Kin/folk: on queer models of collective beholding

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to investigate how ancillary modes of kinship are present in the lives of Black queer folk as opposed to solely any biological or given relationship structure. And, as a practical theologian in training, I offer an analysis of these kinship structures that, despite their necessity, explore their ingenuity and their resilience as a form of collective care, or collective ‘beholding.’ In the face of institutional neglect and cultural and religious ostracism, I am interested in how these kinship structures, notwithstanding their given complexities, might serve as a model for theological epistemologies of care. I draw upon scholarship from queer theory, quare theory, performance studies, and queer theologies to serve as examples of this type of collective relational orientation. Furthermore, I turn to the FX Television show POSE as a case study of how this kinship structure is made apparent even in the realm of artistic expression.

KEYWORDS:

• Kinship
• sociality
• Black church
• queerness
• care

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Sharpe, In the Wake, 100–1.

2 Alexander, Pedagogies of Crossing, 273–4.

3 Johnson, “‘Quare’ Studies, OR (Almost) Everything,” 2. ‘Being’ here later to be mediated alongside ‘belonging’ in relationship to Marlon Riggs’ Black Is … Black Ain’t.

4 Ibid., 10.

5 Ibid., 2.

6 Johnson, “Feeling the Spirit in the Dark,” 405.

7 Ibid., 407.

8 c.f. ‘Moreover, if the spirit is real, it may be made manifest in or outside the church: “Where two or three are gathered in my name.” Indeed, contrary to the beliefs of many churchgoers, the “House of the Lord” is not always defined as what we call a “church.” The “House of the Lord” is wherever the spirit resides.’ Ibid., 412.

9 Crawley, “Circum-Religious Performance,” 209.

10 Ibid., 213.

11 c.f. ‘Still, I write fully cognizant that the Black Church does not presently or generally offer greater possibilities for liberation for queer(ed) blacks. Rather, I maintain that the club, through invocation of the same language and ideologies of God and religion, can do the same sort of violence in another location to black queers.’ Ibid., 217.

12 Gopinath, “Diaspora, Indigeneity, Queer Critique,” 345–6.

13 Lartey, Pastoral Theology in an Intercultural World, 14.

14 A word could be said here about the always already displacement/s inherent to antiblackness; akin to Christina Sharpe’s writing about a relative who died years later from asbestos poisoning from a factory in which he worked, so are Pray Tell’s family most immediately concerned about an illness that affects mostly Black folk. This is their first assumption; the idea that it might even be something else is seemingly a secondary concern.

15 Sheppard, “Building Communities of Embodied Beauty,” 98.

16 The use of B. Slade in this episode is powerful, and I imagine, intentional. B. Slade, formerly known as Tonéx, is a gospel singer who was prominent in the 1990s and 2000s in the Black church, until he revealed that he was a gay man. Upon coming out, he was condemned by many people, denied singing opportunities that he once had, and was isolated and exiled in many ways from the communities of which he had been a part, and communities which he had helped build and sustain. It is of no coincidence that this real-life example of black queer displacement was used in this artistic expression. For more, see: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/02/08/revelations-3.

17 Alisha Lola Jones, Flaming?: The Peculiar Theopolitics, 6.

18 There is otherwise debate in the show’s reception about Pray Tell and fellow house member Ricky’s relationship after their HIV diagnoses. I want to bring into focus, however, Marlon Bailey’s comments regarding Black gay (raw) sex: ‘Similarly, for black gay men, condom use presents a barrier to pleasurable and satisfying sex that may be a source of deep intimacy, connection, and self-affirmation that run counter to their experiences of social disqualification, marginalization, alienation, and deprivation.’ Bailey, “Black Gay (Raw) Sex,” 254–5, original emphasis.

19 Sheppard, Tilling Sacred Grounds, 90.

20 Baldwin, Trauma-Sensitive Theology, 24.

21 For a more comprehensive analysis of the physiological effects of trauma, see van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score.

22 Alexander, Pedagogies of Crossing, 273–4.

23 Rodríguez, “Diaspora, Displacement, and Belonging,” 216.

24 Allen, There’s a Disco Ball Between Us, 223.

25 Rodríguez, “Diaspora, Displacement, and Belonging,” 217.

26 Gopinath, “Diaspora, Indigeneity, Queer Critique,” 361.

27 Young, Black Queer Ethics, Family, 138, original emphasis.

28 Allen and Garrison, “Against Friendship,” 233.

29 Bailey, “Gender/Racial Realness,” 366.

30 Crawley, “Circum-Religious Performance,” 209.

31 Harrison, Belly of the Beast, 85.

32 I am continuing to think about how, psychoanalytically, persons denied a sense of belonging to a community also can be observed going to great lengths to try to belong, to adapt their behaviors and practices to adhere to the normative standards so that they can belong. I, too, am thinking alongside the idea of ‘unrequited love’ that I perceive in those excluded from community’s insistence upon still taking care of those who marginalize them. For instance, Allen’s analysis here: ‘Even those [kin] who must be placed in parentheses or an explanatory endnote.’ […] at some point, they help construct the locus of critical enunciation from which we speak (and from which we listen, with neither judgment nor compulsion, to their whispers and stirrings within us).’ Allen, There’s a Disco Ball Between Us, 223, emphasis added.

33 Sharpe, Ordinary Notes, 333.

34 Young, Black Queer Ethics, Family, 10.

35 It is sad coincidence that as I am completing the revisions for this article, news is breaking about the murder of 28-year-old O’Shae Sibley, who was vogueing in Brooklyn, New York, when he was verbally assaulted by gay slurs and physically attacked by men at a gas station. Serving as an unfortunate reminder of the reason the balls and houses came to exist in the first place: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/31/nyregion/stabbing-gas-station-brooklyn.html.

36 Rodríguez, “Diaspora, Displacement, and Belonging,” 222.

37 Gill, Erotic Islands: Art and Activism, 202.

38 Young, Black Queer Ethics, Family, 172.

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Corwin Malcolm Davis

Corwin Malcolm Davis, is a Ph.D. Candidate, Graduate Division of Religion; Graduate Certificate, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.