INTRO
Community has played an important role in the black experience. Community defines a place of belonging since it’s the individuals coming together that make it a community. In “Lose Your Mother,” Saidiya Hartman argued that black community is based off experience in the United States, not just an inclusive community for those with black blood in their veins. An African male character explained that there is no kinship in Africa between African Americans and Africans. The idea of brotherhood and sister hood is only an African American concept.
Diving more into the American concept, black community is a place of belonging and acceptance. In Frances Harper’s “Iola Leroy,” the main character identified as black although she had previously passed as white. Leroy found community in the church. She reconnected with her family through the church. The church became a place for multiple people regardless of their background and percentage of blackness, since all they needed was a tie to African American roots.
This ties into the idea of oneness.
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A Haven Apart from the Rest of the World: The Community of Ballroom Culture in FX’s Series Pose
That is our place. Our community. The balls were created so that we could have somewhere to matter.” – Elektra Abundance, Pose
“Balls are a gathering of people who are not welcome to gather anywhere else, a celebration of life that the rest that the rest of the world does not deem worthy of celebration.” -Blanca Evangelista, Pose
Ryan Murphy’s hit TV series, Pose, depicts New York City’s ballroom community in the 1980s. The show follows Blanca Evangelista, a neophyte “house mother”, who forms her own family within the ballroom scene. MJ Rodriguez, who plays Blanca speaks to the communal aspect of ballroom culture:
“There’s a lot of hope and comfort and nurturing in the ballroom scene. People came to us because they needed a place of comfort, they needed a family, they needed a house mother.”
Ball culture has a unique set of values and social structure, which consists of “houses”, also known as “families”. In Pose, Blanca becomes a house mother after committing to building a legacy after a positive HIV diagnosis. “Houses” emerged out of a new ball scene, forged by the queer black ball community in the 1960s, due to restrictive and racist aspects of previous ball culture.[i] These “houses” are led by “House Mothers”, who helped navigate younger “family” members through the ball system. “Houses” often offered a family for children who had been rejected because of their identities from families, communities, and school.[ii] For example, in Pose, Damon is taken into “House Evangelista” by “house mother” Blanca, after being rejected by his biological parents due to his sexuality. After finding Damon homeless in the park, dancing for money, Blanca took him in, and became a maternal figure to him, forging bonds of love, trust, and respect.
While “houses” are places where family was chosen and love, they are also places of competition and contention:
“Sometimes these competitions can get physical in all kinds of ways. Certain “houses” have been known to get violent after losing at a ball. As in most every home in America, drama and intrigue are usually found just below the surface.”[iii]
Houses fiercely compete against each other to win categories, one of which is “realness”. “Realness” is won by best emulating an archetype, for example, a business executive; those that would be able to “pass” on the outside gain a sense of satisfaction from successfully becoming a person that they would not necessarily have the access or resources to be in life outside the ballroom scene. “Houses” that win categories gain clout, and have the opportunities to become legendary within the hierarchies of the ballroom social structure. But while houses may compete against each other, they all come together in a space where they can express themselves without fear.
“[Balls] became a space where gender, class, sexuality, and race coalesced and collided for one moment in time.”[iv]
Ball culture is a place where people could be and express themselves in whatever way they chose. “Houses” become chosen families, and a way to operate within the ball community and also find their way in the larger world. The ball community allows people to celebrate themselves in a space that has no bounds, nor expectations, and least of all norms.
[i] Les Fabian Braithwaite, “Striking a ‘Pose’: A Brief History of Ball Culture,” Rollingstone, June 6, 2018.
[ii] Ivan Monforte, “House and Ball culture goes wide,” The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide 17, no. 5 (2010): Gale Literature Resource Center https://link-gale-com.ezproxy.bowdoin.edu/apps/doc/A237756164/LitRC?u=brun62796&sid=LitRC&xid=17dbc9ea.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid.
Building Communities Through Hair
Growing up, Black hair salons were always a source of comfort for me. I loved walking in and getting greeted by the older Black women in my community, pondering what my next hairstyle would be, feeling the warm water rush into my hair, and being at peace knowing I was surrounded by a community of loving women. Of course, the drama was also fun to eavesdrop on as well. The chatter, politics, family news, and beautiful Blackness that radiated throughout the salon always left me with renewed energy.
However, the black hair salon became a site of tension for me as well. Discussions about how pretty and “manageable” my hair would become if I had a relaxer eventually influenced me and my mom to go through with it. “Beauty is Pain.” I distinctly remember my hairdresser reassuring me as the chemicals within the relaxer ate away at my coils and singed my scalp. The results were amazing until my hair began to break off no matter how many treatments I did to preserve and grow it.
When I started going natural, it was difficult to find a reasonably priced hair stylist who would care for my hair as much as I would. I felt isolated and guilty for no longer wanting to endure pain for the price of beauty. Until I stumbled upon the natural hair community on YouTube and various social media platforms. This virtual black community became especially important as I learned how to take care of my hair and embrace what others told me was not beautiful for so long. Seeing women with varying forms of natural hair and wearing it proudly empowered me to wear my hair unapologetically. I no longer felt pressured to succumb to the margins of whiteness. However, the virtual community could not compete with the memories and love I had for black hair salons and the people I met there.
Coming to Bowdoin, I thought the sense of community and empowerment central to the salon would disappear as I entered a white school in the middle of the Whitest state in America, Maine. Luckily, however, I found ways to recreate this community. I connected with Black women across campus who volunteered their time to do hair and quickly found myself in my friend’s dorms getting my hair done. These moments transformed me back to my childhood, I felt safe, comforted- I felt unapologetically me. In these dorm rooms, we went in on our college lives, classes, Black womanhood, hair, boys, friendships, family, all of it. Walls were taken down, bonds were strengthened. Reflecting on these moments, I realize how central these spaces and experiences were and are to my Black womanhood. In these spaces, surrounded by Black women, I laughed, cried, learned- I healed. Learning to love and take care of my Black hair and sharing it with those I trusted helped me love myself, deepened my relationship with my community, and led to some amazing carefree moments. These moments of bonding over our hair and other issues that fell upon Black women at a PWI in America provided a sense of spiritual healing. No longer did I feel as isolated from the people at Bowdoin; in these moments I could let my guard down, explore parts of myself I didn’t know needed exploring, and relish in my beautiful Blackness.
“Check It”: The LGBT Gang
The Film “Check It” is a documentary that follows members of an LGBT gang in DC, most of whom gay are men of color. Many of these men are not accepted in their families or communities, and so they joined the gang to find not only protection from the violence that is inflicted upon them, but also to find love and support with one another. The documentary examines how the gang responds to instances of verbal discrimination directed at one of their members on the basis of sexuality or gender expression – violence, for the gang, becomes a tool through which they are able to defend one another and express love for one another by protecting and standing up for themselves.
This documentary provides us with the perspective of a community that looks different than what we likely imagine when we think of the word, “community.” This community is made up of people who live lives marginalized from a larger black community due to their queerness, and who find solace with one another on the basis of this marginalization. In interviews of individual members, we see how members of the group find meaning in themselves as a result of their involvement in their community. Their community becomes a basis not only for physical protection from the efforts of the outside world to inflict violence upon them, but also as a ‘safe space’ for them to be themselves and perform their sexuality and gender as they desire without being judged or fearing for their lives. In other words, these men are not loved despite their queerness, but in the Check It gang, they are loved and welcomed because of their queerness.
This film allows us the opportunity to analyze the category of community. We can see how community simultaneously allows greater opportunity for acceptance, protection, and love, that can lead to personal growth and identity development, but on the other hand, community can also lead to exclusion and marginalization. The black community rejected the members of Check It, and refused to accept them. As a result, these men are forced not only physically out of their homes and support networks that many black communities rely on to survive as a result of a lack of state-sanctioned support, and therefore these men are left vulnerable and alone. They then formed the Check It gang, but a queer POC gang is not common everywhere. In other words, this type of community is not mainstream, and so for most queer POC, there are not many options for alternative communities. This documentary illuminates the ways in which community can be both a beautiful and an ugly thing, and how individual identities can lead to group affiliations.
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“All Day and Night”: Community Even in Danger
TINY SPOILER ALERT! The Netflix hit “All Day and Night” follows a young man, Jahkor, from a Los Angeles hood who commits a murder. Instead of focusing on the main character being a murderer, the movie focuses on why Jahkor committed the murder. Jahkor killed for gang related reasons; however, his actions were more personal than just in the name of gang culture.
Gang culture, although negative, exemplifies what a community is. In the movie, members looked to their gang for support. This support included protection, financial, and to some degree, emotional. In the movie, a member died to gun violence and the leader of the game came to the funeral with thousands of dollars for the fallen member’s grieving mother. Although urban gangs are seen as negative, communities accept gangs because they provide legitimate support in cases when none seems available.
The movie does not glorify gang life; however, it depicts the allure of gang life and drug dealing, especially when a person is financially down on their luck. Good or bad, a community allows a place for people to go or a possible way out. To push that point, a community offers a quicker and more convenient way out for people in that areas problems.
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We liberate ourselves
We, the people of the community, weren’t going to let each other fall. We would rescue each other, and deliver people to a lasting freedom (Burton and Lynn 2019, xxii)
In Becoming Ms. Burton Susan Burton tells her story in the context of different historical periods of hardship for black people in the U.S. Alcoholism, drug abuse, unemployment, incarceration, and sexual assault are examples of the factors that contribute to a cycle of instability for a large percentage of black people. Her story is an example of the difficult ways that it is for individuals stuck in this cycle to get the help that will produce positive and long-term results. Her story also shows why it is important for black people to build a community that can support one another.
Ms. Burton’s support circle would help her start A New Way of Life. This community is unique because Michelle Alexander describes the houses where formerly incarcerated black women stay as “loving homes” (xxii). This organization creates an environment that builds people who have been pushed down. Ms. Burton works to help black women who are starting a new life along with advocating for restorative justice and to break the cycle of incarceration that damages the black community. Ms. Burton is an example that non-profit work and community building can work hand in hand because while it is important to give access to food and health services it is just as important to have meaningful relationships with one another. When she was giving up on herself, she had people she could turn to who would give her advice and support because they really wanted her to get better. The A New Way of Life community primarily offers support and, in the process, makes significant changes to how people see themselves. If the health and well-being of black people were a priority in our society we could help so many people because the “…annual cost per woman at A New Way of Life is $16,000—compared to the annual cost of up to $75,000 to incarcerate a woman” (xxi). The money needed to truly help someone move forward can be spent by the government.
There are similar stories to Ms. Burton, her brothers, her parents, and friends. They themselves cannot change a system that has been manipulated to push black men and women down. We as a greater community have the responsibility to educate ourselves and listen to their stories. We can rebuild a community that wants to value the lives of all people, and not exclude those who we’ve been taught are not people people.