Ever since I was teenager growing up in Jamaica, I’ve felt stuck between my perception of gay pride as a concept and how that aligned with a very whitewashed American image of white men with chiselled bodies – all the while having to suppress whatever pride I might have felt for being black and gay as a result of living in a homophobic society. It’s a complex that hits you from both sides and can lead you into believing the lies being fed to you as a black queer person. It’s a case of constantly doing the work to unlearn all the misconceptions and biases you’re taught. All this has motivated me to launch My Queer Blackness, My Black Queerness (MQBMBQ).

This new digital project explores the multiple existing facets of black queer identity. It’s a protest and a celebration that frames blackness as a polyphony - a genre of melody with a vast variety of notes and textures denouncing both white queer racism and black anti-queer antagonism.

The central focus of three-week-run of MQBMBQ is a print sale featuring the works of 12 image makers - Tim Walker, Campbell Addy, Justin French, Sackitey Tesa, David Uzochukwu, Florian Joahn, Michael Bailey Gates, Daniel Obasi, Emmanuel Sanchez-Monsalve, Hao Zeng, Kennedi Carter and Myles Loftin - who have donated prints of their interpretations of black queer identity. All proceeds will be donated to black trans centred charities - Trans Wave JA and FortheGworls.

An additional aspect of the project is a weekly updated journal shot remotely by London-based photographer Damien Frost, who has documented trans / non binary black people from all over the world, including Jamaica, Mexico, Atlanta and Canada, and created this virtual safe space for them to be celebrated along with their journeys. The third part of MQBMBQ is a weekly screening of films by the late filmmaker Marlon Riggs whose work gives powerful insight on the history of the black queer experience.

Conceiving and carrying out this project was a labour of love that I pushed myself and team into doing after noticing a series of red flags. Red flags that began with realising that gay dating apps and queer spaces - in Europe especially - weren’t built for or accepting of people like myself, a skinny gay black boy. I was pushed even further amidst the Black Lives Matter protests - while I was scrolling through the Shaderoom’s comments under their post of the massive Black Trans Lives Matter marches in New York I noted a general show of ignorance.

I thought to myself, wow there is really no space for black queer people and especially black trans people to exist, neither within the black community or in the queer community, even in the cases when their lives are literally at risk. I found this incredibly odd because it was black trans women who sparked the movement, who were at the forefront and essentially who won us our freedom. So for the past few decades, it’s as if they were kicked out of a house which they had an essential part in building, and left to fend for themselves.

Therefore MQBMBQ is about redirecting the conversation around pride to be centred on protecting, highlighting and uplifting the black trans woman and black queer people in the face of the very many adversities which we may face. It’s not about asking for approval or acceptance, but rather an act of self-care, self-acceptance and self-celebration.

Creative production and co-curation Jordan Anderson
Co-curation Chiara Nonino
Web development Valentina Antollini
Graphics Zina Jamal
Photography Damien

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Published on 29/06/2020