<snip>Yeah! I’m interested in the specificity of ‘black queers’ as opposed to say queer people of colour but yeah, useful incarnation of this meme, for self-reflection for me. I’ve gotta pack and go to sleep I’m just internet-cramming because I won’t have any for the next couple of days, so lazy blogging/reprinting the opinions of others:
There is a transcript by youarenotyou, who says “I think it’s really important to point out that this accurate video about racist queers is getting significantly less attention than THIS “Shit White Radical Queers Say” video, which barely touches on ANYTHING oppressive in queer communities (and absolutely not racism, despite the acknowledgement of whiteness in the title) but instead focuses on silly shit like “all the radical queers are gonna be there!” “are you a unicorn?” “when did you move here” “ugh hipsters”Y’all are we actually interested in examining how oppressive dynamics play out in radical spaces? Or just laughing at ourselves for how much we love cats?”
Although also I think that Shit (Young, White, Class-privileged, City-based) “Radical Queers” Say to Each Other addresses queer masculine privilege in some interesting ways so I don’t write it off as totally self-indulgent affectionate self-mockery but yeah, tired, opinions, goodnight.
I can’t speak for the creators but black queers have a largely specific experience that is different from other queer POC or the similar forms of domination might come from different angles. And why can’t there be a video that focuses on black queers instead of queer POC? POC are not a monolith.
Yeah totally, I’m just struggling with the meanings of black and brown in US and Aus contexts, and rewatching this, a lot is specific to black experience and some is more general. Also personal context for my reblog of the video: we were discussing this in my house yesterday and my housemate referred to this video as being about queer people of colour and I was like ‘I thought the title referred to black queers’ and we were kind of muddling through our recollections together. In the Australian social justice culture we’re a part of blackness is different to in the US - I hear it more often used referring to Indigenous Australians whose collective experience is different to African Americans’… Is this making sense? It’s 2am and I can’t sleep ahh. It is confusing trying to read cross-cultural stuff in a video that contains both US American and Australian accents. I don’t know where to anchor my understanding.
I’m Black, African-descended and live in Australia. I relate to a lot of what is in the video. In Australia, if white people and non-Black POC who are part of a social justice culture cannot recognise that there are also Black folks who are Pacific Islander/African/African descended etc. and that we have our own experiences with white supremacy and racism then it is an impoverished one. I’m also not sure why you’re referring to the U.S..
bodkins: non-Black australians need to stop dismissing discussion of anti-Black racism as inapplicable to the Australian context. I’ve heard everything from “blackface doesn’t have an offensive history in Australia” to “there was no slavery here, so it wasn’t as bad as in the States” to “I mean there’s not really even many Black people here”. I get the need to consider cultural specificity and put in the effort to not just copy and paste US racial politics to the Australian context. but 90%+ of the time, non-Black Australians bringing up US-Australian cultural differences in anti-Black racism are derailing. in any case this video was almost certainly made in australia and I actually think that’s pretty obvious from the setting (gum trees?).
Point of distinction.
People here definitely deny anti-Black racism against ALL Black folks (and Black folks have their own relationship to the term Black which is not mine to define), and derail in the manner you have described.
But in relation to African and African-descended Black folks, non-Black POC and white leftists OFTEN minimise the anti-Black racism against us, confuse our experience with African-American experience because they can’t be bothered to get to know us, distance their cultural production from American Black culture which influenced it, or try to control the discourse around Blackness so that they speak on our behalf. I am sick to death of it.
(Source: rhin-a-rhin-a-rosy)