Skip to main content

New top story from Time: The Ballroom Scene Has Long Offered Radical Freedoms For Black and Brown Queer People. Today, That Matters More Than Ever

https://ift.tt/2O8qsKr

Marginalized by prejudice, violence, housing insecurity, and HIV infection rates among other burdens, Black and brown transgender and gender-nonconforming people face particular challenges in establishing secure, nourishing communities—both within LGBTQ spaces and in society at large. One response to these stigmas has been the formation of self-sustaining social networks and cultural groups, such as the ballroom scene, a formidable social movement and creative collective for LGBT people of color.

Amid what has been called a new golden age for Black culture and storytelling, a particular “Renaissance” in queer Black art and cultural representation is clear. Ballroom culture is now widely seen and celebrated (and appropriated) in the mainstream—across fashion campaigns, music videos, social media and in TV shows like Pose, Legendary, and RuPaul’s Drag Race. And in this moment, ballroom and voguing as the body politic has much to teach the world about what it means to be human, and to struggle for freedom, in the face of catastrophe.

Ballroom emerged amid the Harlem Renaissance, and in response to a decades-long campaign undertaken by the Black church to rid the New York neighborhood of its LGBTQ residents. In the quest for Black freedom, these community leaders decided queer folk did not deserve representation. But rather than be cast out, the ballroom scene centered its’ participants radical presence in an empowered performance space.

From their inception, balls have incorporated fashion, pageantry and dance alongside community-building and self-care. The scene also fostered a kinship system of “houses”—chosen families with anointed ‘mothers’ and ‘fathers’ who guide and support their ‘children’—and uplifted a collective rejection of both white supremacy and Black homophobia. Alongside the Black Freedom Movement, ballroom soon spread across the U.S., continuing to confront systems of oppressions and demanding more freedoms. (It also notably returned to Harlem in the late 1960s led by the legendary trans drag queen Crystal LaBeija, who began hosting balls specifically for Black people as a response to racism in then-New York’s larger downtown drag scene.)

Through oral histories and the work of ballroom scholars, voguers trace their dance form’s origins to pageants organized by incarcerated trans and queer people at New York City’s Rikers Island prison in the late 1970s. Now one of the ballroom scene’s signature “categories,” the original voguers created the dance as a source of entertainment, but also as a means of envisioning freedom while in a state of bondage. It was a tool both for claiming queer space behind prison walls, but also generating a vision of a world beyond the walls of gender, of national borders, of state violence.

Read more: Why Black Trans Women Are Essential to Our Future

In June 2019, on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots that sparked the Gay Liberation movement, Layleen Cubilette-Polanco, an Afro-Dominican trans woman and member of the legendary Ballroom House of Xtravaganza, was left to die at the same prison, after having an epileptic episode while in solitary confinement. At the Black Trans Lives Matter rally in New York on June 18, 2020, voguers danced as a means of grieving Layleen, Tony McDade, and other lives lost. They danced, using their bodies like generations of queer people before them, to assert their right to exist free from harm, and to imagine a world where that constant assertion is no longer necessary.

This Black History Month, we cannot celebrate voguing without celebrating the ingenuity of Black trans women, sex workers, and incarcerated people. We cannot honor the ballroom houses without acknowledging the parallel pandemics of HIV and COVID that have forced generations of queer people to forge their own networks of safety and support in the face of disinvested communities and indifferent governments. And we cannot fully understand the form, fully participate in its power and beauty, without committing to carrying on the struggles of those who’ve passed it on to us.

The same communities that created vogue are the ones heralding calls to defund police and abolish ICE. The same activists responsible for overturning New York’s walking while trans law are also demanding the decriminalization of sex work. The same organizers who mourned Layleen are also fighting in her name to end solitary confinement permanently, to halt the construction of new prisons, and reallocate funds toward housing, healthcare, public education, and the other resources that actually protect Black trans lives. Vogue is a part of all these struggles, for it allows its dancers to dream and enact these seemingly impossible demands, to generate freedom in real time.

ballroom-voguing-2
Scout Tufankjian—PolarisAn estimated 15,000 supporters of Black Trans Lives marched in a rally from the Brooklyn Museum to Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, N.Y. demanding justice for murdered members of their community on June 14, 2020.

Black prophetic tradition not only sees a way forward, but offers this necessary critique of the present moment. And this is the gift of ballroom, at its core. Ballroom has been courageous in daring to ask the question: in this moment of Black Lives Matter, which Black lives matter most? And which do not matter at all? But it also offers hope, because it’s a reflective mirror of what democracy can really look like: radical inclusivity, relevant now perhaps more than ever as we witness white nationalists’ mobbing the U.S. Capitol, as we confront a country’s racial reckoning, as we struggle in the midst of a global pandemic. As with ballroom’s birth within the Harlem Renaissance, itself a cultural reset following the Spanish flu of 1918, we can and should consider its rebirth after COVID-19.

If the moment we are inhabiting is one our Black trans and queer ancestors once imagined, vogue and ballroom are a potent means through which we continue their work ushering in new worlds. It is an insurgent act of joy that reminds us that futures other than the ones we’ve been prescribed are possible, and we already possess the tools to make them real.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

New top story from Time: House Passes President Biden’s $1.9 Trillion COVID-19 Relief Bill

https://ift.tt/2ZVMCSX WASHINGTON — The House approved a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill in a win for President Joe Biden, even as top Democrats tried assuring agitated progressives that they’d revive their derailed drive to boost the minimum wage. The new president’s vision for flushing cash to individuals, businesses, states and cities battered by COVID-19 passed on a near party-line 219-212 vote early Saturday. That ships the massive measure to the Senate, where Democrats seem bent on resuscitating their minimum wage push and fights could erupt over state aid and other issues. Democrats said the still-faltering economy and the half-million American lives lost demanded quick, decisive action. GOP lawmakers, they said, were out of step with a public that polling shows largely views the bill favorably. “I am a happy camper tonight,” Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said Friday. “This is what America needs. Republicans, you ought to be a part of this. But if you’re not,

New top story from Time: Latest Tests Bring Israel a Step Closer to Commercial Drones

https://ift.tt/3lyZxGe TEL AVIV, Israel — Dozens of drones floated through the skies of Tel Aviv on Monday, ferrying cartons of ice cream and sushi across the city in an experiment that officials hope provided a glimpse of the not-too-distant future. Israel’s National Drone Initiative, a government program, carried out the drill to prepare for a world in which large quantities of commercial deliveries will be made by drones to take pressure off highly congested urban roads. The two-year program aims to apply the capabilities of Israeli drone companies to establish a nationwide network where customers can order goods and have them delivered to pick up spots. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The project, now in the third of eight stages, is still in its infancy and faces many questions about security and logistics. “We had 700 test flights at the start of this year and now we are close to 9,000 flights,” said Daniella Partem, from Israel Innovation Authority, a partner in th

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J सिद्धार्थ रॉय कपूर फिल्म्स कि अगली सीरीज़ विलियम डेलरिम्पल कि बेस्टसेलर, 'द एनार्की: पर आधारित होगी

सिद्धार्थ रॉय कपूर के प्रोडक्शन 'रॉय कपूर फिल्म्स' ने हालही में अवार्ड विनिंग इतिहासकार और लेखक विलियम डेलरिम्पल की बेस्ट सेलिंग हिस्टोरिकल बुक ‘द अनार्की: द रिलेंटलेस राइज़ ऑफ़ द ईस्ट इंडिया कंपनी' के आधिकारिक राइट्स हासिल कर इसे सीरीज़ के from टेलीविजन की खबरें | Television News in Hindi | TV Serials Update in Hindi – FilmiBeat Hindi http:/hindi.filmibeat.com/television/siddharth-roy-kapoor-next-web-series-will-be-based-on-anarchy-090499.html?utm_source=/rss/filmibeat-hindi-television-fb.xml&utm_medium=23.11.231.156&utm_campaign=client-rss

New top story from Time: Japan’s Prime Minister Abe Reportedly Stepping Down Over Health Concerns

https://ift.tt/32yNoGh (TOKYO) — Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed his intention to step down due to his declining health, according to reports Friday by NHK and other Japanese media. The Prime Minister’s Office said the report could not be immediately confirmed, but that Abe was believed to be meeting top ruling officials at the party headquarters. The Liberal Democratic Party spokesman did not answer the phone. Concerns about Abe’s chronic health issues, simmering since earlier this summer, intensified this month when he visited a Tokyo hospital two weeks in a row for unspecified health checkups. Abe, whose term ends in September 2021, is expected to stay on until a new party leader is elected and formally approved by the parliament. He had abruptly resigned from his first stint in office in 2007 due to his health, which was fueling concerns about his recent condition. Abe on Monday became Japan’s longest serving prime minister by consecutive days in of

New top story from Time: Justice Department Charges 8 in Chinese Harassment Plot in U.S.

https://ift.tt/37P9856 (WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has charged eight people with working on behalf of the Chinese government in a pressure campaign aimed at coercing a New Jersey man who was wanted by Beijing into returning to China to face charges, officials said Wednesday. The prosecution, which Justice Department officials said was the first of its kind, accuses the defendants of participating in a Chinese government operation known as “Fox Hunt” that was ostensibly created to help Beijing locate fugitives abroad but that U.S. officials say in practice relied on intimidation and bullying to go after dissidents and political opponents. Five of the eight, including an American private investigator who was hired as part of the effort, were arrested Wednesday. The other three are believed to be in China. All eight were charged with conspiring to act as illegal agents for China in a case filed in federal court in Brooklyn. “Without coordination with our governmen

New top story from Time: The Reopening of Springsteen on Broadway Brought Broadway Out of Hibernation—and One Packed Theater Into a Brighter Future

https://ift.tt/3A6wS0a The city that never sleeps is still a little sleepy, unsure of how to move its joints and muscles as it awakens from its forced hibernation . Although Times Square is now almost as brightly lit as ever, it’s remarkably hard to find a bar that will serve a drink after 11 p.m. On a late-June Saturday night, Eighth Ave. around 42nd Street was vibrating with young people: guys imported from the outer boroughs and beyond in their baggy, rumpled shorts, young women in elastic spangled mini-dresses making their first outing after a year lying in a drawer, men in mardi gras beads and the tiniest of tank tops ready to make the most of the final days of Pride month . Yet it was hard to know exactly what all these people were doing there, other than taking their place in a kind of Brownian-movement minuet under the cheerfully garish lights. Because Times Square cannot be itself while Broadway—meaning not the actual street but the constellation of live shows around

More 20 MPH Streets Coming Soon Near You

More 20 MPH Streets Coming Soon Near You By Christine Osorio Last October when California Assembly Bill 43 (Friedman) was signed into law, we posted a blog about which gave cities new flexibility in setting speed limits—specifically reducing them. “Speed Management,” a reference that is still in development, focused on reducing speed limits in key business activity districts where at least 50% are dining or retail. Since the bill went into effect last month, we’ve already started lowering speed limits by 5 MPH (from 25 MPH to 20 MPH) in the first phase of approved corridors, four of which have been implemented:  San Bruno Avenue, from Silver to Paul avenues (Completed January 2022)  Polk Street, from Filbert to Sutter streets (Completed January 2022)  Haight Street, from Stanyan Street to Central Avenue and from Webster to Steiner streets (Completed February 2022)  24th Street, from Diamond to Chattanooga streets and from Valencia Street to San Bruno Avenue (Completed

New top story from Time: Department of Homeland Security Warns of Politically Motivated Violence

https://ift.tt/2NINiIA WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security issued a national terrorism bulletin Wednesday warning of the lingering potential for violence from people motivated by antigovernment sentiment after President Joe Biden’s election, suggesting the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol may embolden extremists and set the stage for additional attacks. The department did not cite any specific plots, but pointed to “a heightened threat environment across the United States” that it believes “will persist” for weeks after Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration. It is not uncommon for the federal government to warn local law enforcement through bulletins about the prospect for violence tied to a particular event or date, such as July 4. But this particular bulletin, issued through the department’s National Terrorism Advisory System, is notable because it effectively places the Biden administration into the politically charged debate over how to describe or characterize acts

In-Person Pride Parade & Celebrations Return This Month!

In-Person Pride Parade & Celebrations Return This Month! By Pamela Johnson The SFMTA is happy to join San Francisco Pride celebrations when they return to in-person events this month as the city continues its recovery from the pandemic. This year’s theme is “Love will Keep Us Together.” The Trans March is happening on Friday, June 24 and the Pride Parade is on Sunday, June 26. SFMTA staff are, of course, an important part of the LGBTQIA+ community that keeps SF moving with Pride. Pride is an opportunity for us to demonstrate our continued support of the LGBTQIA+ community, promoting our core values of respect, inclusivity and integrity.  History/Background of SF Pride   San Francisco had its first Pride celebration in 1970. For more than three decades the LGBTQIA+ community and their allies have been moving San Francisco forward to become a better, safer, and more equitable world for the LGBTQIA+ community and the city a better place for people to live, work and enjoy.    His

New top story from Time: ‘Do Not Hold Grudges.’ Joe Biden’s Notes Reveal Talking Points About Kamala Harris

https://ift.tt/2X4natB (WILMINGTON, Del.) — Joe Biden was uncharacteristically tight-lipped on Tuesday about the final stretch of his search for a vice president. But the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee seemed prepared to talk about at least one leading contender: California Sen. Kamala Harris. As he took questions from reporters on Tuesday, Biden held notes that were captured by an Associated Press photographer. Harris’ name was scrawled across the top, followed by five talking points. “Do not hold grudges.” “Campaigned with me & Jill.” “Talented.” “Great help to campaign.” “Great respect for her.” Those are all observations Biden has made about Harris before. But they take on new significance following a recent Politico report that one of Biden’s closest friends and a co-chair of his vice presidential vetting committee, former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, still harbors concerns about Harris’ tough debate stage performance and that she hasn’t expressed reg