Not Naming Names

I cannot be invited to a scene of African unhumaning and be told to recognize the complexity of the white people at that scene.

Watching Pose from Nairobi

mah tongue is in my friend’s mouf —Zora Neale Hurston Soon after I completed high school, I worked at a small nursing home. Every few months, a certain kind of patient would come in: a young man, brought by family, rarely visited, visibly wasting. This was before antiretrovirals. He seemed terribly isolated and resigned. He …

Gender & Genre : Africa & Afro-Diaspora

Jessica Marie Johnson posted a draft syllabus for a class on Black Womanhood. It made me think of what kind of class I'd design to accompany it. She issued a call. This is a response. Gender & Genre: Africa & Afro-Diaspora How can we approach gender and genre across Africa & Afro-diaspora? What possibilities emerge …

in despair

In 2000, my email signature was, “my heart to yours.” By 2005, it had changed to “best.” Now, I don’t have one. If I did, it might be, “in despair” or “from despair.” Rarely, with those dear to my heart, I write “love.” Perhaps I mean, “love in times of despair.” On Twitter, Prof Grace Musila …

Category is: Work!

Category is: Live! Work! Pose!—Pray Tell The second episode of Pose focused on work: the care work of being the mother of a house; the political work of challenging transphobic, misogynist, gay white publics; the have-to-eat work performed by Blanca in a nail salon and Angel in a peep shop; the freedom work of expanding …

Name and Shame

I am baffled by Kenyan calls to deal with abuses of power through "name and shame." Are we to imagine that "name and shame" is not an explicitly gendered and gendering strategy? Are we to forget that "name and shame" works most powerfully on those without much social power? On women. On girls. On the …

Queer Returns

A point of departure: The advent of HIV/ AIDS is the moment that captures the real energies made possible by the outpouring of the carnal pleasures that Stonewall unleashed. Stonewall was queer sexual liberation, alongside heterosexual liberation, but HIV/ AIDS was citizen-making; the distinction is important. HIV/ AIDS worked to produce a very particular and …