A Call for Contributors to Black IS an Emotion: Essays on the de-racialization of Queers of Color by their White Lovers

photo is from here

This was sent to me and I hope some of the readers of this blog will find (or be) contributors:

Black IS an Emotion: Essays on the de-racialization of Queers of Color by their White Lovers

White lovers who have attempted to diminish our right to have a wide spectrum of emotions by attaching negative and racially charged connotations to things we say: “I’m afraid,” “hurting,” “lonely” or “unsure,” suggests that there is still not enough honest discussion occurring in interracial relationships. In our attempts to understand and support our partners in their quest for wholeness, legitimacy, direction and self-awareness, we often put aside the essence of who we are, thereby allowing ourselves to be compartmentalized into “lesser” roles, such as: caretaker, sounding board, strong and/or silent other.

As lesbians and gay men of color, we believe that turning a wide range of personal experiences into literary disquisitions on racism in intimate interracial relationships, might in some way illuminate our own internal struggles at locating, naming and ultimately reversing the slow erosion of our unique identities/voice.  We ask: “Have we, for the sake of love and/or acceptance, allowed ourselves to become racially and culturally neutered in order to make our lovers more comfortable being next to ‘our skin?’” Have we allowed our emotions to become pathologized?

Through an interdisciplinary approach--relying in part on anti-categorical complexity to intersectionality as a possible jumping off point for discussion--this project will explore the largely unexamined issues of race/racism/sexuality in interracial queer relationships.

We are interested in engaging work that questions the social, political and racial divides within interracial relationships. Writers should avoid the over-use of jargon as this work seeks to present nuanced ideas in clear, straightforward language that will appeal to a broad audience.

Criteria

Send an 850 word abstract via email attachment to Monalesia Earle at: soho2paris@gmail.com or Russell Campbell at: rhotsoup@aol.com

The deadline for abstracts is December 15, 2011.

For general enquiries: soho2paris@gmail.com

Include a cover page with your contact information and a brief biographical statement of approximately 150 words. Final essays will be approximately 3,500 to 5,000 words, with an estimated deadline (if abstracts and the subsequent proposal is accepted by a publisher) of March 2012. Please put “BIAE” in the subject line.

Pornography: Andrea Dworkin (1991) a British documentary about her work against graphic sexxxism

portrait of Andrea Dworkin is from here

What is sometimes forgotten when one considers Andrea's work against the pornographers, pimps, traffickers, and men who consume pornography as a way to get a sexual male supremacy fix as well as another lesson in how to be a misogynist, is that Dworkin was not a single-issue activist. Her work was against white and male supremacy and that included a lot of social-economic-political terrain.

The problem with the pornography industry, first and foremost, is that it is white and male supremacist and promotes anti-woman and anti-feminist practices in men. It also promotes those practices in women and trans people too.

When I hear her addressing an audience or crowd, what strikes me is that it is so uncommon for anyone in media or in front of a camera to be deeply outraged by any form of structural violence that targets women and girls specifically and systematically, perhaps most especially if the women and girls are not privileged by class and race. We all know that the chances of dominant media caringly, insightfully, and consistently reporting on the disappearance and murder of poor women and girls of color are low to non-existent.

To hear Andrea address a group on political matters is to be reminded of what an appropriate response is to white and male supremacist and racist-misogynist violence.

Here is the link to the documentary, on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9j7-zZks08