Can you brainstorm relationships between tears, race, gender, and other forms of identity and power?

[saarah_jabar]

One relationship between tears, race, and queerness or quareness is demonstrated in the example Johnson analyzes in his article, in which writer and activist Essex Hemphill’s tears are mischaracterized by white queer theorist John Champagne during his speech criticizing Robert Mapplethorpe. To Champagne, Hemphill’s tears were a tactic to further his argument by manipulating the audience. His reading places Hemphill’s tears on par with that of white women's tears, which have historically been weaponized against black people by attempting to emotionally manipulate onlookers. Tears, in this case, are an expression of the power that white women hold over racialized bodies. The meaning behind Hemphill’s tears, however, cannot be read unless his identity as a black gay man is taken into consideration. As Bell Hooks notes, white institutions and academic spaces equate style with a lack of substance. Black tears and emotional performance are condemned as anti-intellectual by white standards, which are seen as unprofessional or merely performative, lacking in depth and any substance in itself. However, in considering the black body as a vehicle of violence and trauma, Hemphill’s tears can be understood as an expression of that historical weight, which adds, rather than detracts from, his critique on Mapplethorpe’s depiction of black bodies in his photography. This example of performativity ties in with José Muñoz’s concept of disidentification, in which queers of colour “works on and against” (Johnson, 139) dominant ideology, whereby the oppressed are able to survive in oppressive societies. Hemphill’s tears are similar to that of the performances of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender singers of colour like Sylvester and Little Richard, for instance, who use music as a means of disidentification. His emotionality is one way in which black queers or quares can use performance as a means of survival and expression on the literal or metaphorical “stage”, which includes the body itself.