whooo! thank you for these notes, these meditations. your thinking & writing, specifically on vernaculars, has formed a big part of my political concepting.
(love & freedom & love & freedom & --)
here, i'm especially taken by motion: the motion in the words & the coming/moving together of the Ball; the movement of walking various categories. moving to find each other; moving away from what does not tolerate us (and, from what we cannot tolerate). Ballroom "moving" from so-called U.S. to Africa. what changes & what stays the same, in this motion.
ultimately -- and, even, untidily -- yes! we live; we move.
i'm glad this was the final note you left us on.
(still -- and this feels like prima materia, like matters for another time, another alchemy -- i feel so... hungry whenever we describe a queer happening as "the first [time] in Kenya"; so often, i feel it untrue, but not dishonest. like, surely, folks my age cannot be the first generation of queer Kenyans to gather / recognise ourselves / come to articulation & expression! it can't be; We've Been Here, right? i feel hungry for lineage, is what i think it is. i feel hungry to be a continuation of something -- which i would much rather be, than a first anything. how do you think/feel/see through queer lineages?)
as always, thank you for the writing & thinking & sharing. tunaendelea kukupenda, kukuheshimu, na kukuhitaji; your articulations prove so important!
I enjoy thinking through origins, whether myth or fantasy or legend or some blend we might call history. Not all firsts are the same, right? The first woman to earn a PhD in Kenya or the first Kenyan to receive ARVs are different types of origin stories, different ways to narrate possibilities.
If people your age are the first to organize themselves in certain ways, to gather in certain ways, that's a great thing! It means that a different kind of work was undertaken by older people to make the current situation more possible. Just as the kind of work your generation is undertaking will make different kinds of firsts possible for those who follow you.
That is a queer kind of social reproduction that lives outside of state heteronormative mandates.
It's a thing to celebrate!
So the kind of intellectual and cultural work that might be necessary—that I think is absolutely necessary—is tracing the kinds of paths made by others so that current paths can be made. Some of that work is myth, some fantasy, much of it invented, a lot of it the slow, meticulous assembling of fragments from many lives.
Thank you for sharing this writing, it’s so beautiful and thought provoking. It reminds me of something that happened to me many years ago. As a teenager I became friends with a group of mostly Black queer and trans folks from Milwaukee who were involved in the balls and houses there. They taught me a little bit how to vogue, which I enjoyed greatly. In college, a friend of mine, a Black lesbian, found out I “knew how to vogue” and made me demonstrate for everyone (lol). Another friend of ours, a Black trans guy, threw a bit of shade and was like “we are literally on the south side of Chicago rn, just go to a real ball.” And I had a realization of what it meant for me as a white-appearing non-Black person to vogue outside the context of those friends I’d learned from originally. So I appreciate your thoughts here about how these things move (how these dance movements move) beyond their original contexts.
Thank you! You're helping me think about space and movement. And affiliation. There's a moment in Paris is Burning when one of the participants says they want to go mainstream. They want vogue to go mainstream. One of the judges on Legendary said this, as well. So I also want to question my own desire for the subcultural to remain subcultural.
whooo! thank you for these notes, these meditations. your thinking & writing, specifically on vernaculars, has formed a big part of my political concepting.
(love & freedom & love & freedom & --)
here, i'm especially taken by motion: the motion in the words & the coming/moving together of the Ball; the movement of walking various categories. moving to find each other; moving away from what does not tolerate us (and, from what we cannot tolerate). Ballroom "moving" from so-called U.S. to Africa. what changes & what stays the same, in this motion.
ultimately -- and, even, untidily -- yes! we live; we move.
i'm glad this was the final note you left us on.
(still -- and this feels like prima materia, like matters for another time, another alchemy -- i feel so... hungry whenever we describe a queer happening as "the first [time] in Kenya"; so often, i feel it untrue, but not dishonest. like, surely, folks my age cannot be the first generation of queer Kenyans to gather / recognise ourselves / come to articulation & expression! it can't be; We've Been Here, right? i feel hungry for lineage, is what i think it is. i feel hungry to be a continuation of something -- which i would much rather be, than a first anything. how do you think/feel/see through queer lineages?)
as always, thank you for the writing & thinking & sharing. tunaendelea kukupenda, kukuheshimu, na kukuhitaji; your articulations prove so important!
wishing you all the best,
v / w / w
I enjoy thinking through origins, whether myth or fantasy or legend or some blend we might call history. Not all firsts are the same, right? The first woman to earn a PhD in Kenya or the first Kenyan to receive ARVs are different types of origin stories, different ways to narrate possibilities.
If people your age are the first to organize themselves in certain ways, to gather in certain ways, that's a great thing! It means that a different kind of work was undertaken by older people to make the current situation more possible. Just as the kind of work your generation is undertaking will make different kinds of firsts possible for those who follow you.
That is a queer kind of social reproduction that lives outside of state heteronormative mandates.
It's a thing to celebrate!
So the kind of intellectual and cultural work that might be necessary—that I think is absolutely necessary—is tracing the kinds of paths made by others so that current paths can be made. Some of that work is myth, some fantasy, much of it invented, a lot of it the slow, meticulous assembling of fragments from many lives.
Thank you for sharing this writing, it’s so beautiful and thought provoking. It reminds me of something that happened to me many years ago. As a teenager I became friends with a group of mostly Black queer and trans folks from Milwaukee who were involved in the balls and houses there. They taught me a little bit how to vogue, which I enjoyed greatly. In college, a friend of mine, a Black lesbian, found out I “knew how to vogue” and made me demonstrate for everyone (lol). Another friend of ours, a Black trans guy, threw a bit of shade and was like “we are literally on the south side of Chicago rn, just go to a real ball.” And I had a realization of what it meant for me as a white-appearing non-Black person to vogue outside the context of those friends I’d learned from originally. So I appreciate your thoughts here about how these things move (how these dance movements move) beyond their original contexts.
Thank you! You're helping me think about space and movement. And affiliation. There's a moment in Paris is Burning when one of the participants says they want to go mainstream. They want vogue to go mainstream. One of the judges on Legendary said this, as well. So I also want to question my own desire for the subcultural to remain subcultural.