Sanaa Wong reading journal

I really enjoyed reading Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley's "Black Atlantic, Queer Atlantic: Queer

Imaginings of the Middle Passage" especially ebing from the Caribbean where I had to learn so

much about the slave trade in such a negative violent tone, it is enlightening and a little

refreshing to see her take on how black querness may have been forged from a system of such

adness and brokeneess. She looks at it as a transformative experience, which is true. Because

of the very nature of the ships, traditional gender norms HAD to be broken, which led to

alternative forms of gender expression and identity.

When I first read these lines I felt it was a bit riduclous to argue that their may have been

another side to the trauma of the middle passage. The word “possiblity” made me furious. How

could there be ayny possibility in untimely deaths, being treated as cattle and shipped off to

never see your family again. But after reading further, the various kindships on the ships and

beyond must have made its way for possibilities of any sort.

I know for myself the cultural mixing and thus community extensions really would allow for me,

their descendants to embrace variety in all forms. Leading the way to more appreciation and

acceptance.

Reading journal
I think the reading I got the most from was “Marlon M. Bailey's article "Black Gay Sex,

Homonormativity, and Cathy Cohen's Queer of Color Theory of Cultural Politics”, I

enjoyed the discussion surrounding the intersection of race and sexuality and how it all

falls under a cultural politcal atmosphere.

Main stream culture, as seen on tv, media and the news really does sexualize black men

and marginalizes the black community to an extent that impacts us , outside of the

media sphere.Especially for black gay men or other black individuals within the LGBTQ

community , how they are portrayed keeps them in a boundary that is growing

increasingly hard to break.

In Cathy Cohen's Queer of Color Theory she uses frameworks to further analyze the

boundaries that seperate the black lgbtq community. The culural and polticial norms

that we have been forced into, continue to silence black lgbtq voices, instead having

others speak for us and not in a way that is necessarly correct or true to our

experiences.

. She challenges us to acknowledge the ways in which the experience of slavery continues to

shape contemporary understandings of race, gender, and sexuality within the black diaspora.

Also attaching further readings from last class: