Blackness is Quareness: Re-framing Identity Conversations for Cisgender Black Men to Create Healing Spaces

The Black experience, specifically for Black men has been one plagued with rejection, violence both psychical and psychic, and vacant esteem. The impacts from chattel slavery, Jim Crow laws, and other systemic oppressions continue to manifest in Black men today, and now more than ever is healing necessary for them to shed the toxicity that is rooted in the constructs imposed upon them, like masculinity. Queer spaces, and the openness that exists in its premise, could be a perfect place to begin the healing process. However, with the constant conflation of Queer with LGB/T and primarily white identified people, a shift needs to be made to find a space of openness, like Queer spaces that can also readily accept and affirm Black and heterosexual men. Looking to Johnson (2005), and the identity of Quare, there is promise that this space can include heterosexual Black men, while also cultivating a shared respect from them to the other Black sexual minorities that also seek this space for healing.