Ain't I a Womanist, Too?: Third Wave Womanist Religious Thought

8 Dark Matter

8 Dark Matter Liminality and Black Queer Bodies Roger A. Sneed In the 1990s, Cleo Manago coined the term “Same Gender Loving,” or, SGL, to denote sexual difference among African Americans.1 Manago’s argument was that the term “gay” was so associated with white, middle-class men that it held little value for African American men who loved or had sex with other men. Manago and the New York City–based group Black Men’s Xchange articulate an argument for the term SGL that echoes and draws upon black women’s turn to the term “womanist” instead of “feminist.”2 Both womanists and SGLidentified African American men argue that this process of naming is one of self-love and affirmation of one’s belonging to a unique community. Further, Manago and the BMX argue that, given the entrenched racism and classism within the so-called “gay movement” and the ways in which the symbols and nomenclature of this gay movement had grown within exclusively white contexts, it would be incumbent upon black men who love men and black women who love women to begin speaking for themselves. The argument advanced by Manago and echoed by Essex Hemphill, Marlon Riggs, and others is rooted in racial tension within queer communities. Keith Boykin and others report that black queers often encounter racial discrimination when going out to clubs, bars, and the like. Further, queer communities display racial discrimination in the form of leadership patterns, residential patterns, and, most visibly, dating/sexual patterns. Via the visibility and racial privilege of white gays and lesbians, the term “gay” evokes images of white persons. Such racial evocation is reinforced in the glossy covers of magazines oriented toward queer communities. Magazines like Out, The Advocate, and Instinct rarely feature queers of color on the covers. Other visual 139 representations of queers rarely focus on queers of color. Queers of color appear in advertisements or on gay-themed shows like the U.S. version of “Queer as Folk,” or “Will and Grace,” but those appearances are merely that: appearances. These appearances of black bodies in predominantly white gay spaces are marginalized, trotted out only in service of a racial fetishizing of black identity. Manago is quick to point out that black SGL persons are also marginalized within African American communities. Black churches vilify the sexualities of black men and women who love and have sex with members of the same gender. Conceptions of black masculinity and black femininity rooted in resistance to white assertions of black sexuality contribute to a communal disapprobation of same-gender affections. Manago’s argument is that the term “SGL” reflects a critique of that communal disapprobation. However, I want to begin with Manago’s deployment of an alternative description of black sexual difference as a way of describing the liminality of black queer existences and experiences. The deployment of such a term—the search for a new way to describe our experiences, the search for a new way to describe ourselves beyond hegemonic terms imposed upon us by others, is reflective of the liminal spaces that black queer bodies occupy. Simply put, by liminality, I meant that black queers find themselves betwixt and between worlds. They find themselves within black communities that often do not understand or appreciate sexual difference; however, when among white queers, black queers find very little common ground, as many white queers operate firmly within white privilege.3 Liminality of Black Queer Bodies/Identities The betwixt and betweenness of black queer experience and existence calls into question the attempts to present stable and rigid categories for understanding African American religious experiences. I am not arguing that there is not or should not be a “normative” order within African American religious thought and studies. However, what I find useful and compelling about the betwixt and betweenness of black queer experiences is the challenge to the black theological academy’s presentation of a personal, immanent God. It is the theological challenge presented by liminality that pushes black religious thought forward. Victor Turner’s articulation of the notion of liminality may appear to limit my appropriation of the concept in application to black queer bodies and expressive culture. Turner is clear that he considers those who are liminal (or liminars) should “be distinguished from ‘marginals.’” He describes marginals as those whose memberships in “two or more groups” conflict with each other. Certainly, black gays and lesbians would not be considered liminal by this 140 | Ain't I a Womanist, Too...