected at the root with the community from which they come.

Building upon her practices of a radical representation and Quilombo epistemologies,

Malunguinho’s approach works to empower those who have been historically marginalized so that they may change perceptions of what their communities need to thrive. In a harsh critique of the history of public policies and governmental programs aimed at poor communities,

Malunguinho argues,

What you see is an attempt to incorporate [Black women] (but really appropriate) in the discourses, but not for Black women to come forth as powerful beings. They only are brought forth [in politics] as the receivers of public policy, never as the creators of public policy. So politics that are effectively propositional in relation to these groups, they need to aim for emancipation. What we see repeatedly are discourses that don’t aim for this, they look to sustain, and obviously there’s a vested interest in a protection that’s necessary, but the discourses don’t aim for emancipation and true autonomy.262

The necessity for a rotation of power for Malunguinho and politicians like her is that poor Black communities, especially Black women, are constructed by the state to be a concern. Still, they have had little say in the best way to solve the problems they face. Therefore, the type of solutions that the most oppressed Black communities in Brazil receive are not tools to thrive but rather scraps for survival. Malunguinho’s political ideology goes beyond simple Black survival: she considers how the political sphere can work with Black communities to achieve Black freedom. She continually argues that without the intellectual and political participation of Black people and ideas, the solutions to Black people's problems will fall short of creating a path to emancipation. However, due to violence towards Black and LGBTQ communities, Malunguinho understands the necessity of speaking for those who cannot enter the room. In an address to

262 Erica Malunguinho, in discussion with the author (in São Paulo), April 2019. Poe 157

ALESP on April 29th, 2019, Representative Malunguinho called forth Matheusa Passarelli's memory, a Black trans undergraduate student at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) who was brutally assassinated the previous year.263 She brings the memory and voice of

Passarelli into the space ALESP to call attention to the violent LGBTQ-phobic actions that happen daily in Brazil that are in many ways culturally sanctioned. She brings her voice to the table as a state representative and the voices of people in her community who have not been elected to congress to make them part of the decision-making process.

When Malunguinho advocates for her community, she acknowledges the complicated and sometimes conflicting voices within the community she represents. On the day of the confrontation between Representative Garcia and Representative Malunguinho, the family members of military police officers killed in combat were sitting on the balcony of ALESP to call attention to military police's rising deaths officers and their disposability. Before starting her address disagreeing with the proposed law by Representative Moraes, Erica began by showing solidarity to the families of killed police officers:

My father was also a military police officer…Some people don’t think about the death of military police. It’s exactly in thinking of the death of people, military or civilians, that the discourse that I’ve always put forth here about public safety, it can’t be a discourse that speaks only of the politics of arming oneself. A discourse about public safety needs to obviously think about education, redistribution of wealth, access to material and immaterial goods. To think of public safety, we need to think about how to decrease violence. To decrease violence, it is necessary to guarantee access to people that are deprived from their basic rights to life264

As the family member of a police officer, Erica draws attention to the fact that police officers are also part of the community she speaks for in her radical representational politics. Amnesty

263 Igi Ayedun, “What It's like to Be Black and Lgbtq in Brazil,” Vice Magazine, 25 Oct. 2018, i- d.vice.com/en_us/article/wj93ab/what-its-like-to-be-black-and-lgbtq-in-brazil. 264 “DEPUTADO TRANSFÓBICO AMEAÇA TRANS A TAPA - Erica Malunguinho.” Youtube. YouTube T, April 4, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZnw-DtMELs&t=18s. Poe 158

International reported in 2018 that 77 percent of the young people assassinated in Brazil are

Black, and many of these assassinations are by police officers. In 2019, the national geography and statistics institute (IBGE) found that 64 percent of those killed by police in the state of São

Paulo were Black,265despite the state having a majority white population of 60 percent. While the

Black civilian community is extremely affected by the violent military occupation of their communities, Black police officers are also disproportionately affected by the violence of military police actions. Despite being around 37 percent of the police population in 2017 and

2018, Black police officers represent more than 51 percent of the police officer deaths in

Brazil.266 Therefore, as Malunguinho highlights, both Black civilian and military citizens are faced with genocidal violence that affects them at rates disproportionate to their demographic presence. Understanding the ways in which police officers, Black and white, have been controlled by the conservative right wing in a project of eliminating “criminals” through this genocidal project, Malunguinho shows solidarity with the struggle of police officers through showing their deaths as interconnected with the deaths of those identified and targeted by the state as “bandidos.” Malunguinho challenges the common conservative Brazilian’s belief in the need for more armed civilians for safety measures by showing the violent challenges for those already trained to use guns. She also advocates for the state to invest in changing the material conditions of disenfranchised communities as a solution to the violent confrontations that plague both the police and civilians. Her direct conversation with the families of police officers killed in

265 Leonardo Martins, “Em SP, 64% Das Pessoas Mortas Pela PM No Ano Passado Eram Pretas Ou Pardas.” Notícias. UOL, March 4, 2019. https://noticias.uol.com.br/cotidiano/ultimas-noticias/2019/03/04/60-pessoas-mortas- pm-sao-negras-sao-paulo-2018.htm. 266 Because these percentages are based on self-declaration of race/color classification, the percentages of Black police officers killed are most likely higher due to a lack of self-declaration of many Black (preto and pardo) police officers as Black. Source: Alessi, Gil. “‘Quando Falamos Em Genocídio Da Juventude Negra, Precisamos Incluir Também a Morte Dos Jovens Policiais.’” EL PAÍS, January 1, 2020. https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2020-01- 01/quando-falamos-em-genocidio-da-juventude-negra-precisamos-incluir-tambem-a-morte-dos-jovens- policiais.html?%3Fssm=TW_BR_CM&hootPostID=75e02073cf6c65e718a1e3d840e131cd. Poe 159

the line of combat comes also from a place of representation, as she offers herself as someone who represents their standpoint and struggle. The radical potential available in Malunguinho’s

Quilomboismo and representatividade is shown through the navigation of her own social positions and solution-finding for those with whom she shares social positions. For

Malunguinho, being the daughter of a Black military police officer could not have led her to the conclusion that criminals, largely defined as poor and Black, deserve to be eliminated. Her navigations of her own intersectional standpoints allow her to bring together conflicting communities to work towards a freer future for them all.

The central project that Malunguinho and her team have been working on since her election has been a statewide expansion of the program Transcidadania, a program from the city of São Paulo instituted in 2015 by Fernando Haddad’s mayor’s office. The program provides low income trans participants with education and work training to to sustain themselves independently after two years. The program also provides trainings on how to navigate transphobia and discrimination faced by trans people in the workforce and in general society. As many trans people in Brazil are pushed out of education spaces at an early age due to transphobic violence, Transcidadania gives trans people another chance at education and full participation in society. Malunguinho has presented extensively on the project on the floor of ALESP, justifying the need for the project due to the overwhelming exclusion and violence trans people receive in the whole of Brazil and specifically in the state of São Paulo. Besides this project, Malunguinho has also proposed the creation of a trans population census to understand, in depth, the lives of trans people in the state of São Paulo as well as comprehend the barriers and violences trans people face. As Malunguinho states in her project,

It is impossible for the government to create effective public policies without having a correct diagnostic of the reality that travestis and transgender people Poe 160

face. To have this understanding of trans people and travetis is not just to make them visible, but to give visibility to these existences, producing information and, afterwards, requiring policies for the humanization of this population.267

Both Transcidadania and the project for a trans population census work to deconstruct the institutional transphobia faced by trans populations and to usher in more freedoms for the community. Representative Malunguinho’s advocacy for trans populations inside ALESP speaks to the kind of representative politics she finds best-- in having people from oppressed communities who have faced these struggles or who have discussed them in community to be the ones who create public policies and programs for the community. Malunguinho’s belief in a rotation of power infuses the trans underrepresented voices that she counts herself as part of. In representing herself by making space for others like her, she continues to embody the work of radical representational politics.

Outside of her projects for the trans community, Malunguinho has also worked on projects that democratize rights for her community and all oppressed people. She proposed a law enforcing the rights of traditional communities such as Quilombos and Indigenous Aldeias and expanded the state resources available for maintaining these lands in the leadership of their communities. While the Workers’ Party promised land rights to traditional communities in

Brazil, the country has been slow at guaranteeing those rights,268 and with a retrograde conservative government following the Workers’ Party’s exit, the lands of traditional communities have come under serious attack.269 Malunguinho’s defense of traditional

267 Erica Malunguinho, “Projeto De Lei n 491 / 2019.” Assembleia Legislativa do Estado de São Paulo, April 17, 2019. https://www.al.sp.gov.br/propositura/?id=1000264113. 268 Araújo, Eduardo F. de, and Givânia Maria da Silva. "RACISMO E VIOLÊNCIA CONTRA QUILOMBOS NO BRASIL." CONSELHO EDITORIAL 21, no. 2 (2019): 196-208. 269 Jair Bolsonaro was sued in 2018 for his racist remarks against Quilombo and African-descended communities in Brazil, accusing them of laziness and lack of productivity. Source: “Denunciado Por Racismo, Bolsonaro Vai a Evento De Quilombolas.” Exame. Exame, July 13, 2018. https://exame.abril.com.br/brasil/denunciado-por-racismo- bolsonaro-vai-a-evento-de-quilombolas/. Poe 161

communities defends Black communities, which she represents, but it also defends indigenous communities and those of poor white fisherpeople, among others. In advocating for all traditional communities, Malunguinho understands that the discrimination these different communities face is unique yet interrelated and that eliminating barriers to their full rights over their lands and opportunities to develop it sustainably will help to eliminate the possibilities of further oppression of these communities. Malunguinho also co-authored a law for the aid, protection, and assistance of police officers that are wounded in service. She co-authored this law with various other representatives, including Douglas Garcia, showing, again, solidarity with police who are victims of their violent line of work. In all of these law proposals that Representative

Malunguinho has authored or co-authored, she has shown herself in solidarity with São Paulo’s communities where violence and oppression is prevalent even if this is not the same violence that

Malunguinho has faced. Her choice to use her parliamentary power to institutionalize policies for communities different than her own shows that her representational politics go beyond an analysis of how systems of power affect only her community. Malunguinho participates in the radical identity politics that Cohen calls attention to by using her analysis of power from the standpoint of someone who is oppressed to analyze and work to deconstruct all societal inequalities.

Representatividade: Humanizing the Struggles of the Oppressed

The 2017 Minneapolis City Council election was historic as the city took part in electing two Black trans city council members to the city council: Andrea Jenkins, Black trans woman poet and historian, and Phillipe Cunningham, a Black trans man, former teacher, and policy aide.

This made Jenkins the first openly Black trans woman to be elected to public office in the Poe 162

country270, and Minneapolis the first city council to have two Black trans people to serve at the same time in a major city in the United States. Jenkins, a historian of the trans experience and longtime activist for queer and trans communities centralized her community in her platforms as a newly elected councilperson. This continued her long work of understanding her personal struggles as interconnected with her community. Jenkins’s political work centers trans people, especially Black trans people. She aims to help people understand that the oppression of Black trans people is the oppression of us all, and their freedom means freedom for all. Through policy and planned projects, Jenkins infuses her work as an elected official with a representatividade and radical queer politics.

In an interview reflecting on her first year as a city councilperson, Jenkins centralized marginalized communities in her work. She said,

Minneapolis is one of the most amazing cities in the country, but the African- Americans, people of color, LGBTQ communities, marginalized people don’t have the same opportunities in Minneapolis as the broader population does, so I wanted to be a part of changing that and really trying to address some of the inequities in our city.271

As a Black person and a trans woman, Jenkins is a member of all of the communities she listed that don’t have the same opportunities in Minneapolis. She creates opportunities for the communities she is part of through speaking up. Her stated purpose as a city councilperson is directly in line with the rights and freedoms of all those in the multiple marginalized communities that comprise her identity. . In discussing the future of her mandate, she stated,

In the next two years I am really focused on creating more racial equity within the city of Minneapolis which means I hope to see every policy that we make, every dollar that we spend...that it has some focus on creating greater equity for women,

270 Althea Garrison in Boston was the first Black trans woman to be elected to public office, but was not openly trans when elected. 271 “Andrea Jenkins: The First Black Trans Woman to Hold Public Office In The U.S. | Think | NBC News.” Youtube. NBC News, November 16, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w9jscPCDKI. Poe 163

for people of color, for young people in our communities, particularly for LGBT identified community members.272

Jenkins’s focus on equity for marginalized communities in everything that is done in the city highlights the far-reaching scale of her centering of marginalized communities. Just as

Representative Malunguinho elaborated, Jenkins understands the oppression that marginalized communities face in Minneapolis is historically rooted and deeply ingrained in the daily functions of the city. Jenkins’s “every dollar” call for economic equity when addressing the living conditions of marginalized Black and LGBTQ communities pushes addressing inequality to the center of everything that is done in the city. Jenkins’s lived experiences as a Black trans woman in Minneapolis are essential in understanding the severity of the problem of inequality and the kind of equity that is needed to provide redress.

Jenkins refuses a fragmented identity politics that attempts to focus on one issue at a time, separating different axes of power, such as race, gender, sexuality, class, etc.. Instead, she works to address all marginalized communities and puts attention on the betterment of all of these communities simultaneously. She executes radical queer politics that seeks solidarity between all oppressed people and addresses the intertwinement of the multiple systems of power that cause the suffering of marginalized communities. As Jenkins analyzes her own intersectional identity as a Black trans woman in her poetry book The T Is Not Silent, “For me, these two identities are inseparably joined at the hip and given equal status in terms of my artistic and civic advocacy.”273 Jenkins’s own lived experience of intersectionality therefore acts as both a bridge between communities and a destabilizer for power structures. When Jenkins enters politics as a

Black LGBTQ person, it is not to serve as a token or tiptoe around power structures to help some

272 Andrea Jenkins: The First Black Trans Woman to Hold Public Office In The U.S. | Think | NBC News.” Youtube. NBC News, November 16, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w9jscPCDKI. 273 Jenkins, The T Is Not Silent. Poe 164

in her community but leave the power structures largely intact, but to deconstruct the inequalities put in place through years of purposeful oppression.

While Jenkins works toward a representatividade, that radically imposes equity for the communities she is part of, she also is committed to the work of representação through showing herself as a representative of the Black trans community. . Through her poetry and research,

Jenkins has sought to document and complicate the stories of trans people, especially Black trans people. In a Tedx event in Minneapolis about a year before her election as city councilperson,

Jenkins took this task to the stage. Reciting a mix between her poems “Black Pearl” and “A

Requiem for the Queers (or why we wear the color purple,” Jenkins narrates,

We certainly understand that not all humans are transgender. But we must also understand that all transgender people are human. And why must I say human? Because there are people out there who will deny our humanity, our very existence. People who want to dictate when and where transgender people can use the bathroom. People who murder us with impunity citing the transgender panic defense...And what is the transgender panic defense you ask? It’s when a perpetrator cites that he, and it usually almost always is a male, was tricked into believing that she was a woman, but she was trans, and therefore murder is justified.274

While the idea of humanity is already fraught and rooted in white supremacist and heteropatriarchal assumptions that deem those dominant as human and those subjugated, particularly Black people, as subhuman,275 the political imperative for Jenkins to claim trans people, especially Black trans people, as human is to protect their right to life under the law. As

Jenkins points out, the project of dehumanizing people is to sanction their genocidal elimination from society. The existence of laws such as the transgender panic defense is only possible through the dehumanization of trans people and subsequent legitimizing of violence against

274Andrea Jenkins, “Why I Wear Purple | Andrea Jenkins | TEDxMinneapolis.” Youtube. Tedx Talks, October 20, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEC7JuImENg. 275 Katherine McKittrick, Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle (Minneapolis; London: University of Minnesota Press, 2006). Poe 165

them. The violence is acceptable because trans people are an offense to humanity, according to the logic of society. Jenkins’s action of speaking publicly about her experiences as a Black trans woman, documenting the lives and histories of the trans community, and entering politics as a city councilperson works against this dehumanizing narrative, because Jenkins works to be visible as a Black trans woman and vocal about what the trans experience is. Jenkins’s representation, unapologetic visibility, and translation of the transgender experience for larger society works to prevent the deaths of more trans people at the hands of transphobia. Jenkins’s mere presence and voice as a trans politician works to deconstruct the dehumanizing narrative given to trans people and reclaim a narrative of trans humanity and inclusion.

Continuing the work of humanizing trans experiences, Jenkins’s representation and rhetoric also works to build a bridge between trans people and non-trans people to see their fates as interlocked. Jenkins points this out with the North Carolina bathroom bill, a bill passed in

2016 that states that people can only use the bathrooms of their assigned sex at birth276, saying,

“Many of these bills not only target transgender people, they aim to limit all of our civil rights.”277 While these bathroom bills put transgender people on the front lines of state and state- sanctioned violence by prohibiting people to use the bathroom associated with their gender identity, Jenkins makes the argument that these bills are part of a larger project to control and restrict the lives of all. Her argument rests on the fact that restrictions to gender expression as it relates to controlling people’s movement through space will restrict the gender expressions of all, cisgender and trans gender people. In addition, she points out that these bills are connected to laws that aim to limit the growth of the minimum wage and block the rights of minority groups

276 Michael Gordon et al., “Understanding HB2: North Carolina’s Newest Law Solidifies State’s Role in Defining Discrimination,” The Charlotte Observer, March 30, 2017. https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics- government/article68401147.html. 277 Jenkins, “Why I Wear Purple.” Poe 166

to file discrimination suits against their employers. Therefore, these bills to restrict the rights to express gender are connected to the struggle to restrict all human freedoms. Jenkins invokes this to look to create solidarity between cisgender and transgender communities. This goes beyond the goal of humanizing trans people in the eyes of cisgender people and introduces an analysis of power that implicates cisgender people as well in the subjugation that trans people face. Jenkins understanding the entanglement of systems of power helps to understand that systems of power aren’t neatly parsed out one at a time, but function together to collectively marginalize various groups at the same time. Thus, recognizing trans people as human and respecting their right to life is one step, but understanding cisgender battles as interconnected to the battles of trans people is the next step. Here, Jenkins invokes a radical form of identity politics that critically analyzes how various marginalizations work to oppress multiple identity groups simultaneously.

Jenkins radicalizes our understandings of how systems of power work and invites cisgender people into a fight they thought didn’t affect them.

Jenkins’s fight to build bridges and to create empathy between communities is meticulously done through an analysis of how identity and power work in society. Jenkins’s infusion of representatividade allows her to be able to speak to the broad needs of her own communities, advocating for them within the city council, while also pushing those outside her communities to stand up for the struggles of her community. Just as Cathy Cohen’s centering of a radical queer politics in the experience of all who resist the restrictive norms of society, Jenkins eloquently explains to all the necessity of seeing the ways trans subjugation, or racism, works to restrict the freedoms of all. Jenkins works to humanize the historically dehumanized and shift the conditions these communities live under to create freer futures for marginalized communities. Poe 167

She centers equity for the marginalized and calls all to rally for that fight, utilizing the lived experiences of all whose lives are restricted by systems of power to lure them to the battle.

Representação: Identity As a Weapon

Upon first witnessing the video of Erica Malunguinho and Douglas Garcia’s confrontation on the floor of ALESP, I was unaware of Garcia’s sexuality. When the news broke about his sexuality days later, I was shocked by how someone who was both Black and LGBTQ could support such a political ideology from a multi-oppressed standpoint. However, I stopped to reflect, asking myself if Blackness or racial oppression is something Garcia identifies with in his life. Garcia’s facial features read as someone who could fit into the color category of pardo, or

Brown, due to his Black facial features, but light tan skin. His connection to Blackness is clear, but his lightness suggests the option of a pardo classification rather than preto. The national

Brazilian census organization IBGE, after years of research about the social position of pretos

(Blacks) and pardos (Browns) in Brazil and advocacy from the Black movement that has argued that the separation of the color categories of preto and pardo only goes to obscure a Black majority in the country,278 considers pretos and pardos as part of one Black racial category

(making distinct race and color). However, through my ethnographic observations, I have found that just because the census and parts of the Black movement consider this to be fact, this understanding does not necessarily arrive to all Brazilian households, especially in peripheral

278 During the Abertura period of democratization during the military dictatorship, Black activist organizations in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo pushed the national census organization, IBGE, to organize all color categories used for African descended peoples to be grouped under the racial category of negro, Black, for the 1980 census. The argument was pushed by these groups to be able to prove that Black people in Brazil were a numerical majority. Sources: Paulina L Alberto, Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century Brazil, UNC Press Books, 2011; Sales Augusto dos Santos, "Who is Black in Brazil? A Timely or a False Question in Brazilian Race Relations in the Era of Affirmative Action?" Latin American Perspectives 33, no. 4 (2006): 30-48. Poe 168

neighborhoods in places like São Paulo where Garcia hails. Majority Black (preto and pardo) communities find great significance in these color hierarchies.

Scholar activist Abdias do Nascimento reflects on color hierarchies in Brazil and how they contribute to the goal of racial and social whitening for Black populations in Brazil. In analyzing the racial census data from colonial Brazil to the 1950s, Nascimento argues,

[These statistics] show a portrait clearly manipulating the reality, knowing the social pressures that are put upon Black people in Brazil, coercion capable of producing the subculture that brings an identification with whiteness. Therefore, we have light mulatos describing themselves as white, Black people describing themselves as mulatos, pardos, or mestiços.279

Nascimento shows that Black communities in Brazil have historically used color classifications as tools to escape the weight of racial discrimination and highlight a closeness to whiteness.

Lighter skinned African descendants in Brazil have the ability to become white through a combination of racial and social choices. These choices in turn work in tandem with a complex system of genocide of Blackness in Brazil. Nascimento continues,

These statistics show not just the decline, in numbers per se of Black people; they reflect the graver fact: The whitening ideal subtly infused into the Afro-Brazilian population, on one hand; and on the other, the coercive power in the hands of the ruling classes (white people) manipulating as an instrument capable of giving or denying the African descendant access and mobility to socio-political and economic positions.280

In this context, racial and social whitening have the effect of bettering one's own social conditions in Brazil, and a de-investment in Blackness becomes incentivized. Therefore, the choice of Garcia or any other light skinned Black politician to identify as preto, pardo, or branco is part of a process of negotiating social mobility versus racial empowerment. As Nascimento

279 Abdias Nascimento, O Genocídio do Negro Brasileiro: Processo de um Racismo Mascarado. Editora Perspectiva SA, 2016. Translation by author. 280 Ibid. Poe 169

argues, social mobility has historically been linked with racial and social whitening. The choice

Garcia makes, therefore, illuminates his own racial and political investments.

Days after the confrontation between Malunguinho and Garcia, I went to an event at

Aparelha Luzia that Malunguinho attended, and I decided to ask her how she viewed him. In their confrontation on the floor of ALESP, Malunguinho spoke to both her and Garcia’s poor and peripheral backgrounds. As Jaime Amparo Alves argues in his work Anti-Black City: Police

Terror and Black Urban Life in Brazil about the racial structuring of Brazilian urban geography,

“‘Brazilian Apartheid’ is the result of the state’s policies aimed at maintaining white supremacy through the cumulative process of denying land rights, job opportunities, and Black Brazilians’ right to the city since the postcolonial period.”281 Therefore, despite the racial heterogeneity of the peripheral space in São Paulo, the marking of these spaces as the only geographical sites where Black people are allowed freer access, marks the periphery as a racialized Black space.

Understanding the way that the periphery is racialized, I read Malunguinho’s conversation about their shared poor backgrounds as a subtle reference to their shared racial classification. When

Malunguinho entered Aparelha Luzia that Saturday evening, Daniel and I rushed over to her.

There is always a line to give her a warm hug and converse with her given her popularity amongst all who attend Aparelha Luzia. We opened the conversation with the news that Garcia had come out, and Malunguinho giggled along with us and playfully said, “Bicha, can you believe I dragged him right out of the closet?” We commended her for her calm yet righteously angry response to Garcia, and the way she channeled that anger into immediate action. I told her my interpretation of her talk about class and subtle reference to race, and she confirmed that my reading was correct, but when my friend Daniel asked if she thought that Garcia saw himself as

281 Jaime Amparo Alves, The Anti-Black City: Police Terror and Black Urban Life In Brazil (U Of Minnesota Press, 2018). Poe 170

Black, she responded that she had no idea, but probably not. She then reiterated that regardless of how he sees (or imagines) himself, that doesn’t change how the world sees him.

While researching Garcia’s racial self-classification, I came across a documentary produced by Vice Magazine Brasil that covered the rise of the far right in Brazil among young people in which Doulgas Garcia was extensively interviewed before his campaign for state representative. While he makes no mention of race or color in his interviews, in his tour of his house, he shows a myriad of signs that point to an identification with Blackness, at least at one point in his life. In figure 2 and 3, screenshots from the Vice documentary, Garcia shows the pictures that decorate the wall of his room. The wall prominently features three Black male figures, Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid activist and former president of South Africa, Barack

Obama, the first Black president of the United States, and Joaquim Barbosa, a Black jurist from the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court (STF) from 2003 until 2014. The photo of Joaquim Barbosa has written in the top corner, “Nigga in Justice,” while the photo of Barack Obama has “Nigga in

Presidency” written in its top corner. These three pictures and the inscription on two of them suggest a pride in these three Black men’s ascension in the political world. The two inscriptions highlight the centrality of being Black in prominent political roles, beginning both with a “nigga in…” The colloquial Black English spelling of “nigga” also nods to an investment in a Black diasporic relationship that Garcia had sought out at one point in his life. Garcia points out to the

Vice journalist that his wall has changed over time as he changed his political perspectives to conservative. While the photos of Mandela, Obama, and Barbosa might not be an indicator of his current racial self-image, it does suggest that at one point in life, his connection with Black identity led to a pride in important Black figures, specifically calling attention to their success as

Black people. Poe 171

Figure 7 - Garcia’s Room

Figure 8 - Garcia’s Room Poe 172

However, despite all of these indicators of how he is seen and how he has seen himself in the past, Garcia’s official racial and color classification with ALESP is white.282 Garcia’s self- classification is baffling, but not surprising. As Gomes de Oliveira explains in her work, Black people entering spaces of power that are initially hostile to them often experience these spaces working to depoliticize their identities, whitening them to “neutralize” their potential threat to deconstruct the systems that uphold those in power.283 Abdias do Nascimento’s explanation of social mobility being tied to Black people’s ability to socially whiten themselves also helps to understand Garcia’s choice. Whitening for light-skinned Afro-Brazilians is to choose social mobility over a Black racial consciousness. Therefore, choosing light-skinned privilege and opting out of Blackness is a convenient ploy for both Garcia to be able to fit in with his political ideology and for the conservative right who embraces nationalism through social and racial whitening. For example, Hamilton Mourão, Brazil’s vice-president, touted the whitening of his family to reporters while campaigning with Bolsonaro. He enthusiastically connected the beauty of his grandson to the whitening of his family.284 Mourão, a person who clearly shows signs of

African ancestry in his features, compares himself to his grandson, whose appearance is white, to positively laud the whitening process he played a part in. These contemporary praises for racial whitening in Brazilian families of African descent from the conservative right continue the long

Brazilian legacy of whitening the image of the Brazilian nation.285 To opt out of Blackness and

282 Douglas Garcia’s official information from his 2018 campaign identifies his racial/color classification as white. Source: “Eleições 2018: Douglas Garcia Deputado Estadual 17064.” Estadão. Accessed February 15, 2021. https://politica.estadao.com.br/eleicoes/2018/candidatos/sp/deputado-estadual/douglas-garcia,17064. 283 Oliveira, Megg Rayara Gomes de. "O diabo em forma de gente:(r) existências de gays afeminados, viados e bichas pretas na educação." PhD diss., Tese (Doutorado em Educação)–Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação, UFPR, Curitiba, 2017. 284 Antonio Temóteo, “General Mourão Cita ‘Branqueamento Da Raça’ Ao Falar Que Seu Neto é Bonito.” UOL Eleições 2018, UOL, 6 Oct. 2018, noticias.uol.com.br/politica/eleicoes/2018/noticias/2018/10/06/mourao-cita- branqueamento-da-raca-ao-falar-que-seu-neto-e-bonito.htm. 285Barbara Weinstein, The Color of Modernity: São Paulo and The Making Of Race And Nation In Brazil. Duke University Press, 2015. Poe 173

to be believed and accepted as not Black anymore is in service of the workings of white supremacy within the conservative right. Garcia’s racial decisions starkly constrast those of Erica

Malunguinho, whose political decision to represent and connect to Blackness is independent from her darker complexion and features that easily read as Black. Malunguinho chooses Black racial consciousness and community over social mobility through whitening. Yet, despite

Garcia’s choice of social and racial whitening over Blackness, for other light-skinned Afro-

Brazilians from the periphery he still may serve as a representative force for them. Analyzing

Garcia’s careful navigation and weaponization of this representation, both as a peripheral racialized subject and as a gay man, is integral to understanding the opportunistic uses of representational politics for Black LGBT politicians.

While Garcia is a representative from a far-right party, he sees himself as representing the interests of the periphery. Garcia used to be a leftist but changed his political positions over time.

In the interview with Vice News the representative speaks to these changes in his ideology, explaining,

When my professor told me, “Ah Douglas, you are a leftist,” I asked: “What is a leftist?” “To be a leftist is to fight for the poor. To be a leftist is to always defend the workers.” Then I must be a leftist because I’m poor, because I’m a worker, so I have to be a leftist. But when I began to perceive that when women go to the streets and take off their clothes in the middle of Paulista Avenue and begin yelling to defend their positions, saying that there exists a rape culture and it needs to end, I don’t believe that that is the best way to destroy rape culture, if it actually exists.286

Garcia cites the beginning of his political journey by locating his own social position and placing himself in solidarity with those who share that same oppression. He enters his trajectory on the left because he understands the left as the defenders of his community. However, as he explains,

286 “O Mito De Bolsonaro: o Que Pensam e Como Se Organizam Seus Apoiadores?” Youtube. Vice Brasil, August 3, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBg6vkwcOxM. Poe 174

his fight against what he considers an improper and indecent display of gender and womanhood becomes more important and changes his trajectory from defending the working poor. Garcia’s rejection of women showing their bodies as a form of protest for their rights against violence pushes him in line with conservative ideologies that denounce these actions. Here, he marks himself as an impassioned activist against “gender ideology, “which he blames for these kinds of immoral acts. Garcia explains his and the rest of Direta São Paulo’s commitment to this battle saying, “We are not Bolsonaro’s activism team, but we end up supporting him against gender ideology...for the protection of the lives of our children, for innocence.”287 Judith Butler, a recipient of much of the vitriol launched by the Brazilian conservative right, explains the right’s construction of gender ideology saying,

This backlash against “gender ideology” took shape in 2004 when the Pontifical Council on the Family wrote a letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church signaling the potential of “gender” to destroy feminine values important to the Church; to foster conflict between the sexes; and to contest the natural, hierarchical distinction between male and female upon which family values and social life are based.288

As Butler explains, the religious right’s insistence on an ideology attacking gender is truthfully tied up in a desire to uphold heteropatriarchal gender hierarchies that the Christian church relies upon. The protest of a “gender ideology” that references gender theories that acknowledge gender as a social construction and argue for people to construct their gender for themselves rejects the freedom and autonomy that these theories allow in the name of upholding established hierarchy. Therefore, Garcia’s reaction to women protesters’ choice to show their bodies to protest the violence of rape culture, upheld by heteropatriarchal hierarchies and subtle denial of

287 “O Mito De Bolsonaro: o Que Pensam e Como Se Organizam Seus Apoiadores?” Youtube. Vice Brasil, August 3, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBg6vkwcOxM. 288 Butler, Judith. “Judith Butler: the backlash against ‘gender ideology’ must stop,” January 21, 2019. http://www.newstatesman.com/2019/01/judith-butler-backlash-against-gender-ideology-must-stop.

Poe 175

the existence of the violence they are protesting, shows his investment in upholding these hierarchies. Douglas’s central political questions drastically changed from his concerns for the working poor, his community, and the defense of their rights, to an enforcement of normalized gender and morality. The concerns about gender and morality do not seem to be rooted in protecting children from violence but protecting adults from the mayhem of children not following the strict categories they have made for them. As Butler outlines,

Denying these political freedoms, as the Pope and many Evangelicals are wont to do, leads to dire consequences...young people would be denied knowledge about the actual spectrum of gendered lives...Teaching gender equality and sexual diversity calls into question the repressive dogma that has cast so many gender and sexual lives into the shadows, without recognition and deprived of any sense of futurity.289

As Butler indicates, theories about gender are intended to deconstruct the hierarchies and oppression rooted in gender, not to impose violence on anyone, young or old. Butler’s explanation invalidates the claim of Garcia and many conservatives that the reason behind the fight against gender ideology is to protect children. Butler’s arguments show how those opposing gender ideologies wish to uphold gender hierarchies that oppress. Therefore, Garcia’s shift from an interest in defending the working poor to a fight against gender ideology shows a move from defending the oppressed to upholding oppression. In Garcia’s past defense of the poor and working class, the clear threat of violence came from worker exploitation and poverty. Garcia himself experienced these things, so his fight to defend others who passed through similar exploitations was drawn from a representatividade or want to defend the lives and political interests of his community. But his conservative turn and focus on “gender ideology” abandons that fight for the community and turns into a different kind of power struggle.

289 Judith Butler, “Judith Butler: the backlash against ‘gender ideology’ must stop,” January 21, 2019. http://www.newstatesman.com/2019/01/judith-butler-backlash-against-gender-ideology-must-stop. Poe 176

Garcia and Direta São Paulo’s support of Jair Bolsonaro comes from their shared battle against “gender ideology.” However, Jair Bolsonaro’s infamous violent comments about the

LGBTQ community show himself as a staunch enemy of the rights of LGBTQ people.290

Garcia’s eventual coming out and remaining dedication to the right and the party of Bolsonaro at the time show that the fight against “gender ideology” is more important than the defense of his own community from homophobic rhetoric. Speaking at a rally against a Judith Butler speech at

SESC Pinheiros in São Paulo, he says,

Today we came to object this woman who came to bring and disseminate more about gender ideology in our country. In addition, Juliana, the gay community is also absolutely against gender ideology, because it doesn’t come to bring any time of equity, or isn’t against homophobia, it only brings erotiziation of our children.291

Garcia in this moment uses the gay male community as ammunition in the battle against “gender ideology.” He couples his fragile argument that gender ideology aims to eroticize children with the support of gay men against the ideology, making the argument that gay men are on the side of dominant gender norms and hierarchies. However, Garcia willingly weaponizes his gay male community in the fight against gender ideology, a fight that he argues is not against the gay community but indifferent to them but refuses to question the homophobia that the presidential candidate from his future political party spouts. Garcia lends his open support to a president that has advocated for violence against the community that Garcia himself represents, but this is not sufficient for the representative to withdraw his support. Garcia once again shows how instead of

290 Bolsonaro since before his presidential campaign and during his presidential mandate has been cited in various instances of violent homophobic rhetoric. The most prominent example was in a Vice documentary series “Gaycation” with host Ellen Page where she interviewed Bolsonaro for an episode on homophobia in Brazil in 2016. Bolsonaro insisted in the interview that if his own son were gay he would punish him to be able to “correct” his behavior. 291 “O Mito De Bolsonaro: o Que Pensam e Como Se Organizam Seus Apoiadores?” Youtube. Vice Brasil, August 3, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBg6vkwcOxM. Poe 177

representing the interests and rights of his community, he chooses to weaponize his community in an ideological battle that is more about exertion of power and control than defense against oppression.

While he works to defend this exertion of power to reject “gender ideology,” he still invokes communities he is part of, such as gay men, to further his ideological battle. Instead of invoking LGBTQ communities to work on their behalf and in their best interest, he works to prove that he doesn’t have to be part of the LGBTQ struggle for justice just because he is a

LGBTQ represetnative. In an interview about his coming out after the ALESP confrontation with

Erica Malunguinho, Garcia said,

[The media] just spread an image of me so distorted that people that I had relations with began to look into publicizing my private life. They wanted to put it as if I was this closeted gay man that until then was hiding the story and, because of this, I was offending everyone. That has nothing to do with this. I have always combatted and will continue to combat the LGBT movement. I continue being radically against the LGBT movement, but now with even more credibility.292

Again, Garcia marks himself as an LGBT person working against the LGBTQ movement. His work against the LGBTQ movement doesn’t suggest working towards a better alternative for

LGBTQ people, but rather seems to just take advantage of his representation, or representação, to work against the community he represents. While critiques of a movement are valid, Garcia’s well-developed work against “gender ideology” juxtaposed with a blanket rejection and combating of the LGBTQ movement shows a more vested interest in the exertion of power than the establishment of a better life for those who share his identity.

Despite this active struggle against the movement of the LGBTQ community, Garcia himself seems to believe that his presence in government works to deconstruct negative

292 Sergio Roxo and Tiago Aguiar, “Deputado Do PSL-SP Que Atacou Colega Transexual Assume Ser Gay.” O Globo. O Globo, April 5, 2019. https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/deputado-do-psl-sp-que-atacou-colega-transexual- assume-ser-gay-23576606. Translation by author. Poe 178

misconceptions about another one of his communities, poor and peripheral people in São Paulo.

In an interview with the news network of ALESP, Garcia speaks to the criminalizing image of peripheral neighborhoods, which is not in line with the crime that happens there. He argues,

“You find more criminals...in national congress than you do inside peripheral neighborhoods.”

293 Garcia rejects the idea that criminality is born and spread from the periphery because the criminals who produce the largest scale crime are found working within the law and government.

He continues by illuminating the struggles and violences that people from these neighborhoods face, arguing to understand the context of the periphery before simply labelling the periphery as a problem. He explains that the periphery faces more violence than communities living in Iraq during a state of war.294 Garcia’s explanation is rooted in both statistics and his personal experience. He defends the communities from a space of representation, wanting to represent the best image of his community. Analyzing Garcia’s own cleaning of his image, dispelling his leftist views and racially whitening his political and social image, shows an interest in reproducing a cleaner image of the periphery. Therefore, his explanations of the background context of the violence in the periphery, and his own upright and “moral” appearance, while also condemning “real criminals” both in the periphery and in congress, work to clean, if not whiten, the image of the periphery.

The attempt to shift the focus away from the periphery and put it back on the “real criminals” is in service of what Garcia views as the best option for people from the periphery to face the violence in their communities: laws to allow the arming of the civil population. Garcia speaks on the prospect of arming peripheral communities, saying, “When you turn over to the

293 “Autorretrato: Douglas Garcia,” Youtube. Alesp, November 22, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ5Tvn69jes. 294 Ibid. Poe 179

population the power of self-defense, the power of legitimate defense, when you look at the laws and see that they are really being followed...you make the population feel more secure in confronting organized crime.” This point is important because it shows how, on this issue of gun rights, Garcia is concerned with empowering a population he represents that is under the threat of violence. His efforts to clean the image of the periphery is in service of having “innocent” people in the periphery to be seen as victims at the hands of “criminals” who need power put back in their hands. Different from his objections to “gender ideology,” this goal for Garcia is one that directly connects his experience to that of the working poor and wanting to protect them from oppression. His attempts to arm the population are genuine attempts at a kind of representatividade, where Garcia is working for what he believes are the best interests for his community’s well-being.

With this genuine concern about violence within peripheral communities, why then is this paired with the rejection of trans communities and existence? As Garcia explains multiple times, ideology for him is more important than necessarily representing the interests of your community. He elaborates, saying, “I felt the necessity, especially amongst the youth, to give voice to the ideologies that are defended by conservatives, that are believed by a majority in the favelas as well.” Therefore, the central importance in representation for Garcia is representing conservative voices, especially conservative voices from the periphery. The central focus on a conservative ideology, as opposed to an identity politics that thinks through how power structures oppress certain communities, ensures that any parts of his identity that clash with a conservative politics don’t surpass the importance of this conservative ideology. Therefore, his being a gay man is silenced in support of a conservative ideology. His identity is only exposed when his hand is forced. His blackness is whitened to follow a conservative ideology which Poe 180

embraces whiteness and whitening as central to a Brazilian racial project. Oppressed identities are elided in favor of an ideology which seeks to exert power over those who are lacking.

As conservative ideology is the most important factor for Garcia, instead of using his oppressed identities to question his ideology and deconstruct his worldview, he weaponizes his identities in service of a conservative ideological project. When Garcia asks Janaina Paschoal to come out for him on the floor of ALESP, it is directly in service of the political goals of his party, and to pinkwash295 and distract from the violent homophobia in the PSL. Garcia, speaking through Paschoal, elaborates that simply because he is gay doesn’t change his commitment to his political ideology and objection to “gender ideology.” A little over a month after Garcia’s coming out, he appeared on his social media accounts in a photo with a shirt with a rainbow B and the words “Gays with Bolsonaro” engraved on the shirt.296 Garcia posted the picture to show his support for the upcoming May 26th marches for Jair Bolsonaro. Again, Garcia uses his identity to argue that there are gay people who are in support of the right in Brazil, without mention of the violent LGBT-phobia that is endorsed by the leadership of the PSL. He ignores the homophobia of the right, only acknowledging it when it is politically useful for his own conservative ideology. In October 2019, during a public fallout between the leadership of the

PSL and Jair Bolsonaro, Garcia, taking the side of Bolsonaro in the fallout, accuses

Representative Joice Hasselmann of homophobia after she called him a derogatory word for gay

295 Pinkwashing is a term that originates in LGBT activists critique of Israel using the relative gay-friendlyness of the country to hide the violent occupation of Palestinian territory. The term is widely used as a critique of little concessions given to LGBT communities that are propped up to hide conservative acts that propagate violence against oppressed communities, including LGBT people. Source: Jasbir Puar, “Israel's Gay Propaganda War | Jasbir Puar,” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, July 1, 2010, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jul/01/israels-gay-propaganda-war. 296 Figure 4. https://twitter.com/douglasgarcia/status/1132382862525829122?lang=ro Poe 181

men in gest on twitter.297 Garcia even threatened to report her to the ethics committee for the interaction, which many found ironic considering Garcia himself was condemned to the ALESP ethics committee for his transphobic language. Despite Garcia withdrawing his threat, the interaction between him and Hasselmann shows that he is once again willing to use his identity, not in service of LGBTQ people, but in service of his conservative allies, in this case Bolsonaro.

For Garcia, identity becomes a weapon for use as opposed to a lens through which to understand power structures.

Figure 9 - Garcia with “Gays With Bolsonaro” Shirt

297 João Ker, “Deputado Advertido Por Transfobia Acusa Joice Hasselmann De Homofobia.” Revista Híbrida, October 18, 2019. https://revistahibrida.com.br/2019/10/18/deputado-advertido-por-transfobia-acusa-joice- hasselmann-de-homofobia/. Poe 182

It is important to note that Garcia’s main point of attack are trans people, those who he considers as people who purport “gender ideology,” not gay men who uphold gender binaries.

His rejection of trans people and identity highlights power struggles within the LGBTQ community. While being gay marks Garcia as marginalized, his cisgender male identities allow a normative performance of gender and sexuality that does not mark itself as a threat to the conservative right. His participation in the oppression of other less normative identities within the LGBTQ umbrella, such as trans people, works to further guarantee his space within the conservative right. However, these divisions between the struggles of gay men and trans women are historically rooted, and show how gay men, many times, choose privilege and the upholding of gender norms as opposed to choosing a struggle to deconstruct those gender norms, even if that battle does not directly benefit them. Garcia’s staunch dedication to gender norms is the kind of gay politics that Cathy Cohen critiques because it goes against the project of a radical queer politics. Garcia, understanding that gender norms do not prejudicate him so much, works to uphold it at the expense of trans people. Cohen argues, instead, in the lens of radical queer politics, to use your oppressed identities to understand, empathize, and ally with the struggles of other oppressed people different from oneself. Garcia using his own gay identity to understand the nature of sexual oppression to then understand how sexual and gender oppression affect trans people would further this radical queer politics. However, he refuses this work and chooses instead to use his identities as props in service of upholding oppression and exerting power over others.

Douglas Garcia shows a complicated case of representação when it comes to LGBT identities and shows that the only type of representatividade he finds important is that which aligns with his political ideology. There are moments in his political work when he seems Poe 183

genuinely interested in representing the political interests of the periphery. His commitment to changing the rhetoric around people in the periphery is drawn out of a defense of poor working communities in low-income Brazilian communities. Garcia’s arguments for arming civil populations and empowering them to protect themselves is rooted in a struggle for public safety within peripheral communities. However, both of these goals go in line with or do not question the validity of a conservative ideology. When questioned about the defense of Black communities (explicitly stated as such) or LGBTQ communities, Garcia refuses these battles, knowing that they go against his conservative approach. He doesn’t hesitate to use his gay identity or peripheral neighborhood resident to support conservative goals. While Garcia bears the identities of these oppressed communities, fighting for the community is not part of his agenda.

Representação or Representatividade: Who Decides?

In the first paragraph of her “About Me” page for her mayoral campaign website, Lori

Lightfoot cites her commitment to social justice and equity as she pushes for her run for mayor.

It reads, “As mayor, she will work to create opportunity for every Chicagoan—regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, economic status, or neighborhood.”298 Lightfoot’s choice of words, using “regardless” of identities that bear histories of oppression, is curious as the cry for social justice and equity calls for one to think not regardless but especially, placing special emphasis on categories that bear histories of discriminatory treatment to provide redress. Still,

Lightfoot’s intention is clear: to work to create a Chicago that equalizes the playing field for all groups of people. Through interviews, speeches, and plans for her mayoral tenure, Lightfoot

298 Lori Lightfoot, “About Lori Lightfoot • Lightfoot for Chicago Mayor 2019,” Lightfoot for Chicago Mayor 2019, (accessed February 15, 2021) https://lightfootforchicago.com/about-lori/. Poe 184

shows that her intention is to work towards a Chicago that is more just, especially for communities marginalized like the ones she comes from. In her election night speech, she eloquently referenced this goal, stating,

As I stand here today, I can’t help but think of where I came from — and I know, in my heart, that a story like mine of a kid from a working-class family growing up to realize the dreams of my father and mother through education, hard work and sheer determination needs to be the story of possibility in every neighborhood. Kids who look like me and come from families like mine shouldn’t have to beat the odds to get an education, pursue their passions or build a family. Black and brown kids, low-income kids, every kid in this city should grow up knowing they can pursue anything, they can love anyone — that’s my Chicago dream. I know we’re just a little bit closer to that dream as I stand here today, inaugurated as Chicago’s first black woman and first openly gay mayor. I know we’re a little bit closer as we celebrate that, for the first time in the history of Chicago, women of color now hold all three of our citywide elected offices.299

Lightfoot’s stated goals in this speech show an unwavering dedication to equity, and a deep reflection of what representation means for the communities you serve and come from. She expands her own victory to a victory of the oppressed communities she comes from, but also laments the extraordinary challenges she, and subsequently all of her community, had to overcome to be able to get where she has gotten. Lightfoot’s rhetoric suggests an acknowledgement of her own representação, meaning what her success represents for her community, and a commitment to a representatividade and identity politics that works to serve all, especially her own communities. However, representatividade bears an important factor of accountability and whether the issues one thinks are serving their community are held as important by the communities being served. Analyzing the complicated relationship between

299 Lori Lightfoot, “Here's the Full Text of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot's Prepared Inauguration Speech,” chicagotribune.com. The Chicago Tribune, May 20, 2019. https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-met-chicago- mayor-lori-lightfoot-prepared-speech-20190520-story.html.

Poe 185

Lori Lightfoot and Black queer and trans communities in Chicago shows the murkiness of striving for a representatividade and weaponizing one’s own representação.

In 2018 to 2019 when Lori Lightfoot emerged as a mayoral candidate and subsequently entered as one of the two candidates for the runoff election, a group of young Black and Brown led activists organized a movement under the hashtag “#StopLightfoot.” The movement sparked in response to her campaign and the ways that Lightfoot purported herself as a progressive fighting for Black and LGBTQ communities, which this movement saw as a lie. The movement used twitter to counteract Lightfoot’s arguments to her progressivity by providing evidence to the contrary. The Chicago Dyke March Collective published a letter in support of the

#StopLightfoot movement on March 31, 2019, shortly before the runoff election, that opened saying,

Lightfoot continues to weaponize her identity as a Black lesbian to paint herself and her terrifying platform as “progressive,” a tactic we similarly see in Israel’s pinkwashing efforts, and we cannot afford to fall into this trap. Policing, gentrification, housing, immigration, schools, and mental health are all issues that disproportionately impact queer and trans people of color, and Lightfoot’s stances in these areas have been heinous.300

The Chicago Dyke March Collective’s statement in support of #StopLightfoot points to the tensions between Lightfoot’s reliance on her representação as proof of her representatividade, or rather, simply because she is a Black lesbian working within the political sphere saying she is fighting for “social justice” does not mean that she is fighting for the communities she represents, as the collective argues. Their stance echoes the assertions of Djamila Ribeiro and

Erica Malunguinho--simply because one has the individual experience of being a Black lesbian does not guarantee that they are serving the interests of the collective community of Black

300 “HELL NO, NOT IN OUR NAME: CDMC in Solidarity with #StopLightfoot.” Chicago Dyke March Collective, March 31, 2019. https://chidykemarch.wordpress.com/2019/03/31/hell-no-not-in-our-name-cdmc-in- solidarity-with-stoplightfoot/. Poe 186

lesbians, or Black LGBTQ people. The Dyke March Collective charges that Lori Lightfoot’s proximity and defense of the police, as well as lack of solutions for poor Black and Brown homeless populations, prove that her loyalties don’t lie with the Black and Brown vulnerable communities she claims to be beholden to. For them, her allegiance is to the power structures that uphold oppressions that reign upon Black and Brown LGBTQ communities. The Dyke

March Collective continues,

We refuse to see our powerful identities misused by agents of the State to justify the displacement, deportation, harassment, surveillance, murder, and incarceration of our communities. NOT IN OUR NAME. Black Power. Trans Power. Queer Power. Brown Power. Undocumented Power. Sex Worker Power. Street Power. Youth Power.301

This statement serves as a repudiation of any kind of representação and weaponization of marginalized identities to catapult a person into power to work against those communities they represent. The Dyke March Collective makes it clear that the politicians who are from their community but work against their community are dangerous in a distinct way that works to dismantle work that creates power for the collective community. Black power in the statement is a call for collective Black power, instead of the singular power of a Black person who works against the will of the collective.

One of the main disconnects between the Black and Brown LGBTQ activists and Lori

Lightfoot’s campaign relates to her involvement with the Chicago Police Department and what many activists view as a lack of allegiance to the Black community’s suffering and yearning for accountability and freedom from police violence. In the years prior to the election of Lori

Lightfoot, Chicago’s Black communities suffered dearly through the violent murders of multiple

301 “HELL NO, NOT IN OUR NAME: CDMC in Solidarity with #StopLightfoot.” Chicago Dyke March Collective, March 31, 2019. https://chidykemarch.wordpress.com/2019/03/31/hell-no-not-in-our-name-cdmc-in- solidarity-with-stoplightfoot/. Poe 187

unarmed Black people. The names of Rekia Boyd, Laquan McDonald, and Bettie Jones became battle cries in the protest against the police’s treatment of Black people in the city of

Chicago.302Lori Lightfoot saw herself as a mediator, carefully navigating the tensions and frustrations the Black community held with the Chicago Police Department. She boasted on her website running for mayor, saying,

As Chair of the Police Accountability Task Force, Lori created the organizational structure and staffing, and helped facilitate the financing for the independent PATF which conducted an in-depth analysis of the practices of the Chicago Police Department and related entities; issued a detailed report of findings and recommendations on April 13, 2016. Lori designed a process that included significant stakeholder involvement and opportunities for public input.303

Lightfoot saw her work with the Police Accountability Task Force as directly in line with her social justice and equity goals. In her own words, she worked to create a more just police force that minimized brutality and maximized opportunities for citizens to provide input and feel safe.

Lightfoot interpreted her actions as providing a service to her community, riddled with police violence. However, Lightfoot’s image of her own actions did not fully line up with the community’s interpretation of her work. In a video produced by the United Working Families for the #StopLightfoot campaign, Black women activists explain that Lori Lightfoot’s involvement in the Police Accountability Task Force showed them just how much Lightfoot could not be trusted and how her allegiances were not with the Black community. Page May, from the organization Assata’s Daughters, a “Black woman-led, young person-directed organization rooted in the Black Radical Tradition,”304 said the following of Lightfoot’s police work, “She is a

302 Rekia Boyd, Laquand McDonald, and Bettie Jones were three Black people who were all killed by the Chicago police between 2012 and 2015. The three deaths sparked outrage in Chicago’s Black communities about excessive force, as all three were unarmed when they were killed by police officers. 303 Lori Lightfoot, “About Lori Lightfoot • Lightfoot for Chicago Mayor 2019.” Lightfoot for Chicago Mayor 2019. Accessed February 15, 2021. https://lightfootforchicago.com/about-lori/. 304 Assata's Daughters. Accessed February 15, 2021. https://www.assatasdaughters.org/. Poe 188

corporate lawyer who spent decades protecting police officers.”305 Lightfoot’s framing of building a sort of bridge between the community and the police is blown apart by May’s interpretation. For May, her work on police accountability had no accountability to the Black civilian community. May particularly admonishes Lightfoot’s advocacy for a Cop Academy to be built on the space of 38 schools closed by the Chicago Public School System. May recounts,

We were at this big protest demanding No Cop Academy. It was the final vote at City Hall and young people who had been fighting against this for over a year are removed from City Hall and are assaulted by CPD officers in the stairwell and all of this is happening at the same moment that we find out Lori Lightfoot is at a forum at the University of Chicago. When she’s asked, ‘Well, what would you do about the police academy?... That she is saying this at literally the moment that our young people are getting thrown on the ground to the point of bleeding by the CPD...that is offensive and she’s showing her true colors, you just have to look.306

What May is referring to as “offensive” is Lightfoot’s remarks at the University of Chicago about the use of the 38 closed schools. Lighfoot said to the crowd, “We have 38 schools that are vacant from school closings, some of which can be repurposed to help us with our training needs.”307May and other activists are appalled that Lightfoot would remove the possibility of ever re-opening the many needed schools that the district closed and give them to what they believe are a corrupt and racist police force to be used as training academies. Lightfoot’s proposal coming at the same time as a grassroots movement against the Cop Academy spearheaded by Black and Brown youth at City Hall and violently shut down by the police furthers the optics of Lightfoot not being on the side of the communities to which she identifies.

As Janae Bonsu states in the United Working Families video,

When your career is to lock people up, to put people away, then that becomes your worldview or framework for what it looks like to make a city safe. She lacks

305 “Is Lori Lightfoot a Progressive?” Youtube. United Working Families, March 28, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8fX_hnqO7Y. 306 Ibid. 307 Adeshina Emmanuel, “Lightfoot Suggests Converting Closed Schools into Mini-Police Academies.” Chalkbeat Chicago. Chalkbeat Chicago, March 13, 2019. https://chalkbeat.org/posts/chicago/2019/03/13/204119/. Poe 189

imagination of: maybe we should be investing more in schools. Maybe we should be investing more in the mental health centers that were closed down.308

Lori Lightfoot has clearly outlined an intention to channel a representatividade when

Black and LGBTQ communities are concerned and a want to do what is best for these communities. This was evidenced in a speech she gave to city council on January 15, 2020. In a response to what she considered offensive questions about the discrimination LGBTQ contractors faced in the city of Chicago, she invoked her own experiences with discrimination as a Black LGBTQ person and shared regret that she didn’t speak up to these moments of discrimination before. She says,

I grew up in a time when racial discrimination was very much on the table and I heard and witnessed and experienced a lot of offensive harmful things in my presence, as a Black child. As a child I didn’t have the words, the voice or the strength to speak up. And I bear the shame of my silence to this day. When I was coming out in my twenties, similarly, I was worried about how I would be perceived and I let people say terrible things about gays and lesbians in my presence and I was silent. I will be silent no more on any issue.309

Lightfoot’s comments and reflections come after yearlong protests against her mayoral candidacy from Black and LGBTQ people who considered her political advocacy as non- representative of their struggle. Lightfoot’s reflection of understanding that there were many times in her life in which she should have stood up for those who were like her, but did not, shows a process of self-critique and change. Her assertion of the refusal to be silent anymore in the face of injustice for her community shows the growing intention to defend her communities, especially now in a space of institutional power. However, the question remains as to whether she will listen to the voices of her community who are screaming out and protesting to show

308 “Is Lori Lightfoot a Progressive?” Youtube . United Working Families, March 28, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8fX_hnqO7Y. 309 Lori Lightfoot, “Silent No More.” Facebook. Chicago Mayor's Office, January 15, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=486877202227601. Poe 190

exactly what their demands are for the Black queer and trans community. Will her allegiance be to the Black queer and trans vulnerable populations needing her to represent their goals, or will she be beholden to police departments and developers further pushing out these vulnerable populations from Chicago? Will representação or representatividade win out in Mayor

Lightfoot’s tenure?

The Dangers of Representatividade

The choice to follow a representatividade or representação is complex and fraught for

Black LGBTQ people entering the political sphere. Black LGBTQ politicians entering electoral politics must deal with the lack of many other elected officials who share their social position, making the justification of any push for their community's rights and defense difficult. Beyond this, Black LGBTQ elected officials wanting to push forward radical changes to create freer futures for their community mark themselves as a dangerous threat to the status quo and the many politicians that defend that status quo. The same violence that Black LGBTQ people face in the world becomes heightened for Black LGBTQ politicians who wish to put forth a representatividade approach to their politics. As Megg Rayara Gomes de Oliveira explains, those who uphold the status quo groom Black LGBTQ people who enter positions of power to also uphold the status quo, abandoning the needs of their community. Therefore, the choice of a simple representação and tokenism for Black LGBTQ politicians serves as a somewhat less dangerous option for Black LGBTQ politicians. Representatividade for Black LGBTQ elected officials defies the power structures that dehumanize and sanction violence upon Black LGBTQ communities; therefore, the politicians practicing this radical form of identity politics end up marking themselves as a target for elimination by those who uphold systems of power. Poe 191

A poignant example of this precarity is the political battles of Marielle Franco in Rio de

Janeiro. When Marielle Franco was elected to the city council of Rio de Janeiro in 2016, she was the 5th most voted city councilperson out of all 50 city council members with about 46,000 votes. Franco’s campaign for the city council seat used the slogan, “I am because we are.”310 Her slogan immediately connects her fight as a politician to the community that raised and supported her, for, as her slogan states, she exists and can enter politics only because of the work of those in her community who supported her and came before her. She continually throughout her campaign and during her tenure as city councilwoman invoked her social position as a Black woman, a mother, and former resident of the Complexo da Maré, one of the largest favela complexes in Rio de Janeiro, and a bisexual person.311 Franco’s invocation of her identities and communities showed a staunch dedication to a representatividade that always works to bring the viewpoints and ideas of Franco’s communities to the decision-making table of the city council.

Representatividade and a radical approach to identity politics were ever present in

Franco’s work and proposed projects on Rio’s city council. Franco did not simply claim a racial or gender identity to speak of herself but proposed projects centered around valorizing racial and gender identity and eliminating violence towards marginalized communities. Franco proposed projects for the construction of more birthing centers for expectant mothers and for the construction of nighttime childcare centers run by the state for low-income mothers. Both of these projects center mothers, especially poor mothers who live in peripheral neighborhoods who are overwhelmingly Black and create opportunities for them to choose what to do with their

310 “Quem é Marielle Franco?” Instituto Marielle Franco. Accessed February 15, 2021. https://www.institutomariellefranco.org/quem-e- marielle?gclid=Cj0KCQiA1KiBBhCcARIsAPWqoSqE7QQvAZjJPWu9KISPY40gHVu8PWcsYk3PjJT0OOrtAUH E2LcoQAgaAtZiEALw_wcB. Translation by author. 311 Marielle Franco did not officially begin openly referring to her own sexuality until after her election. Poe 192

bodies and raise their children with dignity. Through these laws, Franco invokes her own experience as a young working-class mother trying to raise a child in a peripheral neighborhood.

She knows from experience what it takes to raise a child under these circumstances, and what changes are needed to allow for more chances of success for working class mothers in Rio.

Expanding from her own experiences as a working-class mother, to understand the larger experiences of those people in her community who become pregnant but do not choose to be mothers, she also proposed a law to inform women312 of and protect their rights to abortion.

Abortion in Brazil at the time the law was written was only legal in extreme cases that risk the mother or baby’s life, or pregnancies that resulted from rape; however, many women were denied or unaware of this right, especially working-class women from peripheral neighborhoods.

Despite being legalized, abortion was and still is an extremely controversial topic in Brazilian politics and the movement against the right to abortion is particularly strong amongst the large evangelical wing of the government. Despite the volatile reaction to conversations about abortion, Franco prioritizes women in her community whose rights are being underserved or denied.

In addition to fighting for the rights of pregnant women, Franco was adamant in valorizing Blackness in her power as city councilwoman in Rio. She spoke to the fact that, while favelada was an identity that she always carried with pride and has racial connotations due the majority Black populations of most of Rio’s peripheral neighborhoods, Blackness as an identity took time and consciousness raising for her to understand and value her connection to it.313

312 While not only women can get pregnant, the language of the proposed law only invokes women, so I am repeating the language used in the law. 313 Marielle Franco, “Começou! Roda De Mulheres Negras Movendo Estruturas! Assista e Compartilha!” Facebook Watch. Marielle Franco, March 14, 2018. https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=546757069043223&ref=watch_permalink. Poe 193

Franco understood that for Black youth, especially in peripheral neighborhoods, knowing the history of their Blackness and the fight to defend it would help them to effectively fight for their rights in the present. Franco’s proposed law to include the national holiday Tereza de Benguela

Day of Black Women in the official calendar of the city of Rio de Janeiro states,

The importance of having a day to celebrate Black women is inscribed within the historical and present data of the IBGE. According to the institute, 71% of Black women are in precarious and informal occupations, against 54% of white women and 48% of white men. The median salary of Black women workers continues to be half of the salary of white women workers. Even when your education level is similar to that of a white woman, the difference in salary is around 40% more for white women. To sanction the day of July 25th as the day of Tereza de Benguela, and of Black women, we are recognizing institutionally the importance of these agents in the fight for freedom and rights.314

For Franco, the importance of a day valorizing Black women is directly linked to the process of creating consciousness for Black women about their social position and motivating them into the fight for justice. As Franco’s own personal experience shows, although many Black women live under these unequal conditions, historical narratives around race in Brazil have motivated a racial consciousness of these social positions. It was and continues to be Black communities fighting for justice that have emphasized the need for a racial lens to understand inequality in

Brazil, even pushing the IBGE to rethink how it analyzes racial and color classifications on census data. Franco’s own racial journey, as well as her organizing with communities of Black women help to craft these proposed laws that valorize and celebrate Blackness in Rio de Janeiro.

Franco continues to utilize identity politics on a profound level, pushing people to enter struggles for justice through the lens of identity and social position.

314 Marielle Franco, “PROJETO DE LEI Nº 103/2017.” Projeto de Lei. A CÂMARA MUNICIPAL DO RIO DE JANEIRO, March 22, 2017. https://mail.camara.rj.gov.br/APL/Legislativos/scpro1720.nsf/f6d54a9bf09ac233032579de006bfef6/2dc01cd88f9cef 89832580de005de3bd?OpenDocument. Translation by author. Poe 194

Perhaps the most dangerous battle Franco took on was the fight against military intervention in Rio de Janeiro, and the fight against police violence in the city. In 2018, in the midst of an economic crisis and rise in violent robberies in the city, the governor of Rio Luiz

Fernando Pezão proposed a federal military intervention to deal with the problems of the city.

Franco and her political PSOL adamantly rejected the military intervention. Franco lived most of her life in the Complexo da Maré and, understanding that the majority of violence during a military intervention happens in the favelas, centered her critique of the intervention from her standpoint as a favelada. On the floor of ALERJ,315 protesting the military intervention plan,

Franco says,

I lived in Maré during 14 months of military intervention. The favelados and faveladas know exactly what the sound of military tanks at their door is...Where is the intervention really going to be? Who knows where the rifles will be pointed?... Who is going to watch over this intervention? Who is going to be accountable for...the Brazilian army in relation to their military interventions in the favelas? Because in Maré it lasted more than 14 months and cost 600 million reais, without counting the human cost...the deaths that happened...At what cost is this debate for intervention?316

The conversation in ALERJ which had been classified as a battle between political parties is transformed with new meaning following Franco’s contributions. Franco centers her own experience as someone who has lived through a military intervention in the favela. The purported idea of safety provided by a military intervention is turned on its head when the people from the communities that are considered the threat to safety are heard. Franco shows that an intervention brings no peace or safety to anybody in the favelas, but instead brings more violence and death.

Franco’s rhetorical question about who will be held accountable for this violence is self- explanatory: nobody will be held accountable because these deaths are “unimportant” to securing

315 Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro 316 Marielle Franco, “Marielle Franco - Intervenção Militar.” Facebook. PSOL 50, March 16, 2018. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=844185772409725. Translation by author. Poe 195

safety for those outside of the favelas. Franco’s voice in the city council and pushing back against the silencing of peripheral neighborhoods’ experience of military interventions in Rio works in the same efforts as Jenkins’s humanizing of trans people on Minneapolis’s city council.

Franco humanizes the people of Maré to allow an empathizing with the violence they face instead of an acceptance of their deaths as collateral damage. The dehumanizing image of the people from favelas as the cause of violence in Rio, but never the victim of it, makes the deaths of those who live there easy for the city to digest. But Franco refuses this diminishing of the violence that military interventions bring to peripheral neighborhoods and outlines her own experiences to combat this erasure of humanity in favelas.

While Franco was not publicly bisexual during her campaign for city councilwoman, when she finally came out, she infused this identity into her political campaign as well, defending the rights and interests of the LGBTQ community. Two of the projects Franco created and pushed for within the city council were to make Lesbian Visibility Day and the Day Against

LGBT-phobic Violence official holidays recognized in the city calendar. While the celebration of these days brings important visibility to the LGBTQ community, she emphasizes the fight for these days as state-sanctioned holidays to force the state into the fight against violence towards

LGBTQ communities. In her drafted project for the Day against LGBT-phobic violence, Franco states,

In a society filled with oppressions, the LGBT population is the constant victim of violences and deprivations of rights, that show through homophobia, lesbophobia, biphobia, and transphobia. Brazil, in this case, plays a sad role, being the country that kills the most LGBT people in the world, according to the NGO Transgender Europe...For these reasons, nothing would be more just than Rio de Janeiro having an official day to combat the oppressions that directly affect this community.317

317 Marielle Franco. “PROJETO DE LEI Nº 72/2017.” Projeto de Lei. A CÂMARA MUNICIPAL DO RIO DE JANEIRO, March 9, 2017. Poe 196

As a Black bisexual woman in a position to write, propose, and implement laws in Rio de

Janeiro, Franco uses this platform to force the state to reckon with the violence her community faces and their part in silently sanctioning the violence. By forcing a conversation through proposing these declarations, Franco directly confronts the perpetrators of violent rhetoric towards LGBTQ communities and forces their hatred to be public. Through the passing of these declarations, Franco intends to work towards deconstructing the cultures of hatred towards

LGBTQ communities. Yet in deconstructing these violences, she also seeks to elaborate on the specificities of the violences LGBTQ communities face. In her proposal for the recognition of

Lesbian Visibility Day, she writes,

It’s important to reiterate that Black lesbian women and/or lesbians from the periphery are even more vulnerable to these different forms of violence. Lesbian invisibility comes out in many ways: when campaigns for awareness for prevention of STDs refer exclusively to forms of protection for phallocentric sex; in the difficulty of thinking through in vitro fertilizations, in the lack of information and research about the particularities of violence against Black lesbians and the absence of lesbian representation in the media and politics.318

Her own positionality as a Black bisexual woman as well as her collaborative work with networks of lesbian and bisexual women in peripheral neighborhoods allow her to provide nuance to the subject of LGBTQ violence and emphasize the kinds of violence that are commonly ignored. Franco infuses her own identity politics through every political campaign, not to center herself, but to center her communities whose voices have historically been unheard on the floor of ALERJ. While Franco’s proposal for Lesbian Visibility Day failed the vote by two votes and she did not live to see the vote of her proposed project for a Day Against LGBT-

https://mail.camara.rj.gov.br/APL/Legislativos/scpro1720.nsf/0cfaa89fb497093603257735005eb2bc/d91611b0a62b 7fc6832580de005bb1f2?OpenDocument. 318 Franco, “Projeto De LEI Nº 72/2017” Poe 197

phobic Violence, the nuanced debate about violence towards LGBTQ communities pushes forward the fight for freedom for LGBTQ communities in Rio de Janeiro.

Franco’s political fight, although just beginning, was already filled with victories due to the way she stood for a politics of representation that brought her whole community with her to

ALERJ, but unfortunately her life was cut short before she could accomplish all she would. On

March 14th, 2018, Marielle Franco was brutally assassinated coming home from an event for empowering Black women. All signs in the police investigations that have happened since then, which have been fraught with problems of mismanagement and sabotage,319point to the fact that her murder was a political assassination and that whoever killed her intended to silence her voice and political power. Being that Marielle Franco used her political voice always in service of the marginalized communities she came from, the political assassination of her should be understood as the political assassination of the Black LGBTQ peripheral political power. Franco fearlessly stood up to the violences her community faced and the people in power perpetuating them.

Franco’s fearless battle marked her as a target for elimination. Her struggle to continually center the lives and interests of the communities she represented and those who deal with similar oppressions serves as a blueprint to fight for all who are oppressed, but her violent death at the hands of a still nameless person of power points to the danger for those who choose to fight this battle.

Conclusion

319 Marina Lang, “Exclusivo: Polícia Ignorou Registro De Segundo Carro Clonado No Dia Do Assassinato De Marielle,” The Intercept Brasil, November 11, 2019. https://theintercept.com/2019/11/11/exclusivo-policia-ignorou- cobalt-marielle/. Poe 198

The Black LGBTQ politicians investigated in this chapter all face difficulties in defining and standing by a political ideology, due to the oppression they face because of their social position in society. But what pushes these politicians towards one ideology or another? What opens space for a Black LGBTQ person to socially whiten themselves and embrace a moralistic conservative ideology and be widely accepted in a homophobic and racist political party, such as the case with Douglas Garcia? What pushes a Black lesbian candidate, who knows the varied struggles and critiques of power that emerge from Black LGBTQ vulnerable communities, to seek a moderate approach that aligns more with the powers that be than the vulnerable, but claim a progressive social justice centered approach? Finally, what political urgencies push Black women candidates to unapologetically center the most oppressed communities in their political ideology, despite the political backlash that might come from both the right and the left? The context of how and why Black LGBTQ politicians choose a form of representational and identity politics depends so much on the way society around these politicians is structured and the political parties’ approach to speaking about or embracing identity politics for their own purposes.

The ways in which the far-right appeals to Black and poor populations in both countries is a definite point of departure. Both Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro draw from similar ideologies of hyper-nationalism and white supremacy; however, Black populations’ electoral response to Donald Trump in the United States was drastically different than Black populations’ reaction to Jair Bolsonaro. Donald Trump received no more than 9 percent of votes from Black communities in his election in 2016.320 Contrarily, in 2018 amongst Black communities in

Brazil, separated out into color categories of preto, Black, and pardo, Brown, Bolsonaro did not

320 “Exit Polls,” CNN, November 23, 2016. https://edition.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls. Poe 199

receive a majority amongst preto identified populations, but still received 37% of the vote from pretos. Amongst pardos, Bolsonaro received a majority against his rival candidate from the

Workers Party, Fernando Haddad, winning 47% of the pardo vote.321 While there are many factors to consider to understand the nuances of these two elections, such as the role of fake news, political manipulation, and the use of the evangelical wing by the right wing party in both countries, these exit polls show that the right in Brazil has made much more progress in convincing preto and pardo voters, and more so pardo voters. In a country where preto and pardo populations are a majority combined, this means that the Black electorate is a huge portion of the conservative vote, whereas in the United States, the Black conservative electorate is miniscule.

This condition makes for the unique case for Black LGBTQ representação, weaponizing their identity to support a political ideology that works to further the subjugation of those same identities and communities. The large Black conservative electorate opens space for someone like Douglas Garcia not only to be elected, but to be elected popularly in Brazil.

Lori Lightfoot’s own weaponizing of her identities but lack of accountability to the communities that hold those same Black queer identities is a long-used tactic amongst Black moderates in the Democratic Party, and draws parallels with another popular Chicago politician,

Barack Obama. Obama’s own rise to popularity as a candidate for the President of the United

States was infused with progressive rhetoric and deference to the Black communities that reared his political career. While Obama ran on the progressive platform that promised improvement in the lives of all, especially those vulnerable in society, Obama’s candidacy was drastically

321 Géssica Brandino, “Bolsonaro Lidera Entre Eleitores Brancos e Pardos, e Haddad, Entre Pretos, Diz Datafolha.” Folha de S. Paulo, October 11, 2018. https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2018/10/bolsonaro-lidera-entre-eleitores- brancos-e-haddad-entre-pardos-e-pretos-diz-datafolha.shtml. Poe 200

different than his presidency.322 The rise of organizations such as the Black Lives Matter

Network, during the presidency of Obama was in part a response to the lack of follow through and accountability of Obama’s presidency. Similar to #StopLightfoot’s complaints about Lori

Lightfoot, Black activists charged that Obama used his Black identity not in a way that sought accountability with the demands and goals of his collective community, but to weaponize it to garner support. Lightfoot’s use of her Black LGBTQ identity to make claims of striving for social justice for marginalized communities, when she lacks an engagement of the collective wants of Black queer and trans communities, continues this legacy of Black moderates’ use of identity poltics.

The Combahee River Collective Statement explained that “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.”323 Understanding this claim, one can understand why some of the most progressive implementations of representatividade infused into political campaigns have been done by Black women, both cisgender and transgender alike. Andrea

Jenkins, Erica Malunguinho, and Marielle Franco are examples of unwavering forms of representatividade, putting their lives and careers on the line to protect the best collective interests of the vulnerable communities they come from and all who are oppressed in similar and different ways. Their willingness to speak back against oppressive violence in public, their rallying for the best interests of their community, even when it is dangerous or unpopular, shows their commitment to doing the hard work of defending the multiple communities they represent.

322 Danielle Fuentes Morgan, “Obama and Black Lives Matter: An Epilogue.” Black Lives Matter News | Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera, January 27, 2017. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/01/obama-black-lives- matter-epilogue-170126073428660.html. 323 Combahee River Collective, "The Combahee River Collective Statement." Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (1983): 264-74. Poe 201

Using the power analysis gained from analyzing their own communities’ social position, they present a vision for society that works to overturn and deconstruct all inequities. Their actions are continually in conversation with a community collective that represents people oppressed like themselves. From Malunguinho’s Quilombo approach, always returning to the collective Black traditions and thoughts, or Jenkins’ drawing from her intensive communal research on her trans community, these Black women present a vision for society that centers the viewpoint of intersectional Black experiences.

These varied manifestations of representation and representational politics are reminders that being the first Black LGBTQ anything is not an outright sign of the deconstruction of systems that work to marginalize Black queer and trans communities. While the Combahee River

Collective statement on identity politics emphasizes the potential of a marginalized standpoint to radicalize the politics of the marginalized person, the realization of potential is not a guarantee.

The presence of an ideological community to foster the thoughts and ideas of marginalized people plays a large role in their approach to their own analysis of power. Erica Malunguinho’s continual connection with Black communities through her Quilombo Urbano is heavily contrasted by Douglas Garcia’s The São Paulo Right. Regardless of individual experiences with discrimination and oppression, the community that fosters the ideological discourse in the Black

LGBTQ person’s life plays a large role in whether they will center that community’s voice in their political dialogue. These instances of representação show that not every Black LGBTQ person will be an advocate for other Black LGBTQ people, but the moments of representatividade emphasize the radical possibility within a Black LGBTQ standpoint for the deconstruction of oppressive systems and creation of something new.

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CHAPTER 4

Black Queer Freedom: The Radical Imaginings of Black LGBTQ+ People

“Tudo que eu faço hoje é pensando que eu quero que um dia quem venha depois de mim possa desfrutar dessa liberdade completa, plena, realizada. Eu sou livre. Eu me sinto livre. Mas eu pago, ainda, um preço muito grande pela minha liberdade.”

“Everything that I do today is thinking about how I want one day those who come after me to be able to take advantage of this complete freedom, fully, and fulfilled. I am free. I feel free. But I still pay a great price for my freedom.”

-- Aleff Bernardes, 2016324

Queer of color critique scholar José Muñoz, in his seminal work Cruising Utopia: The

Then and There of Queer Futurity, argues that queerness, especially as invoked by queer people of color, only exists fully in another time beyond the present. Due to the restraints and violences of systems of power, that render impossible an unbounded existence for queer people to exist as queer freely, queer people must exist within a futuristic state. Muñoz explains, “We have never been queer, yet queerness exists for us as an ideality that can be distilled from the past and used to imagine a future. The future is queerness’s domain. Queerness is a structuring and educated mode of desiring that allows us to see and feel beyond the quagmire of the present. The here and now is a prison house.”325 Muñoz’s metaphorical explanation of the temporal space that queer people occupy illuminates the work required for queer people, particularly Black queer and trans people, to find the tools to simply exist. Black LGBTQ+ people’s navigation of violent forces of oppression, that act as controlling forces in their lives, necessitates, as Muñoz would argue, their mental ability to create a temporal shift. If freedom for Black LGBTQ+ people exists only in the future, then they must be able to time travel, manifesting that futurity of freedom in the now.

324 Personal Interview with Aleff Bernades - August 12, 2016, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. 325 José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising utopia: The then and there of queer futurity. NYU Press, 2009. Poe 203

For Black LGBTQ+ people who constantly navigate white supremacy, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy in the present, what does manifesting that futurity of freedom look like in practice? What are the ideas they are working towards, and how do they manifest these ideas?

This chapter takes up the question of Black LGBTQ+ freedom for activists in Brazil and the

United States. In the first part of my chapter, I outline four striking themes prevalent in the theorizations of freedom for Black LGBTQ+ activist interlocutors I interviewed: 1) the impossibility/improbability of freedom in the present, 2) the destruction of oppressive forces, 3) the freedom to be, and 4) self-determination. Expanding upon the themes of Black LGBTQ+ freedom manifestations, I will analyze the work of three Black LGBTQ+ artists in the second part of my chapter: Janelle Monae, Linn da Quebrada, and the Afrobapho Collective.

Interrogating the performance art of these three Black LGBTQ+ artists and collectives, I show how the aforementioned themes my interlocutors presented as crucial to Black LGBTQ+ freedom are presented in the works of these artists. Outlining both the theorizations of freedom by Black LGBTQ+ activists and the visual and artistic renderings of that freedom will illuminate the various ways Black LGBTQ+ creators in Brazil and the United States work to imagine and bring forth life beyond the everyday violences they endure. In my outlining of these themes, I take seriously the thought production and theorizations of the interlocutors I cite. In doing so I aim not necessarily to celebrate the “extraordinary” thought of Black LGBTQ+ activists who are world recognized thought “leaders,” but rather I resist the centering of a brilliant thought leader and lean into the extraordinary of the Black LGBTQ+ activist ordinary. My centering of Black

LGBTQ+ activist thought, regardless of education, background, organization connection, awards, etc. aims to show both the analytic potential of a Black LGBTQ+ standpoint, and the connection between Black LGBTQ+ thought across the Black queer diaspora. Poe 204

Part 1: Themes of Black LGBTQ+ Freedom

The Impossibility/Improbability of Freedom

When my interview with Shani Akilah, Black queer non-binary activist from

Philadelphia’s Black and Brown Worker’s Cooperative, neared an end, I gave them a space to think through an alternative to the difficult realities that Black LGBTQ+ face given the battles they fought for the rights of other Black and Brown LGBTQ+ workers to change racism within the nonprofit world. Much of Akilah’s struggles throughout their activism were directly connected to blatant and subtle acts of violence that Black LGBTQ+ people face on a daily basis, even in settings which claim to work towards a more socially just world, such as the various nonprofits where Akilah had worked, referenced in Chapter 2. Despite their well-meaning intentions, these organizations often serve as active participants in white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and capitalist oppression. Earlier in their interview, Akilah acknowledged how all-consuming these moments of violence can be for Black LGBTQ+ people, and the importance of seeing oneself and understanding their life beyond these moments of oppression. Their provocations brought me to question, what is Black LGBTQ+ life beyond oppressive violence, and what are the possibilities for such a life? Akilah let out a breath of air as I asked this question, which seemed to both be a sigh of relief to be able to talk about something else besides struggle as well as an air of excitement and confusion at the prospect of thinking about a freer world. Akilah explained, “An ex-partner said this to me, she said ‘Shani, the only reason why you are so angry and so passionate is because you’re already free. You’re a free person moving in an unfree society.’...We’re all warriors in our own categories really pushing with tools that we Poe 205

have because we are free, our spirits are free, we know this shit ain’t natural.”326 Akilah’s response to my question helped to reframe the stories they had shared up until this point. Rather than contextualizing their struggle for liberation as tied to a “resistance” to the systems of power that serve as a controlling force in their and other Black LGBTQ+ workers’ lives, they understood their fierce work as attempting to replicate the interior feeling of freedom to the external world they navigate. Akilah posited that all Black LGBTQ+ people are dealing with the same struggle of attempting to bring forth an internal freedom to the material realities they inhabit. Black LGBTQ+ activists feel frustration at their material realities because, within themselves and their own constructions of self-freedom, they understand that the systems of power that refuse them freedom block a realization of that freedom.

Analyzing through the lens of Muñoz’s theorization, Akilah’s external manifestation of an internal feeling falls in the line with the idea of a bold temporal shift. In their own testimony,

Akilah detailed the numerous moments of silencing that they experienced while trying to speak out against moments of violence enacted by coworkers and superiors in social justice nonprofits.

The dominant form of silencing that Akilah experienced was the loss of their position or a hostile push out of the organization. Understanding that Akilah’s efforts to speak out against replications of violence within their work setting was connected to a desire to manifest a freedom that they felt internally and that the reaction to that manifestation attempt was expulsion points to the temporal conflict between Akilah’s reality and the external reality imbued in white supremacy, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy. Muñoz ponders on situations like Akilah’s navigation of an external reality hostile to their manifestations of freedom: “Queerness is essentially about the rejection of a here and now and an insistence on potentiality or concrete possibility for another

326 Personal Interview with Shani Akilah - December 17, 2019, Philadelphia, USA. Poe 206

world.”327 In Akilah’s case, their rejection of the “here and now” is rooted in their outspokenness and unwillingness to accept oppression anywhere, especially within spaces that purport to work towards an anti-oppressive world. Akilah’s rejection of the violence of the present is propelled by the inner idea and feeling of freedom. The attempt to “time travel” and bring forth the inner freedom to the external space is to be continually rejected by non-profit directors and workers who instead yearn to maintain the present space and deny temporal shifts. The negation of Black

LGBTQ+ freedom manifestations in the external space presents the problem of an improbability of freedom for Black LGBTQ+ subjects in the present.

While interviewing four members of the Grupo Pantera collective, two artivists from the collective expanded upon this conundrum of the impossibility of visualizing Black LGBTQ+ freedom when said freedom is so improbable in the present and near future. Grupo Pantera is a

LGBTQ+ performance art collective based out of Rio’s Maré favela complex that organizes social spaces and performance art that pushes people to think about gender, sexuality, and

LGBTQ+ populations in the favela complex of Maré. When asked about their vision of Black

LGBTQ+ freedom, Gabriel Horsth and Paulo Victor Lino expressed doubt at the mere possibility of being able to realistically imagine a world capable of freedom for Black LGBTQ+ populations. They ponder,

Paulo Victor Lino - I don’t know because this “freedom” thing is so far away from what I can see that I don’t think about it.

Gabriel Horsth - When you think of freedom, you think of the opposite: domination, prison, etc. So when you think of freedom you think of the opposite. If I want freedom, it’s because I’m trapped...Because it’s in this place that I’m in. This place of occupation. I don’t yet live in a state of freedom.328

327 Muñoz, Cruising Utopia. 328 Personal Interview with Grupo Pantera - July 20, 2019, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 207

While Akilah could experience an internal temporal shift to a futuristic freedom even while it was denied externally, Lino and Horsth point to the fact that oppressive forces that weigh on the lives of many Black LGBTQ+ people control their visions both externally and internally. This process of control works to limit the imagined possibilities for Black LGBTQ+ people, even as they realize that that internal control should not exist. Lino continues,

It’s unknown. We aren’t able to think about what it could be. We can answer what are the oppressions that affect us, and we’ll talk about school, we’ll talk about public health systems, we’ll talk about public safety, religion, but thinking that if all of these things were resolved at once...maybe that would be freedom. But it’s not yet something I know.329

The intersecting systems of power that work to restrict the lives of Black LGBTQ+ people are easier to name for Lino than the process of imagining a world beyond those systems of power.

While the possibilities of queerness opens a door to a temporal shift, meaning that a queer perspective allows those that identify with it to see beyond the restrictions of today to imagine an alternative world, Lino’s comments show that not all Black LGBTQ+ people are able to see beyond the oppression they face. Being queer, and manifesting or working towards a queer freedom, is the basis of Muñoz’s time travel. However, Lino’s observations point to the restrictions that necessitate the time travel. Queer antagonistic, white supremacist, and capitalistic cultures, while simultaneously allowing many LGBTQ+ subjects to escape their grasp through a imaginative temporal shift, limit the imagination of many who are not able to see beyond the oppression that dictates their daily lives. For Lino and Horsth, the improbability of their freedom imposes an impossibility of imagining Black LGBTQ+ freedom for themselves and others within the parameters of the present world.

329 Personal Interview with Grupo Pantera - July 20, 2019, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 208

Hazel Edwards, a Black trans activist from Philadelphia, argues that the improbability problem, and therefore an impossibility of freedom for Black LGBTQ+ people, lies in the language used to think through freedom in our present reality. Edwards is an organizer with the

Attic Youth Center in Philadelphia, a center that provides resources, programming, and community space for LGBTQ+ youth. She insists,

I’m a liberationist. I feel like “freedom” is for white people. I feel like “rights” are for white people, cause they never do anything but benefit white people, white “vulnerable” people. Like white people in oppressed communities. Like ya’ll have policies around ‘Oh we don’t discriminate against disabled people.” No, ya’ll don’t discriminate against white disabled people.330

Edwards’s critique of the concept of freedom in our society points to how this concept is tied up in a discourse of “rights” administered by the governing power. As Edwards argues, if freedom is linked to rights in society, and rights are offered by a government rooted in white supremacy, rights and freedom are not created for Black people. Edwards’s comments hold weight when analyzing that, although Black communities suffer the most considerable backlash from white communities around the subject of affirmative action in the United States, they are not generally its largest beneficiaries. In Kimberlé Crenshaw’s article “Framing Affirmative Action”

Crenshaw shows that white women, instead of Black communities, are the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action in the United States.331 Despite this fact, it is Black communities that largely bear the brunt of arguments that affirmative action is unfair to white communities because it gives an unfair advantage to Black people. This discourse works to strengthen

Edwards’s argument that the discourse of “rights” and therefore “freedom” only works for white people. White women silently accept affirmative action while white people, including white

330 Personal Interview with Hazel Edwards - November 27, 2019, Philadelphia, USA. 331 Crenshaw, “Framing Affirmative Action,” 123. Poe 209

women332, push against such programs when viewed in the context of providing equity for Black people. Within a white supremacist context, equity for white people is just that, equity, whereas equity for Black people is unjust and unfair. Edwards argues that the impossibility of freedom for

Black LGBTQ+ people lies in the refusal of the systems of power that control the present to provide the rights and justice for Black people. Yet despite the impossibility of freedom within the minds of those in the present, Horsth suggests that this does not take away the urge to fight for an unknown freedom. He says, “I want [freedom]...but in this life I doubt we will be free.”333

The Destruction of Oppressive Forces

After first launching the question of what freedom could be with Grupo Pantera,

Dominick, a Black travesti member of the Maré performance art collective, quickly named what needed to be eliminated for Black LGBTQ+ freedom to be manifested. In response to the question she suggested, “Homophobic people not exisiting...because in our communities

[favelas] all that exists are these bofes.334 The problem are these men.”335 Dominick explains that her own freedoms as a working class Black travesti from the favela of Maré have been violently restricted by homophobic and transphobic men who are from her own community. Her assertion is not to deny the complications of how masculinity is rigidly enforced onto Black and working- class men who live in favela neighborhoods by external factors that come from dominant

332 Nikole Hannah-Jones, “What Abigail Fisher's Affirmative Action Case Was Really About.” ProPublica. Accessed February 14, 2021; Massie, Victoria M. “White Women Benefit Most from Affirmative Action - and Are among Its Fiercest Opponents.” Vox. Vox, May 25, 2016. https://www.vox.com/2016/5/25/11682950/fisher- supreme-court-white-women-affirmative-action. 333 Personal Interview with Grupo Pantera - July 20, 2019, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author 334 Translation: Macho men. In Rafael de la Dehesa’s Queering the Public Sphere in Mexico and Brazil, Dehesa outlines how the dichotomy of bicha (feminine) and bofe (masculine) historically marked the active/passive roles gay men took on in sexual and romatic relations in Brazil. 335 Personal Interview with Grupo Pantera - July 20, 2019, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 210

society,336 but points to the localized violences that she and other working class Black LGBTQ+ people experience daily. Following Dominick’s statement, the collective then joked that freedom for them would be getting rid of all of these bofes and just leaving the gays and travestis. They bursted into laughter and applauded the idea. Dominick’s statement and Grupo Pantera’s collective playful suggestion offer a clear rebuke for the violent heteropatriarchal systems that control their lives and suggest that for freedom to truly exist, these systems and people that uphold these systems, must be eliminated.

Michele Seixas, an organizer with with Articulação Brasileira de Lésbicas, one of

Brazil’s largest national organization of lesbians, and a founding member of a collective for lesbians of the favela Complexo do Alemão in Rio, argues similarly that for freedom to exist for

Black LGBTQ+ people, the local violences that they experience must be eradicated. She says,

I think freedom for us today, in our current context, when we talk about lesbian residents of favelas, I think freedom would be the police never again mounting a pacifying operation in the favela. Because you mess with people’s two basic rights: to move freely and to live.337

Seixas’s comment is particularly potent considering the long history of military “intervention” or invasion into Rio’s favela neighborhoods.338 While conducting my fieldwork in Brazil in 2018, the country’s federal government, under the command of ex-president Michel Temer who took power after the impeachment of ex-president Dilma Rousseff, ordered a military intervention due to concerns of public safety in the city.339 The leftist political party PSOL (The Party of

336 Osmundo Pinho, "“Putaria:” Masculinidade, Negritude E Desejo No Pagode Baiano," Maguaré 29, no. 2 (2015): 209-238. 337 Personal Interview with Michele Seixas - September 27, 2019, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author. 338 Erika Robb Larkins, The Spectacular Favela: Violence in Modern Brazil. Vol. 32. Univ of California Press, 2015; Vargas, João H. Costa. Never meant to survive: Genocide and utopias in black diaspora communities. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010. 339 Raoni Alves, “Cerimônia Marca Fim Da Intervenção Federal No RJ: 'Cumprimos a Missão', Diz General.” G1, December 27, 2018. https://g1.globo.com/rj/rio-de-janeiro/noticia/2018/12/27/cerimonia-encerra-intervencao- federal-na-seguranca-do-rj.ghtml. Poe 211

Socialism and Freedom) took to the courts to try to get the call for intervention thrown out as unconstitutional340 as they and other leftist parties spoke out against the intervention. Marielle

Franco, before her assassination, spoke out passionately to her fellow city council members as someone who grew up in the favela in Rio, and knows that military interventions in the city only mean impunitive violence and death throughout favela neighborhoods.341 While police normally serve as a force of fear and control in Rio’s majority Black and working-class favela neighborhoods, under military interventions, violence at the hands of the military police is known to skyrocket. In addition, during the presidential mandate of Jair Bolsonaro, violence towards residents of favelas at the hands of police has surged rather than declined.342 Therefore

Seixas’s statement rings true to the current violence that people who live in favelas, especially

Black people, face during police operations. In line with Dominick’s statement, the people who cause violence towards Black LGBTQ+ people, such as the police and heteropatriarchal men, need to be eliminated from Black LGBTQ+ people’s lives for freedom to be achieved.

Police and heterosexist men are contributors to a long list of systems that cause violences in the lives of Black LGBTQ+ people. When interviewing Shanel Edwards, a Black queer non- binary person, and Ashley Davis, a Black queer woman, they clearly outlined a long laundry list of systems and ideas that prevent Black LGBTQ+ freedom. As two Black queer performance artists from the Philadelphia area, participating in the project of imagining freedom was exciting for them both, but to enter the mindset of the artistic process of visualizing freedom, they insisted a major cleanup had to occur first. Shanel, in beginning that process, says that freedom would be,

340 Particia Cagni, “PSOL Recorre Ao Supremo Para Barrar Intervenção Federal No Rio.” O Globo. O Globo, March 14, 2018. https://oglobo.globo.com/rio/psol-recorre-ao-supremo-para-barrar-intervencao-federal-no-rio- 22488414. 341 Franco, “Marielle Franco Foi Contra Intervenção De Braga Netto No Rio.” 342 "Brasília, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo: Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada, Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública, 2019." IPEA Atlas da Violência (2020). Poe 212

Ending imperialism, capitalism, and colonization. Destroying the gender binary. Basic human rights. Restorative justice. Twerking contests. Clean water. Free hairdos (everyone except white people - they have to be bald for a hundred years). Reparations. Indigenous land reparations, financial reparations, emotional reparations. Whatever we need to figure out, we do that.343

Edwards’s assertion goes beyond Dominick and Seixas's targeted approach in bringing attention to one group of enforcers of a system of power, to name the multitudes of robust systems that act violently in the lives of Black LGBTQ+ people. Global capitalist imperialism, heteropatriarchy, and white supremacy are all things that must end for freedom to be possible, but Edwards also names possible alternatives. Restorative justice, reparations, and twerking contests all go beyond the idea of ending a system of power and present ideas to heal the wounds caused by oppressions. Addressing today's acts of violence serves as a temporal shift because Edwards elaborates that these healing options are not available in the current world.

Edwards’s exercise in imagining healing as the opening to the futuristic freedom that

Black LGBTQ+ need suggests how essential elimination of violence is for liberty to exist, primarily because, in the present, when violence is not occurring, the simple fear of violence serves to restrict Black LGBTQ+ people. While interviewing a group of five Black lesbian activists in Salvador, Bahia, Sheu Nascimento, an organizer from Jequié, a small city in the interior of the state of Bahia, argued that an essential part of living free without violence is tied to living without fear of the violence. She defines freedom as “To live without violence. To live without the fear of violence...Without being afraid of living, to know that you can live well with your family or your circle of friends. To know that there is a future. To have hope for the future.”344 The act of physical and emotional violence that systems of power inflict upon those

343 Personal Interview with Ashley Davis and Shanel Edwards - September 27, 2019, Philadelphia, USA. 344 Personal Interview with Sheu Nascimento - January 23, 2019, Salvador, Brazil. Translation by author. Poe 213

oppressed by them stretches beyond small immediate acts of oppression. It permeates throughout the lives of the oppressed through the constant fear of violence.

Black queer studies scholar Christina Sharpe describes this state of constant fear and violence under which Black people live throughout the world as a continual process of being “in the wake.”345 Sharpe insists that the work of being in the wake is a constant affective journey between death and waiting for death. As Sharpe argues, due to the lack of state apparati that defend Black life throughout the world, Black people live “in the wake with no state or nation to protect us, with no citizenship bound to be respected.” 346 Nascimento clarifies her understanding of the constant fear that Black LGBTQ+ people live in, insisting that it robs Black LGBTQ+ people from even visualizing their future as many argued under the theme of the impossibility and improbability of freedom. In constant fear of violence and death, living in the wake robs one from living fully and certainly from living freely. For Nascimento, and many others, being in the wake inhibits the ability of a temporal shift into a queer futurity, for those who cannot see a future for themselves cannot see that said future as freer than their present. For freedom to be manifested, the violences of the white supremacist heteropatriarchal capitalistic systems of the present need to be eliminated.

Freedom To Be

Almost all of the activists I interacted with throughout my research, who spoke to the freedom they would like to see in the world for Black LGBTQ+ people, beg for the simple yet profound act of being able to exist in society with their complexities. Thiffany Odara, a Black

345 Christina Sharpe. In The Wake: On Blackness And Being. Duke University Press, 2016. 346 Ibid. Poe 214

trans activist from Salvador and social educator at the Centro de Promoção e Defesa dos Direitos

LGBT da Bahia (Center for the Promotion and Defense of LGBT Rights of Bahia), boldly affirms this necessity for Black trans people’s freedom in an interview with me in 2019, saying,

Let me be. As a Black trans woman and feminist, I think that this freedom is letting my body adapt to my reality, to be Thiffany O’Dara, to not be uncomfortable in spaces that are mine by right, to not have a racial segregationist politic. So I think it’s that, let me be, let me be this person, this woman, and you continue on with your life.347

Odara points to the central objective of the multiple oppressions that Black LGBTQ+ populations face: to restrict Black LGBTQ+ ways of being. An act as simple as being, is integral to the formulation of freedom, for as Odara explains, without the ability to be, as one is, one cannot navigate the world in any kind of way that affirms oneself. Lacking the right to be ensures the uncomfortability in spaces, the lack of corporeal freedom, and the continual rejection from others to your present reality. Black LGBTQ+ people are written out of the past, rejected from the present, and precluded from a future. Having the space to be and fully develop oneself as one is or wants to be, restores the right of Black LGBTQ+ people to their present and their future.

For Black LGBTQ+ people to live in a way that has not been fully available to them in the present, a radical shift to economic systems that place Black LGBTQ+ people in places of poverty, homelessness, and abjection in society must occur.348 Christian Lovehall, a Black trans activist from Philadelphia and one of the founders of the Philadelphia Trans March, insists that

347 Personal Interview with Thiffany Odara - January 31, 2019, Salvador, Brazil. Translation by author 348 Amy Green, Samuel Dorison, and Myeshia Price-Feene, “All Black Lives Matter: Mental Health of Black LGBTQ Youth,” The Trevor Project, October 5, 2020, https://www.thetrevorproject.org/2020/10/06/all-black-lives- matter-mental-health-of-black-lgbtq-youth/; Patrícia Figueiredo, “Negros São Alvo De Metade Dos Registros De Violência Contra População LGBT No Brasil, Diz Pesquisa,” G1, Globo News, July 13, 2020, https://g1.globo.com/sp/sao-paulo/noticia/2020/07/15/negros-sao-alvo-de-metade-dos-registros-de-violencia-contra- populacao-lgbt-no-brasil-diz-pesquisa.ghtml Poe 215

this economic redistribution is essential for a physical state of being to be achieved for Black

LGBTQ+ people. He says,

Equity. Having access to things that we don’t have access to, like basic stuff. I think being Black, queer and/or trans, they are strikes against you that deny you basic stuff: housing, employment, healthcare. So just being able to have access to those basic things and not be judged by things that are natural. Things that we don’t choose.349

As Lovehall explains, on a fundamental level, being has to do with being alive. If one is not able to achieve what is necessary to be alive, then any other type of being is barred. As in both Brazil and the United States, Black LGBTQ+ populations, especially Black trans populations, are subjected to higher rates of unemployment, homelessness, and poverty which is directly connected to their existence as Black LGBTQ+ subjects.350 The barriers to these necessities for many Black LGBTQ+ people are made possible through economic barriers that take moral cue from heteropatriarchal and white supremacist systems. Therefore, a reformulation of society that grants Black LGBTQ+ freedom must include a transformation of economic systems that refuse

Black LGBTQ+ basic necessities. Lovehall insists that this work is primary, as lacking these basic necessities precludes other forms of being:

Having access to those basic things will at least facilitate internal freedom within ourselves. The process of healing from trauma and all of that, then that can come so we can be free within ourselves. I think it’s a two part thing, collective freedom as a people, and then individual freedom. But I think it starts with access and equity.351

Lovehall, like Shanel Edwards, understands that the healing process is integral to the process of an inner freedom. However, before that process begins, Black LGBTQ+ people must have basic

349 Personal Interview with Christian Lovehall - December 4, 2019, Philadelphia, USA. 350 Amy Green, Samuel Dorison, and Myeshia Price-Feene, “All Black Lives Matter.” 351 Personal Interview with Christian Lovehall - December 4, 2019, Philadelphia, USA. Poe 216

necessities to live. The inner mental and emotional freedom is inseparable from these basic bodily freedoms for Black LGBTQ+ people.

The mental shift in being for Black LGBTQ+ freedom goes beyond the Black LGBTQ+ community and requires a collective mindset shift. Dashawn Usher, Black queer New York based activist and founder of Mobilizing Our Brothers (MOBI), a national organization for Black queer men, explains that for Black LGBTQ+ communities to have the right to be, society must rethink questions of inclusion. He argues,

I think freedom is, particularly for our community: Black queer, trans, gender non-conforming people, I really think its when we no longer have to explain who we are, and why we exist. When we no longer have to have all of this targeted stuff for us, (not in the sense of saying having targeted areas and focuses are bad) but it’s just in a sense of that we’re like truly integrated into things and there’s no question or doubt that whatever it is that we’re doing...it intentionally already has the thought of an inclusion of us in it. So we don’t always have to advocate and fight to be in the room.352

Usher’s assertion that for Black LGBTQ+ freedom to exist,a robust form of inclusion must be available for these communities, suggests that freedom can only come after societal healing and vigorously implemented equity. Usher points to these equity programs that force an inclusion, the same type of equity that Lovehall insists Black LGBTQ+ people need to be able to access basic necessities, not to attack these efforts but to insist that they are only the first step to the creation of a society where Black LGBTQ+ people are free to be. A world where Black

LGBTQ+ live freely is a world where those who are outside the community and hold power over

Black LGBTQ+ people have their mindsets freed from the need to oppress and exclude. Without the worry of the external backlash, nor the fear of loss of economic stability and ability to access basic needs from white supremacist, heteropatriarchal, and capitalistic systems, and those who

352 Personal Interview with Dashawn Usher - November 19, 2019, New York City, USA. Poe 217

uphold them, Black LGBTQ+ can welcome and risk new ways of being that they were not afforded the right to before. As Usher insists, these Black LGBTQ+ ways of being will be welcome in whatever space they please in this image of a free world.

Part of the process of rendering Black LGBTQ+ freedom to be involves not just a temporal shift to the future to radically rethink the present, but it also involves rewriting the past to reinsert Black LGBTQ+ forms of being. Ani Ganzala, a Black lesbian artist and activist from

Salvador, speaks to this point passionately in a personal interview conducted in 2019:

My dream of freedom is to recreate this quilombo. We remember so much Quilombo dos Palmares, but [I dream of] a quilombo where all of the sexual orientations and genders can be free in totality. I’m always researching about people from Africa who study sexuality and how we can better understand our history and ancestral past to be able to elaborate on our future. For me we can’t think about freedom without understanding who we were. Who were our ancestors. And to understand that all of these violences, all of these problems that we live today have a root in white eurocentric colonialism, that didn’t begin in Africa. This is the first step towards freedom.353

For Ganzala, creating a new and freer future cannot happen without confronting an ancestral past for Black LGBTQ+ people. For these communities to see themselves as capable of great complexities in their forms of being and understand these complexities not as foreign impositions (as hetornormative afrocentric arguments claim354), Black LGBTQ+ people must understand their ancestors and histories as complex. Ganzala calls into question the told history of quilombos as she longs for the creation of quilombos where all forms of being for Black people are welcomed, connecting strongly to Erica Malunguinho’s invocation of her own manifestation of a “Black trans womanist/feminist Quilombo.”355 While some scholars have

353 Personal Interview with Ani Ganzala - January 23, 2019, Salvador, Brazil. Translation by author 354 Molefi Asante, The Afrocentric Idea. Temple University Press, 1989; Hemphill, Essex, ed. Brother to brother: New writings by Black gay men. RedBone Press, 2007; Reid-Pharr, Robert F. Black gay man: Essays. Vol. 6. NYU Press, 2001; Welsing, Frances Cress. The Isis (Yssis) Papers. Third World Press, 1991. 355 Personal interview with Erica Malunguinho - April 29, 2019, São Paulo, Brazil. Translation by author Poe 218

argued about the existence of non-heteronormative sexualities within quilombos,356 the larger historiography of the history of quilombos in Brazil has yet to take seriously non- heteronormative ways of being. This connects to a larger problem of the ways heterocentric norms have been presupposed upon Black histories during the era of the transatlantic slave trade in the Americas,357 which goes to erase the more complex forms of violence that Black people faced,358 which did not follow heterocentric norms, as well as the myriad ways of being that

Black people cultivated both in spite of white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and capitalism as well as because of it. Ganzala’s call for a reformulation of quilombos for a freer future necessitates a fuller understanding of gender and sexuality within the context of quilombos, as well as within the African world. Echoing Ganzala, for Black LGBTQ+ people to know who they can be, they must know who, how, and why they’ve been in the past.

Self-Determination

Before finishing her explanation of her vision for freedom for Black LGBTQ+ people, especially Black lesbians from favelas, Michele Seixas made a note to emphasize her final point as central to any vision of Black lesbian freedom: “A politic that centralizes lesbians.

Constructed by lesbians for lesbians.”359 Throughout her interview with me, Seixas was open and

356 Luiz Mott, "Relações raciais entre homossexuais no Brasil colonial." Revista de Antropologia (1992): 169-189; Mott, Luiz. “ERA ZUMBI HOMOSSEXUAL?” Luiz Mott, October 21, 2016. https://luizmottblog.wordpress.com/artigos-em-revistas-e-jornais-12/; Trevisan, João Silvério. Perverts in paradise. Alyson Publications, 1986. 357 Essex Hemphill, ed. Brother to brother: New writings by Black gay men. RedBone Press, 2007; Richardson, Matt. The queer limit of Black memory: Black lesbian literature and irresolution. The Ohio State University Press, 2013; Woodard, Vincent. The delectable Negro: Human consumption and homoeroticism within US slave culture. Vol. 34. NYU Press, 2014. 358 Lamonte Aidoo, Slavery unseen: sex, power, and violence in Brazilian history (Duke University Press, 2018); Foster, Thomas. "The sexual abuse of black men under American slavery." Journal of the History of Sexuality 20, no. 3 (2011): 445-464; Woodard, Vincent. The delectable Negro: Human consumption and homoeroticism within US slave culture. Vol. 34. NYU Press, 2014. 359 Personal Interview with Michele Seixas - September 27, 2019, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Translation by author Poe 219

detailed about the difficulties of working in coalition between LGBTQ+ communities. She pointed to the in-fights between communities under the umbrella for the small amounts of resources available to the community, as well as the gay, bisexual, and queer men who sought to enforce patriarchal power within the LGBTQ+ community to control how funds are allocated and how groups are formulated. Her own efforts to create LGBTQ+ organizations in her own favela neighborhood had once been thwarted by these male leadership figures in LGBTQ+ organizations in the city. That experience showed her the importance of lesbians, especially

Black lesbians from favelas, being in leadership for the sustainability of programs that are created for their community. The point of self-determination and leadership as crucial to the rendering of Black lesbian freedom illuminates the ways in which various systems of oppression that are reproduced within the Black LGBTQ+ community leave Black LGBTQ+ communities without control of their own destinies.

As Seixas and many of the activists who I interviewed highlighted, not having enough input on the leadership of organizations they participated in resulted in them being silenced or pushed out when they worked to serve their community. This has a detrimental effect on the programs and services that are being provided to the Black LGBTQ+ community, but beyond that it also affects the economic futures of the activists who work professionally in nonprofit and social justice organizations. Self-determination is crucial for the economic freedom of Black

LGBTQ+ people. In our interview together, Shani Akilah spoke to this: “Worker-owned spaces right? Like Black and Brown queer and trans people who run their own workspaces. We have control over what we make or what we create.”360 Akilah and Seixas speak to the sheer amount of work that Black LGBTQ+ activists put into activist organizations that refuse to fully

360 Personal Interview with Shani Akilah - December 17, 2019, Philadelphia, USA. Poe 220

acknowledge their contributions or place them in positions of leadership. In Akilah’s own journey of repeated pushout from white led social justice nonprofits, they have worked to enact this portion of temporal shifting freedom in their own activism by working with the Black and

Brown Workers Collective to transform a collective into a cooperative that is worker-owned.

That leadership and economic ownership allowed Akilah and the many activists that work within the cooperative to pursue radically confrontational forms of action to bring transformative change without fear of leadership or funder backlash. This autonomy presents a self and collective community voice that is unavailable without leadership and self-determination. This theme of Black LGBTQ+ freedom allows people to maintain their voice without fear of losing economic stability.

Part 2: Performing Black LGBTQ+ Freedom

Janelle Monae’s Electric Freedom

After the release of her 2010 critically acclaimed album The ArchAndroid, Kansas City native Janelle Monae confused many by almost always maintaining her public image in a clean tuxedo. While topping the charts with hits such as “Tightrope” and collaborating with well- known artists such as Big Boi and P. Diddy in the release of her first album,361 she maintained her tuxedoed appearance. She seemed to ignore the pressures of a music industry that insisted

Black women need to conform to a hyperfeminine catered look to achieve success within the music industry. Looking back on these early pressures, she spoke to these pressures in an interview in 2019 saying, “When I began touring, stylists would tell me to dress more feminine.

361 Ryan Dombal, “Janelle Monae Talks Robots, Diddy, and Her Genre-Bursting New Album,” Pitchfork, Pitchfork, June 5, 2017, https://pitchfork.com/news/38754-janelle-monae-talks-robots-diddy-and-her-genre- bursting-new-album/. Poe 221

And that’s the reason I stayed in my tuxedo so long – out of rebellion...I wanted to prove that I could make it by being my authentic self. It was about proving that, as women, we can wear tuxedos, we can wear dresses, we can show skin, or not show skin. But we need to be in control of that.”362 Monae’s insistence on self-definition and control over her own image is exactly the kind of temporal shift that my Black LGBTQ+ activist interlocutors in this chapter invoke when referring to the theme of self-determination and freedom to be. However, rather than accept

Jannelle Monae’s futuristic defiance to gendered norms, people spread rumors about the reasons why she insisted upon “masculine” styles of tuxedos. Monae drew on these rumors to preach a bold, albeit coded, celebration of Black women’s sexual freedom and autonomy around the release of her second album The Electric Lady in 2013. Her norm-defying gender presentation and lyrics led many to believe that she was using the album as a subtle way to come out as lesbian, bisexual, or queer, but instead of leaning into these terms, she began to define herself differently, stating in a 2014 interview with the Guardian, “I am part-android...I am the Electric

Lady. Have you listened to my album, The Electric Lady?”363 Monae’s response, while also playfully gesturing to the title of her latest album and her long afro-futuristic identification with androids, again takes back Monae’s agency in self definition within the context of the terms and philosophies that she has presented since her arrival as an artist on the music scene. While

Monae would later come out in her own words as queer and pansexual in 2018, her continual emphasis on self-determination and manifestation of a Black queer freedom in her artistic rendering of herself and lyrics reflects the futuristic themes of freedom outlined by Black

LGBTQ+ activists in this chapter.

362 https://www.peoplemagazine.co.za/celebrity-news/international-celebrities/janelle-monae-wears-tuxedos-as-an- act-of-rebellion/ 363 Paul Lester, “Janelle Monae: 'It's True. I Am Part-Android',” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, April 2, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/apr/02/janelle-monae-interview-david-bowie-prince. Poe 222

Janelle Monae’s music video “Q.U.E.E.N” begins in an afro-futuristic temporal shift to a future museum that features freedom fighters from throughout the ages. Monae, frozen in time in the fictitious museum, is featured prominently as the museum guide describes her song as

“freedom movements that Wondaland (Monae’s musical team) disguised as song, emotion pictures, and works of art.”364

Figure 10 - Janelle Monae’s Q.U.E.E.N.

Already Monae sets up her video as an artistic rendering of a freer Black future. As the video progresses, Monae, in her signature tuxedo, and her music team, are woken from their frozen slumber and begin to dance and vibe to the music. Monae switches in and out of her signature tuxedo into the striped black and white tight-fitting dresses that her crew of Black women backup dancers are wearing, almost as if trying out different forms of gender expression. After

Monae’s first refrain, “Am I a freak for getting down,”365 she appears to repeat the title of her song “queen” again, yet this time she curiously leaves the end of the word open, leaving the faint sound of “queer” instead of “queen.” As her refrain continues to ask, “Am I a freak for getting

364 Janelle Monae, “Q.U.E.E.N.” Youtube, Accessed March 31, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEddixS- UoU. 365 Ibid. Poe 223

down,” the playful seemingly insertion of “queer” suggests many meanings: odd, strange, or even queer in the meaning of non-heteronormative. Monae’s consistent questioning of whether

“getting down” or dancing, living, or being free in one’s erotic self makes her a “freak” juxtoposed with her invocation of queer suggests that she is calling attention to the way Black women’s gendered and sexual choices are extremely controlled and that to step into the free and complex fullness of those choices is to step into a queerness.

Later on in the song, her repeated refrain extends,

Am I a freak for dancing around? Am I a freak for getting down? I'm coming up, don't cut me down And yeah I wanna be, wanna be Even if it makes others uncomfortable I wanna love who I am Even if it makes other uncomfortable I will love who I am366

Instead of allowing herself to be controlled by the multiple systems of power that seek to control

Black women’s expressions and self-making, Monae’s lyrics suggest a leaning into what Audre

Lorde calls erotic power.367 In Monae’s lyrical insistence on both a freedom to be, in all of her complexities, and a self-determination, she insists that regardless of external pressure, norms, and fear of reaction, what is paramount to her is maintaining those freedoms. Love for herself and her varied ways of being are more important than the uncomfortability of others. Monae’s insistence upon this prioritization of freedom and autonomy over external pressure continues in her ending rap,

Yeah, keep singing and I'mma keep writing songs I'm tired of Marvin asking me, What's Going On? March to the streets cause I'm willing and I'm able

366 Janelle Monae, “Q.U.E.E.N.” 367 Audre Lorde, "The Uses of The Erotic: The Erotic as Power." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader (1993): 339- 343. Poe 224

Categorize me, I defy every label368

Janelle Mone in her masterful lyrics exalts not only the necessity of her freedom of self- definition, but the importance of defending that freedom with action. Her insistence on continuing to write songs is connected to museum guide’s early insistence that her songs were freedom movements coded in art. Therefore her insistence upon continuing to write freedom songs is a bold insistence of her own freedom to exist, as she chooses. Her invocation of action as well, through marching through the streets, as well as defying the labels placed upon her, is a clear act of rejecting and destroying the systems that oppress her. In an era where Monae receives pressure to explain her own sexuality and gender expressions, her bold refusal to define herself based on imposed external terms allows her to maintain her own self-determination. Her prior call to march through the streets suggests that her fight for self-determination is not individual, but community based. Monae’s lyrics echo a desire for herself and all Black queer people to be able to self-define and exist freely and knowledge that a fight for these rights is the only way to manifest these freedoms.

In another song on Monae’s Electric Lady album “Ghetto Woman,” she lifts up the image of the Black working class woman as central to her own ideas of freedom. Social science scholarship stretching back to Daniel Moynihan’s report “The Negro Family: A Case for

National Action” has long blamed the working-class Black woman’s role as head of household in many Black families as the reason for the downfall Black families.369 Monae adamantly rejects these constructions of the Black working-class woman, acknowledges the oppressions the

368 Janelle Monae, “Q.U.E.E.N.” 369 Elizabeth Higginbotham, "Two Representative Issues in Contemporary Sociological Work on Black Women." All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies (1982): 93- 98; Moynihan, Daniel Patrick. The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. No. 3. US Government Printing Office, 1965; Scott, Patricia Bell. "Debunking Sapphire: Toward a non-racist and non-sexist social science." J. Soc. & Soc. Welfare 4 (1976): 864. Poe 225

“ghetto woman” faces, and marks her as central to her own ideologies of Black queer freedom.

Monae states in her lyrics,

Carry on Ghetto Woman I see you working night to morning light yet no one cares Carry on Ghetto Woman Cause even though they laugh and talk about the clothes you wear370

Monae points out the constant degradation that the “ghetto woman” must deal with as she simply tries to survive the hardships of the world. This Black working-class woman deals with both extremely long hours of work, probably with low pay, and the ridicule of her own clothing. As

Monae’s experience has shown, clothing is used to categorize and determine one’s gender expression, therefore, similar to Monae, this ghetto woman in her song deals with ridicule about her choice of gender expression due to the clothing she has available to her. Black protofeminist marxist activist and theorist Claudia Jones, speaking to the struggles of Black working class women, argued in her 1949 article “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro

Woman” that Black women who are many times the primary family caretaker are dealt the responsibility of painstaking work to economically provide for their children while facing the weight of gendered, raced, and economic oppression. This work at the face of a intersecting oppressions, ensured that the working class Black woman faced “degradation and super- exploitation”371 Monae’s articulation reflects this degradation, for the “ghetto woman” deals with both economic oppression through long low paying work hours, and gendered/raced oppression by the ridicule of her clothing choices. Monae’s song continues,

Before the tuxedos and black and white every day Used to watch my momma get down on her knees and pray She's the reason that I'm even writing this song

370 Janelle Monae, “Ghetto Woman” Genuis, Accessed March 31, 2021, https://genius.com/Janelle-monae-ghetto- woman-lyrics. 371 Claudia Jones, "An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!" Revista Estudos Feministas 25, no. 3 (2017): 1001-1016. Poe 226

Ghetto Woman no it won't be long, now sing along372

Monae in this part of the song connects her fashion choices and gender expression to her the clothing choices of her mother, the “ghetto woman” exalted in this song. Monae cited in prior interviews that the reason her mother wore tuxedos daily was because she worked as a janitor, and the tuxedo was her uniform.373 The ridicule Monae’s mother receives in the song for the clothes she wears is clearly marked by Monae in these lyrics as connected to the type of work she partakes in. But Monae’s resignification of her mother’s tuxedo wear for herself and use of the clothing as integral to her own image and identity shows her refusal to abandon her mother’s struggles in search of her own freedom, but rather understanding her mother’s struggles as integral to her own freedom.

Throughout Monae’s song she insists that the keys to freedom lie in the experiences and ideologies of the “ghetto woman.” In the chorus of her song Monae sings,

I wish they could just realize That all you've ever needed was someone to free your mind Carry on Ghetto Woman Cause even in your darkest hours I still see your light374

Monae’s insistence that what this “ghetto woman” needed was someone to “free [her] mind”375 insists that it is her conditions, not who she is cultural or ideologically, that is problematic.

Monae’s reverence for the cultures cultivated out of both necessity and choice from this ghetto woman, her mother, insists that the freeing of the mind that is necessary is for the “ghetto woman” and others around her to be able to see her contributions. Monae soliloquizes,

Some say this ghetto land will take you down and poison you Some say she can do all the things a man can do

372 Janelle Monae, “Ghetto Woman” 373 Marisa Petrarca, “The Emotional Reason Janelle Monae Only Wears Black and White.” Us Weekly, September 13, 2019. https://www.usmagazine.com/stylish/news/janelle-monae-shares-her-tuxedo-fashion-inspiration-pics/. 374 Janelle Monae, “Ghetto Woman” 375 Ibid. Poe 227

Who said the ghetto's just a place where queens dance naked on the moon? We say a woman came to change the face of each and every room376

Monae boldly questions the common claims of the “ghetto woman” as a problem and instead posits that she is the solution, precisely for the reasons that she has historically been criticized for. As referenced earlier, in the US Department of Labor funded report by Daniel Moynihan

“The Negro Family: The Case For National Action,” Moynihan argued that the biggest problem for Black people in the United States was the heteropatirachal breakdown of the family unit which catapulted Black women as heads of households and ensured absent fathers.377

Moynihan’s insistence that the breakdown of these heteropatriarchal norms in Black families are the cause of degradation in Black communities ignores the transformative potential offered by the breaking of these norms and the lessons from Black-women-led households. Monae points to this transformative potential, as well as the continual misconceptions about it, by insisting that the idea that the “ghetto woman” can do everything a man can do is not poison, but rather it is a transformative potential. The “ghetto woman” in Monae’s song provides a way to rethink and change the boundaries of womanhood, even as she suffers through unjust oppression. Monae’s use of her mother’s “ghetto woman” persona as the starting place of her own self-image presents transformative possibilities in Black queer pasts, even as they are filled with oppression.

Monae’s choice to find her own Black queer sense of being in her mother’s story calls to Ani

Ganzala’s longing to connect Black LGBTQ+ visions of futuristic freedom to a fuller understanding of Black past and complexities. Monae’s own freedom to exist, in her own fullness, embraces the complexities and potentials inside of her mother, and the Black “ghetto women” ancestors who came before her.

376 Janelle Monae, “Ghetto Woman” 377 Daniel Patrick. The Negro family: The case for national action. No. 3. US Government Printing Office, 1965. Poe 228

Liberdade da Bicha Preta - Linn da Quebrada

When Black trans São Paulo based artist Linn da Quebrada launched her first single

“Enviadescer” (femme-ify) in 2016, it became a viral hit. Her single boldly celebrated a non- heteronormative “afeminada” (femme) identity as both a powerful figure and a figure worthy of love. Her song speaks back against the dominant rejection of femme identities within gay and trans communities in search of a masculine homonormative378 identity that seeks to imitate oppressive masculinities built up by heteronormativity.379 Linn da Quebrada (releasing the song as MC Linn da Quebrada) opens her career as an unapologetic voice for the freedom for femmes to exist in all of their unabashed femininity.

378 Lisa Duggan, "The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism," Materializing Democracy: Toward A Revitalized Cultural Politics 10 (2002): 9780822383901-007. 379 Christopher T. Conner, "The Gay Gayze: Expressions of Inequality On Grindr." The Sociological Quarterly 60, no. 3 (2019): 397-419; Kulick, Don. Travesti: Sex, gender, and culture among Brazilian transgendered prostitutes. University of Chicago Press, 1998; McCune Jr, Jeffrey Q. Sexual discretion: Black masculinity and the politics of passing. University of Chicago Press, 2014; Pinho, Osmundo, and Rolf Malungo de Souza. "Subjetividade, Cultura e Poder: Politizando Masculinidades Negras." Cadernos de Gênero e Diversidade 5, no. 2 (2019): 40-46. Poe 229

Figure 11 - Linn da Quebrada’s Enviadescer

She begins her song by calling attention to the masculine figure responsible for both violence and desire in her community and openly rejecting it. She raps,

Ei, psiu, você aí, macho discreto Chega mais, cola aqui Vamo bater um papo reto Que eu não tô interessada no seu grande pau ereto Eu gosto mesmo é das bixas, das que são afeminada Das que mostram muita pele, rebolam, saem maquiada Eu vou falar mais devagar pra ver se consegue entender Se tu quiser ficar comigo, boy (ha-ha-ha) Vai ter que enviadescer Enviadescer, enviadescer

(Translation) Hey, psst, you there, discreet macho man Come closer, come here Let's have a chat Because I’m not interested in your big hard dick What I like are the gays, those who are feminine Those that show lots of skin, shake their ass, and wear makeup I’ll say it slower so that you can understand If you want to be with me, boy (ha-ha-ha) You’ll have to femme-ify femme-ify, femme-ify380

Turning the homonormative gender expression expectations on their head for romantic interests of gay and bisexual men, as well as trans and gender non-conforming people, Linn da Quebrada shifts the expectation for her love interests from the masculine norm all the way to the other end of the spectrum. She insists that any masculine boy that had romantic or sexual intentions with her had to find their own femininity. In these lyrics, Linn da Quebrada not only breaks with the idea that the masculine is ideal and supreme but insists instead that the feminine is the powerful ideal. Linn da Quebrada opens space for femmes of all genders to fully experiment and be open

380 Linn da Quebrada, “Enviadescer” Letras, Accessed March 31, 2021, https://www.letras.mus.br/mc-linn-da- quebrada/enviadescer/. Translation by author. Poe 230

with their own femininity without shame or repression. She continues,

Ai meu Deus, o que que é isso quéssas bixa tão fazendo? Pra todo lado que eu olho, tão todes enviadescendo Mas não tem nada a ver com gostar de rola ou não Pode vir, cola junto as transviadas, sapatão Bora enviadescer, até arrastar a bunda no chão

(Translation) Oh my God, what are these sissies doing? Everywhere I look, they are all femme-ifying But it doesn’t have anything to do with liking dick or not You can come, join us transfemmes, lesbians Lets femme-ify, until we shake our ass to the floor

Linn da Quebrada’s femme rallying call is interested in a femme freedom that transcends gender identity and sexuality. Instead of focusing on constructed and externally imposed identities, she calls for a leaning into corporeal freedom that doesn’t fear feminine expressions. The first quoted line in Linn da Quebrada’s lyrics show the shock of society at people practicing this feminine freedom unapologetically and is repeated throughout the song as onlookers remark “Ih, aí, as bixa ficou maluca”381 (Yikes, over there, these sissies have gone crazy). The external shock and ridicule of those stepping into their own feminine power presents the difficulty of manifesting free futures for femmes in the face of an unfree present. As Black cultural studies scholar La

Marr Jurelle Bruce invokes with his concept of “the madwoman’s radical oddity,”382 Black feminine subjects practicing an affective and corporeal freedom are presumed mad and attacked for that “madness.” Linn da Quebrada understands this presumption and instead of negating its existence to promote this feminine freedom, she ridicules the shock of others throughout the song, incorporating this ridicule of the systems of power that seek to control her freedom as essential to achieving freedom. For Linn da Quebrada, the external shock of her femininity and

381 Linn da Quebrada, “Enviadescer.” 382 La Marr Jurelle Bruce, "The People Inside My Head, Too": Madness, Black Womanhood, and the Radical Performance of Lauryn Hill." African American Review 45, no. 3 (2012): 371-389. Poe 231

the idea that her freedom is “crazy” is a joke in comparison to the joy and power of the feminine ways of being. She embraces the calls of madness as part of her feminine power, effectively destroying the power of these systems seeking to control her femininity. Linn da Quebrada’s lean into the feminine, regardless of how society codifies it as madness, harkens to Black trans freedom fighter Marsha P. Johnson’s quote, “I may be crazy, but that don't make me wrong.”383

Later that same year, Linn da Quebrada released their next big single “Bixa Preta.”

Almost immediately the song rippled throughout Brazil to become an anthem for Black

LGBTQ+ people. As Flip Couto explained in my introduction, Linn da Quebrada’s song made

Black LGBTQ+ communities in Brazil feel seen in a way that they rarely feel seen within the

Brazilian media and music scene. “Bixa Preta” served as an exaltation to poor Black gay and trans femmes from peripheral neighborhoods in Brazil.

Linn da Quebrada begins her song,

Bixistranha, loka preta da favela Quando ela tá passando todos riem da cara dela Mas, se liga macho, presta muita atenção Senta e observa a sua destruição

(Translation) Strange sissy, crazy Black girl from the favela When she passes by everyone laughs at her But, look here macho man, pay close attention Sit and observe your destruction384

Once again, Linn da Quebrada presents the masculine figure as the barrier to Black femme freedom. She toys with the juxtaposition between the Black masculine peripheral image, the

383 Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, "Disability Justice/Stonewall's Legacy, Or: Love Mad Trans Black Women When They Are Alive and Dead, Let Their Revolutions Teach Your Resistance All the Time," QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking 6, no. 2 (2019): 54-62. Accessed February 14, 2021. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/qed.6.2.0054. 384 Linn da Quebrada, “Bixa Preta” Letras, Accessed March 31, 2021, https://www.letras.mus.br/mc-linn-da- quebrada/bixa-preta/. Translation by author. Poe 232

negão, and the bicha preta. As the authors of “Bichas Pretas: Pegações, Afetos, e Sociabilidades nas Periferias do Rio de Janeiro e Porto Velho” elaborate, this juxtaposition is key to understanding the narrow categories that Black subjects that are assigned male at birth are forced into.385 The negão as a figure is celebrated culturally for his masculine virility and is seen in a hyper-sexualized context. The negão’s masculinity is seen as stronger and more resilient than even white masculinity in Brazil and therefore granted a conditional acceptance in the image of the Brazilian nation. However, this “celebration” of the negão’s masculinity within Brazil does not translate to economic power for those who are identified as such. The negão’s construction as a figure of brute physical strength ensures that he is relegated to both the sexual world or the world of manual labor.386 The bicha preta on the other hand is a figure that is seen as abject within the construction of the Brazilian nation for people who are read as assigned male at birth.

Their rejection of a virile masculinity and their lean into femininity marks them as unacceptable, as Gomes de Oliveira explains, the bicha preta is seen as “The demonic sinner, the dangerous criminal, the rampantly immoral person, the sick, the scandalous crazy person.”387 The bicha preta is not granted any conditional space as accepted within the national image, such as the negão or gay and bisexual men who follow heteronormative masculinity expectations.

Representative Douglas Garcia’s constant attacks on trans people show the ways in which people who disregard the norms of gender and sex in Brazil are attacked even by gay men who are

385 Wilson Guilherme Dias Pereira et al, "Bichas pretas." Sul-Sul-Revista de Ciências Humanas e Sociais 1, no. 02 (2020): 39-56. 386 Megg Rayara Gomes de Oliveira, "Trejeitos e trajetos de gayzinhos afeminados, viadinhos e bichinhas pretas na educação!" Revista Periódicus 1, no. 9 (2018): 161-191; Pereira, Wilson Guilherme Dias, Paulo Melgaço da Silva Junior, Tarciso Manfrenatti de Souza Teixeira, and Marcio Caetano. "Bichas pretas." Sul-Sul-Revista de Ciências Humanas e Sociais 1, no. 02 (2020): 39-56; Pinho, Osmundo. "“Putaria”: masculinidade, negritude e desejo no pagode baiano." Maguaré 29, no. 2 (2015): 209-238. 387 Megg Rayara Gomes de Oliveira, "O diabo em forma de gente:(r) existências de gays afeminados, viados e bichas pretas na educação," (2017). Poe 233

striving for their own conditional acceptance through gender norms. For the bicha preta, there is no conditional acceptance in society. All masculine figures conditionally accepted, from the negão to the masculine gay man, serve as a masculine policing force against the abject figure of the bicha preta. Therefore, the metaphorical destruction that Linn da Quebrada speaks of at the end of her quoted lyrics is both a destruction of these masculine figures in the periphery that serve as not only a police force of the bicha preta’s femme freedom but also as a destruction of the limited concept of masculinity in general.

Linn da Quebrada boldly insists that for the bicha preta to be free, masculinity, in its current rendering, must be destroyed. She continues,

Que eu sou uma bixa loka preta favelada Quicando eu vou passar e ninguém mais vai dar risada E se tu for esperto, pode logo perceber Que eu já não estou de brincadeira (eu vou botar é pra fuder)388

(Translation) I’m a crazy bixa preta from the favela Bouncing my ass I’ll walk by and nobody will laugh anymore And if you were smart, you would realize That I’m not playing anymore (I’ll fuck you up)

Linn da Quebrada makes it clear that this laughter that serves to mark her and other bichas pretas as jokes and abjections is what serves to uphold gender norms for Black people from the periphery, and it is exactly what she rejects and seeks to destroy. Linn da Quebrada’s rejection of the systems of power that seek to control and limit her own freedom to exist as she desires serves as an act of manifesting a futuristic freedom where she defends her right to exist by any means necessary. Linn da Quebrada’s actions gesture to the words of Dominick, another bicha preta, in our interview. Dominick insists that the elimination of bofes, or macho men, who cause violence

388 Linn da Quebrada, “Bixa Preta.” Poe 234

in the lives of bichas pretas, would usher in new ways for Black LGBTQ+ freedom. In her own manifestation of this freedom, Linn da Quebrada’s lyrical self-defense against these policings of masculinity within the favela and periphery serve as her own destruction of these systems of power that limit her existence as a bicha preta.

Linn da Quebrada’s lyrical work in “Bixa Preta” elaborates on the specific experience of being a bicha preta, as well as the power that comes with leaning into this intersectional social position. Linn da Quebrada raps in “Bixa Preta,”

A minha pele preta, é meu manto de coragem Impulsiona o movimento Envaidece a viadagem389

(Translation) My Black skin, is my cloak of courage It drives my movement Femme-ifies my femmeness

Analyzing the abjection of the bicha preta for falling outside of the relegated space of masculinity for Black subjects assigned male at birth, the femininity of the bicha is seen incongruent with their preta (Black) identity. However, Linn da Quebrada rejects that notion insisting that it is their Blackness that is essential to structuring their femme-ness. The joining of bicha and preta and the continual interconnectedness of the multiple identities playing upon one another drives an even fuller freedom of being, and brings together the tools of defense. Like countless others, Linn da Querbrada finds her own transformative power in the resisting of her own fragmentation.

Liberdade da Bixa Preta - The Afrobapho Collective

389 Linn da Quebrada, “Bixa Preta.” Poe 235

When I interviewed Alan Costa Bispo, one of the founders of the Afrobapho Collective, in Salvador in 2019, he explained to me the importance of terms like bicha preta for self- identification. He insists,

I could say I identify as a Black gay man, but I identify much more with this identity of bicha preta because for me, it has much more meaning than Black gay man. We know that Black men in general...he is stereotyped by white power structures as a virile man, a super aggressive masculinity...so this ends up flowing into when we talk about sexuality too. White men expect that Black men to be virile tops. I never saw a connection with these racist stereotypes, because my body has always been dissident from heteronormativity. I’ve always been femme...I’ve always had a way to deal with society a different way than this racist construction of what is expected of a man. I found myself in the place of the bicha preta because society ended up pushing me to these places. They tell me you’re not a man, because I’m not what they expect a man to be.390

Bispo’s insistence on determining his own definitions of himself as a bicha preta works to tear back his embodied realities from the anti-Black renderings of Black men in society which relegate Black femmes and bichas pretas to a nowhere land, a continual state of abjection. Bicha preta for Bispo, as it served for Linn da Quebrada, takes the intersection of multiple marginal places in society and resurrects power from that marginalized place. The intention of reclaiming the terminology of bicha preta is to take away the power from systems that seek to banish these people to the margins of society and put this power back in the hands of the bichas pretas. This powerful act of language which serves to destroy the power in the oppression bichas pretas face is the kind of artistic political work that Afrobapho engages in consistently. The Afrobapho

Collective is an artivist collective based in Salvador, Bahia that works to challenge the concepts of gender and sexuality and the anti-Blackness inherent in them. The collective is made up of

Black LGBTQ+ people from the poor and peripheral parts of Salvador. In this section,I analyze one of the videos they produced to understand how Afrobapho’s bold artistic vision and

390 Personal Interview with Alan Costa Bispo - February 26, 2019, Salvador, Brazil. Translation by author Poe 236

conversation provoking artistic interventions provide a temporal shift to manifest freedoms not yet available in the here and now.

In Afrobapho’s “em PrimaVERA-VERAO” the four Black femme collective members of the group make their way through the predominantly black marketplace of Feira de São Joaquim.

However, as they make their way through the marketplace, it is clear that they do not simply fade into the landscape, and unapologetically stand out. The four black queer femmes choose to be bold in their femme gender presentation, not simply to be able to exist as themselves in the space, but to force a conversation about gender and sexuality in Black homespaces through exposing their gender presentation to the crowd. As the collective stated when posting the video to their facebook page,

The Feira de São Joaquim is a historic space of Salvador...It is occupied by sellers from various places of [the state of] Bahia, especially by Black people from the periphery. Between market attenders and other workers of the Feira de São Joaquim, Black men are in the majority. In this audiovisual production, The Afrobapho Collective utilizes the occupation of the Feira de São Joaquim as a laboratory in which the diverse masculinities meet and produce meanings: Black straight men and Bichas pretas afeminadas.391

As opposed to reimagining a capacious and futuristic predominantly Black social space that includes them, they throw themselves into the middle of the realities of these present Black spaces and question the real limits for bichas pretas in these spaces while refusing to limit their own freedom of self-expression. Therefore, as they question the heteronormative policing of the space, and refuse to be policed, they effectively rip the power away from the white heteronormativity that finds no place or acceptance for the bicha preta.

The video stops and ponders at many points on the gaze and impression from the passersby in the marketplace. Many times these gazes are from men laughing or ogling in

391 “Afrobapho Em PrimaVERA-VERÃO / Feira De São Joaquim.” Facebook Watch. Afrobapho, November 21, 2017. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1208558492607848. Poe 237

disbelief at these four femmes expressing and dancing in a manner outside the masculine norm.

The men look on, recording, sneering, and consuming their gender expression with fascination.

At one point, near the end of the clip, a mixed group of men and women of varying ages watch, mesmerized, with mouths falling open, showing the shock that these femmes are causing in this

Black space. Their gaze seems to say “how strange” or “what is going on?” Their gaze, whether intentional or not, has a heteronormative policing effect which is exactly what Afrobapho aims to highlight and push past to make space for Black femmes in this Black hyper masculine space.

At the end of Afrobapho’s video, the bichas pretas who entered the Feira de São Joaquim to make the gender norms of the space a little more “afeminada” (femme), ride out on a cart, leaving like royalty, as they wink knowing the positive mayhem they caused by openly existing as bichas pretas in a predominantly Black masculine space. Whether there were moments of violence or conflict with the men who occupy this hypermasculine Black space, the video refused to show this. Instead, Afrobapho presents an alternative story to the idea that the bicha preta’s existence in heteronormative spaces provokes violence. Afrobapho presents the image of the bicha preta’s freedom, in all her femme glory, providing a quiet chaos to the heteronormative space. As Jack Halberstam suggests, chaos can be the space of experimentation and the door to futuristic temporal shifts.392 The chaos that Afrobapho brings isn’t one that causes violence and destruction of the bicha preta as a threat but one that serves to cause violence and destruction upon the systems of power that relegate bichas pretas to the margins. Afrobapho presents chaos as a gift to these Black spaces that invites a utpoic journey to a free Black existence, outside of white heteronormative boundaries.

392 J. Jack Halberstam, Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, And the End Of Normal, 7 (Beacon Press, 2012). Poe 238

Conclusion

During each interview that I asked my interlocutors to elaborate on what they envisioned as a freedom for Black LGBTQ+ communities, I could see the joy in their eyes as they began to imagine a world beyond the one they inhabit. The joy grew as they elaborated on their vision, imagining themselves and their community within this world. However, many times, this joy on their faces turned to sadness as they remembered that the image of freedom lives in their minds, for now. At the end of our interview, they still had to go out to face a world full of intersecting violences that seek to limit the existences of Black LGBTQ+ people. In a world that provides little reprieve for the oppressed, music, performance, film, and other artistic forms provide ample space to reflect the dreams of a better world. While Black LGBTQ+ people live out the visions of utopia in their minds, the art they consume allows them space to travel in time to a world where freedom is not a dream, but a tangible reality. Poe 239

CONCLUSION

“O Movimento Bicha Preta não se encerra no conceito, na academia ou na rua. É um movimento ancestral, um movimento cotidiano de diversos homens negros dissidentes, que critica o endosso do heterocispatriarcalismo e, até mesmo, do arbitrário embranquecimento de nossas dissidências.”

“The Bicha Preta Movement doesn’t stop at the conceptual, at the academy or at the street. It’s an ancestral movement, a quotidian movement of diverse Black dissident men, that critique the upholding of heteropatriarchy and the arbitrary whitening of our dissidence.”

-- Kauan Almeida and Vinicius Zacarias, 2018393

In 2019, while conducting field work in Salvador, Bahia, I had the immense pleasure of being invited to present my research in progress to a group of undergraduate and graduate students in the Social Sciences Department at the Federal University of the Recôncavo of Bahia

(UFRB). The university is located in Cachoeira, Bahia, a town of historical importance for Black history in Brazil. The town is the site of the first Black Catholic sisterhood, the Irmandade da

Boa Morte, whose members actively worked to pay for freedom for other enslaved Africans in the Cachoeira area during slavery394. Now the city serves as a space of Black diasporic pilgrimage as the yearly Boa Morte (Good Death) festival led and organized by the Irmandade da

Boa Morte in August draws Black people from around the world to take part in the festivities with the Irmandade. When UFRB was founded in 2006 it was absorbed into this rich Black history in Bahia, and soon became colloquially known by its students as the “Blackest university in Brazil.” After visiting the town the first time at the invite of my scholar-activist interlocutor

393 Vinícius Zacarias and Kauan Almeida, “Consciência Bicha Preta,” Justificando, December 20, 2018. http://www.justificando.com/2018/12/03/consciencia-bicha-preta/. 394 Ras Michael Brown, Joan C. Bristol, Emily Suzanne Clark, Michael Pasquier, Matthew J. Cressler, and Stephen Selka. "Black Catholicism." Journal of Africana Religions 2, no. 2 (2014): 244-95. Accessed February 15, 2021. doi:10.5325/jafrireli.2.2.0244; Sheila S. Walker, "The Feast of Good Death: An Afro-Catholic Emancipation Celebration in Brazil," Sage 3, no. 2 (1986): 27.

Poe 240

and good friend Vinicius Zacarias in 2018 for the Boa Morte festival, Zacarias invited me back to present in his department at UFRB.

Beyond the constant presence of Black students and professors at UFRB, I noticed in both of my visits in Cachoeira the common presence of LGBTQ+ students at UFRB. Vinicius explained to me that the university’s nationally renowned program in film and the feminist and queer professors in the social sciences served as a draw for LGBTQ+ students throughout Brazil, especially in Bahia. So, when I arrived at the social sciences building, dripping with sweat from the intense heat of the interior of Bahia, I was instantly filled with joy as I saw that the majority of the students who had shown up for my talk were Black LGBTQ+ people. It was a critical and rare opportunity to have scholarly dialogue about my research themes with the communities the research is about in a university setting in Brazil. Seeing the audience for the talk also allowed me to let my guard down a bit, as I had prepared the night before for the hostilities that my work generally gets from an older generation of (white) Brazilian scholars. Being that my work in progress sought to take the political identity constructions of Black LGBTQ+ people in Brazil seriously, on their terms, and put them in conversation with the political identity constructions of

Black queer and trans people in the United States, I often received a hostile response for older white Brazilian academics who remained beholden to a historiography of Brazil that continually insisted upon the definition of Brazilian racial concepts as the antithesis of US racial concepts395.

This hostility only worsened due to my own identity as a Black US-born scholar.396

However, as I presented and a rich conversation arose in the question and answer session after my presentation, I began to see how essential these moments of diasporic connection and

395Peter Burke and Maria Lúcia G. Pallares-Burke. Gilberto Freyre: Social Theory in The Tropics. Vol. 11. Peter Lang, 2008. 396 Keisha-Khan Y Perry, Black Women Against the Land Grab: The Fight for Racial Justice in Brazil (U Of Minnesota Press, 2013). Poe 241

exchange were for Black LGBTQ+ communities. The comments and questions about my presentation were not simply rich in the constructive feedback offered, but it was also full of joy and excitement about the possibilities of connection and collaboration this kind of transnational project opened up. Black LGBTQ+ student audience members shared their own experiences in the spaces I discussed such as Batekoo, the Movimento Negro Unificado, or Grupo Gay da

Bahia, and asked eagerly asked the connections I saw to similar spaces in the United States.

Their questions showed that they themselves had felt and affective diasporic relationship to what they knew and saw of the Black queer and trans culture and experiences in the United States and were eager to see this affective connection reflected within emerging academic works, giving

“legitimacy” to this feeling of diaspora. In that moment as a researcher and a citizen of the Black queer diaspora, I witnessed the power of documenting diasporic connections and felt energized to continue the work of mending diasporic fractures.

Poe 242

Figure 12 - Author with Scholars From The Federal University of the Recôncavo of Bahia

In this dissertation I have argued that the activism of Black LGBTQ+ communities across

Brazil and the United States contains the potential for radical change within social movements and within society at large. Black LGBTQ+ people’s existence at the intersections of multiple systems of domination helps them to develop visions of societal change that demand complexity and go beyond a simplistic understanding of how power and oppression function in society.

Outlining the various ways in which systems of white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and capitalism work to limit this radical potential and fragment the Black LGBTQ+ people’s multi- dimensional experiences with oppression, I argued that the transformative potential of Black

LGBTQ+ people’s thought works in a push and pull with the limits that the oppression they experience creates. In this dissertation I utilize Black (queer/lesbian) feminist theories about intersectionality and radical identity politics from authors like the Combahee River Collective,

Kimberle Crenshaw, Léila Gonzalez, Djamila Ribeiro, José Muñoz, and Megg Rayara Gomes de

Oliveira to show how identity politics works in practice across social movement spaces and within the political sphere. I argue that the continual work of Black LGBTQ+ activists to maintain wholeness within the spaces they frequent is part of the radical work of intersectional identity politics that inevitably transforms all of the spaces where Black LGBTQ+ people exist. I argue the following:

1. Black LGBTQ+ people work to create spaces where they can individually and collectively

exist without the painful fragmentation of their identities, however this process is riddled

with conflicts with those who do not share their identities and seek to uphold their

fragmentation and oppression. Poe 243

2. Black LGBTQ+ people have actively worked for inclusion within larger movements racial

justice and LGBTQ+ advocacy movements. The process of working for inclusion openly

as a Black LGBTQ+ person has forced transformed social movements for Black and

LGBTQ+ liberation, and has helped to push these movements toward intersectional lenses.

Yet, while some Black LGBTQ+ people have been able to work towards this inclusion

openly, some Black LGBTQ+ people are forced into silence about questions of gender and

sexuality due to the weight of gender, race, and class expectations.

3. The election of Black LGBTQ+ politicians has allowed Black LGBTQ+ politicians to

push forth a transformative political project that brings their radical intersectional identity

politics to congressional politics. However, a misconstruing of the concept of identity

politics has allowed Black LGBTQ+ politicians to work against this transformative

political project in favor of upholding white supremacist, heteropatriarchal, and

capitalistic power structures.

4. Despite the weight of intersectional oppression in Black LGBTQ+ activists’ lives, many

envision a freedom that exists outside of the context of present-day oppression and

includes the destruction of all oppressions, as well as full freedom and self-determination

for all. Black LGBTQ+ artists reflect these visions for freedom through their genre

breaking performance art.

The research presented in this dissertation works to expand our understandings of the condition of Black LGBTQ+ populations throughout Brazil and the United States and the resistances they create in response to the systems of dominations they confront. Yet, as this dissertation is limited in the project's scope, I have found that there is much more work to be done to understand the full nature of Black LGBTQ+ activism in Brazil and the United States Poe 244

and throughout the world. As my research in the United States was interrupted by the onset of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic that spread across the globe, I halted my ethnographic interviews at the end of February 2020. Yet, as I followed on the news and social media, uprisings of Black people throughout the United States and Brazil took to the streets, even in the pandemic's desperation, to protest the impunitive police, state, and state-sanctioned violence Black people faced. With a force never seen before, the 2020 protests throughout quickly spread into the largest social movement in history.397 The 2020 moments of political unrest and active resistance were a moment that I would have closely followed to understand Black LGBTQ+ activists' participation and leadership in the movement, if not for the interruption of my research.

Therefore, following this dissertation's completion, I plan to research the 2020 uprisings to understand how the protests in 2020 expand or shift the arguments I make about Black LGBTQ+ activism. Until the end of the coronavirus pandemic, I will conduct my research virtually and in ways that reduce human contact, utilizing the news coverage, Black activists’ social media participation, and virtual interviews with activists.

Beyond this expansion of my research, I also found other topics throughout my dissertation research that would further our understanding of Black LGBTQ+ life and activism in essential ways. Tianna Paschel and Cristiano Rodrigues’s comparative studies on Black movements in Brazil and Colombia show the importance of understanding how the Black movements in these two South American countries are both differently constructed due to different demographics and national conversations about race and ethnicity and at the same time

397 Larry Buchanan et al., “Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S. History,” The New York Times, July 3, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html. Poe 245

interconnected due to the connections of Latin American racial ideologies.398 In line with these recent works, I contend that scholarship on Black LGBTQ+ activism in Brazil would benefit from being put in conversations with other Latin American contexts, especially Colombia and

Venezuela, due to their South American locations and the MERCOSUL governmental conversations between the countries, as well as Cuba, due to historical connections between

Black ethnic groups in Brazil and Cuba and the recent antagonistic relationship between Brazil’s ultra-conservative governments and Cuba’s communist government. Tanya Saunders’ article in

No Tea No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies has begun this important work, focusing on the connections of transnational Black lesbian feminist artivism in Brazil and Cuba. More work that relationally and transnationally analyzes Black LGBTQ+ life and activism in different

Latin American contexts is much needed. Also, while researching the founding of Adé-Dudu,

Neusa das Dores Pereira’s participation in the Black women’s movement, as well as Cláudio

Nascimento’s early LGBTQ+ activism in Rio de Janeiro, I realized that much of the literature on activism during the abertura is missing crucial research on Black LGBTQ+ activism. As this period marks the first groups created for any intersectional Black LGBTQ+ groups, it is essential to understand the varied activism of Black LGBTQ+ organizers during the mid-1970s to the early 1990s.

There is so much work to be done in documenting Black LGBTQ+ lives and histories throughout the Black diaspora, especially within Latin America. The rising number of Black

Latin Americans entering the university space to document their own histories, as well as the growing force of Afro-Latinx Studies in the United States led by Black Latinx scholars, has

398 Tianna S Paschel, Becoming Black Political Subjects: Movements and Ethno-Racial Rights In Colombia and Brazil. Princeton University Press, 2016; Rodrigues, Cristiano. Afro-Latinos Em Movimento: Protesto Negro E Ativismo Institucional No Brasil E Na Colômbia. Editora Appris, 2020. Poe 246

carved a pathway for understanding the complex experiences of racial, sexual, and economic oppression that permeate the lives of Black people throughout the Americas. As the damaging force of US imperialism grows day by day, and ideas of Black identity tied to nationhood continue to chip away at Black internationalism, I encourage the scholars of the Black diaspora to use their work as tools for global Black solidarity in the fight to end global systems of anti-

Blackness, heteropatriarchy, and capitalism.

Poe 247

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