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Namazie’s view of the homeland seeks to expand the nature of homeland beyond what european colonial ideas of it - confined to a particular place. The homeland is expansive and esists beyond the boundaries of time and space. “It is alive, unknowable, and does not exist” indicating its subjectivity and changing nature for everyone who holds its close. It is palimpset meaning that it exists upon the traces of another and is not unique. The homeland is not a place but an idea, one that keeps transforming and changing deciding who to include and who to spit out. Eventhough the homeland constantly changes the diaspora’s longing for it remains ever fervent, ever idealised.
For Namazie as a queer/trans poet, their homeland understands them unlike colonial ideologies would have them believe.
A line I really liked from the poem is that “homeland is timeless, nationless and stateless. It is practice” This really attests to the importance of actions, traditions and relationships in making a person, especially who is queer feel at home.
I might like to add something poetic of my own: “Transcending space and time, eternal is the home that shields me. Indeed it is me.”

It is often assumed that women migrating to a new country do so with their husbands and are economically dependent on them. There is a need to break this chain-link hypothesis of the young man coming first. Many Syrian women worked hard and saved up to travel to be with their husbands in the US and on finding out that not everything was the way it seemed left them and charted their own course, like Sultana Alkezin who left her husband after she found out he was cheating on her and moved to Atlantic city making a living selling linens (p. 41). They also saved up and sent their daughters first, following them when they had enough money. These women were not meek, they had experience standing on their own two feet, like Tabsharani who moved from her village to work in a silk factory and then onward to the US and Canada, establishing herself as one of the most successful independent traders in the region. Many of them were widowed early, but continued to provide for their families through peddling and selling embroidery, like Margaret Malooley who was proud of not needing anyone's help not even the governments (p.44). These women often had experience doing wage labour in Syria and running households without a husband or male relative.

Right wingers and liberals alike in Britain have started to push the narrative that brown people themselves are the cause behind their oppression. They argue that by self-segregating and not interacting with the rest of British society, South Asians breed the ground for extremist ideologies to develop which leads to their communities being excessively surveilled. This is false reasoning because time and time again it has been proven that those British Muslims drawn towards extremism were very much integrated into British society and did so because they felt an overwhelming amount of injustice committed towards them and their communities by the dominant society.
By pushing this narrative racism has been transformed from an individual and institutional injustice to a prejudice based on unfamiliarity, i.e. white people’s unfamiliarity with brown people who willingly isolate themselves leads them to act discriminatorily towards them. This narrative proposes that if Brown people willingly integrated into British society, letting go of their traditional culture and values, there would be no more difference between them and the whites and racist attacks would cease to occur. We know for a fact that this is not true and that for racism to be tackled institutional changes must be made.
In relation to self-segregation, I would like to bring up the fact that this was often done through necessity to escape the racism in integrated neighbourhoods and also through zoning laws that dictated where South Asians and immigrants could live (often in the shadiest parts of the city). So simply abandoning this vital form of self preservation was not an option for most South Asians even if it would mean escaping racist violence as the ruling elite among right and left wingers seem to suggest.

The South Asian Ahmadiyya preachers preached a vision of racial harmony and equality that was different from the Nation of Islam’s racial exclusionism that viewed Islam as the religion and true salvation for Black people who were actually considered Asiatic. Ahmadi teachings advocated for solidarity between Black Muslims and other Muslims of colour throughout the world. On the other hand, the Nation of Islam’s view was that the Black Muslim was superior to all others and should create their own society. Ahmadiyya Islam was truly internationalist and promoted global solidarity among Muslims of various races - it also advocated for racial affirmations, liberation and social justice. It was centred around an ideology of universal brotherhood that brought people together and thus was at odds with the racial exclusivity preached and practiced by the Nation of Islam.

Authenticity is linked to a concept of how close something is to the original. How unadulterated it is, how untouched by outside influence. The immigration of South Asians to places like Britain and Turtle Island and their integration into the culture of these places would essentially serve as antithetical to the conditions required for producing culinary authenticity. Initially, South Asian restaurants in these places were serving only South Asian immigrants, mostly working-class ones - so there was no question of authenticity. This was food made by South Asians for South Asians, so the recipes were traditional with occassional tweaking based on the availability of ingredients. Authenticity was not a matter of concern in these establishments - it was more about providing affordable food to communities that was familiar. The question about authenticity really started popping up when more of these restaurants started catering to white people. Noticing an interest of white people in Indian food, restaurateurs started catering their dishes based on both what they thought white people’s notions of Indian food were and white people’s own tastes. This was more of a survival strategy for these restaurants who were less interested in authentic cultural exchanges.
Authenticity of Indian food in Britain became an important point of contestation seeing that most Indian restaurants were operated by Bangladeshis and Pakistanis who were Muslims. Elite chefs and middle and upper class Indians sought to differentiate them from these inauthentic restaurants and started to set up restaurants that focused on regional Indian cuisine, to introduce British audiences to the true flavours of India. Since these groups had the cultural capital and resources they could focus on authenticity as their main selling point. In essence, class and religion of the restaurateurs was the main factor in determining whether or not the food being served was actually authentic or not.
Authenticity and tradition in food can also be connected to maintaining traditional gender roles. With prioritizing women in the domestic sphere, labouring for hours in the kitchen to make an authentic Indian dish, the time they have available to engage in productive activity outside the home is limited. Since women are seen as the protectors of culture, their place in homme and their dedication in the kitchen is seen as essential to maintaining the authenticity of food and of culture in the diaspora.

Soledad Garcia Jubala was the wife of Julio Jubala, they had both gotten married in New Mexico. What was not known at the time was that Jubala already had a wife back in India called Nami Singh. After Jubala’s tragic death, both these women were contesting for their inheritance, often using similar strategies to malign and delegitimize their relationship with Jubala. Nami and Jubala’s marriage was arranged back in India when they were still children and they spent significant time apart when Jubala moved to the States. Although they consummated the marriage and were bonded legally, Soledad sought to delegitimize their bond and the obligations it carried by stressing the repungnancy of the circumstance of child marriage. Soledad tied the Hindu custom of marriage to an illegitimate and invalid union that should not be respected in court, which would make her Jubala’s only legitimate spouse and the inheritor of his wealth. Nami Singh, in her own right tried to project Jubala’s second marriage as illegitimate, continuously portraying Soledad as a concubine who helped her husband through hard times but had no legal marital relationship to him. The courts ultimately took Nami’s side, seeing as her marriage to Jubala was still valid at the time of his arrival in the US, but granted inheritance to Jubala and Soledad’s children who were seen as legitimate.
The concept of Hindu morality especially when it comes to marriage was employed again to defend Don Sing who was accused of sodomy. In this case, his lawyer P.L. Verma defended him as a devout Hindu husband who being faithful to his wife, could not commit sodomy. Additional characteristics of generosity and humanitarian spirit were put forward in Sing’s defence. The idea was that Sing, a devout, pious and generous Hindu husband, could never commit sodomy because it went against the Hindu moral code of faithfulness to one’s spouse, and thus the charges against him should be dropped.
In this way the concept of Hindu morality was brought up by legal forces to both accuse and delegitimize as well as defend South Asians in court.

Food played a major role in the lives of New York Indians. Many of the Bengali ex-seamen who settled in places like Harlem started out their employment journeys in the US as line cooks and dishwashers - this made them familiar with the workings of the restaurant industry on a deeper level. Those who craved more independence set up shop as street food vendors pushing hot dog carts - the quintessential American food was adapted by immigrants for survival - selling hotdogs was a step on their way to achieving the American dream. When they had acquired enough capital, they set up restaurants of their own, like Habib and Victoria Ullah’s Bengal Garden. These were places of sanctuary that served not only to introduce the residents of New York to Indian cuisine but also to serve as safe spaces for Bengali migrants away from home. Bengal Garden unfortunately shut down 2 years after its opening due to intense competition from neighbouring Indian restaurants, but the experience of opening and running a restaurant was invaluable and soon enough Habib Ullah became a counselor to any other Indian migrant who wanted to start their own. Prior to there being a sizeable Indian community in New York, South Asian Muslims used to rely on meat from kosher butchers, showing their relationship to the Jewish community in the city. When many Indian restaurants started popping up they became some of the only places where halal meat was served, so they were flocked to by African American Muslims and South Asian Muslim migrants alike, serving as important sites of cultural exchange between the 2 groups.
Although Indian restaurants and cuisine served to unite the various communities of colour in New York city (African American, Caribbean, South Asian and Latine) through their palettes, white people largely did not engage with them. This could be viewed as a dying down of the ‘curry craze’ or just because a vast majority of white Americans could not bring themselves to get over their unfamiliarity with ethnic food - Indian food was simply too spicy or new for them to try. This definitely affected the revenues of Indian restaurants and their business-models - with many of them opting to serve ‘American food’ like chops, fried chicken and steak alongside traditional Indian curries, in order to cater to white people. This shows that in order for ethnic restaurants to truly succeed in the West, a white stamp of approval is required by them - something familiar even in the modern era when it comes to cultural appropriation of traditional foods.

Rajiv longs to connect with his Indianness, he wishes to connect with the language and culture of his ancestors. His desire to learn the language and songs from his Aji are positioned in direct contrast to his fathers wishes to have him completely assimilate - take up English names, adhere to Christianity and learn classical languages like Greek or Hebrew instead of Hindi which he views as impractical. Rajiv’s father repeatedly looks down on their Indo-Guyanese heritage and disapproves of Rajiv’s attempts to reconnect. In his view, assimilation is the only way to gain respect, he sees his Indianness as inferior and wishes to adopt the lifestyle of the white man in order to achieve upward mobility. Rajiv, being second-generation is at odds with this - he wishes to learn Hindi and Bhojpuri, to continue singing the songs his Aji had taught him. He has a deep desire to connect with his heritage as seen in his enrollment in the South Asian Summer Language Institute where he enrolled to learn Hindi as well as his desire to go to India to continue his lessons in Hindi and Bhojpuri.
Rajiv’s queerness is another factor that layers his identity and his connection to his heritage. He knows that he cannot reveal this detail to his family members for fear of disownment. This could lead to a divide between him and his family as he is unable to be his authentic self around them and thus cannot connect fully with them. He wants to be a part of the familial network which is why he keeps the queer aspect of his identity to himself despite it causing him great distress.
Loss of language can be seen as a loss of identity - it entails a loss of heritage and an inability to connect with those who still speak the language, this is a source of melancholia. This can be seen in Rajiv’s experience of trying to learn Hindi - although he had a formative knowledge of the language and of Bhojpuri, his instructor claimed that he was not a real Indian when he tried to speak it (furthering Rajiv’s disconnect from his heritage). Standardised Hindi is not the language of his ancestors, they speak Hindustani and Bhojpuri which is not really taught. So although Rajiv is making attempts to learn some aspect of his culture, it is not the part that is directly connected with his ancestry and heritage, rather the version that is most readily available, so there might be a lack of personal connection in the process.

Imperial projects required labour, labour that the British saw themselves as above doing. Native people were employed to sustain these imperial projects. So long as they were considered important and indispensable, the colonized were kept in close proximity to he British colonizers, as nannies, servants and seafarers, but as soon as they stopped being of service, they were let go of and left to fend for themselves. British colonizers got accustomed to the luxuries of having servants in India, so when they decided to leave to go back to Britain they wanted their servants to come with them. Here is when we talk about the ayahs, who were indispensable travelling nannies, employed by the British for their skills at sea and with children who once aboard almost exclusively took charge of the children, baggage and memsahibs. But to their dismay, once the ship landed in England, these ayahs who were indispensable just a a few moments ago, had served their purpose and were no longer employed by the same British families who had brought them here, often with the promise of paying for their journey back. These women now with no place to go were stuck in England and had to resort to begging to sustain themselves. There were also male ayahs who had similar stories as their female counterparts but some of them did manage to gain upward mobility through gaining the white elite’s favour eg. Abdul Karim who became Queen Victoria’s munshi or teacher.
Lascars, were seafarers who despite their extensive knowledge were relegated to performing the lowest degree of labour aboard the ships such as stoking coal. They came to England through free will often intending only temporarily but eventually set up communities over the coastal UK such as in Cardiff. They came from port cities in the British empire like Aden and coastal India.
In essence, it is flows of labour that facilitated the migration of racialized people to the UK, both in the early days of the empire and today. The colonial entity recruits people from the colonies to do jobs that its own citizens refuse to do and when these workers are done serving their purpose they are let go of as quickly as they were hired. No adequate thought has been given to their security, well-being or futures - they are just a means to an end. Such practice can set a precedent for countries that rely on constant flows of labour and offer no form of security to the workers that sustain their economies.

It is in the direst of circumstances that faith truly prospers. It gives people something to hold on to, something to be hopeful for and something to confirm to them that a better life is to come. Islam was a significant factor in the lives of enslaved Muslim West Africans who had been brought to the New World - they were not about to let go of it, even if it meant that they would be punished. Their faith gave them hope and also took them back to a time where they were free and respected and able to engage in other pursuits. Despite enslaved Muslims complete commitment to their faith and practicing it at their level best in their circumstances, they were always under threat from their owners and had to take strategic steps to avoid punishment. So they engaged in a form of pseudoconversion - professing Christianity but continuing to believe in and practice Islam in secret. This could be seen as a form of taqiyah or caution in religious practice, where Muslims under persecution are encouraged to hide their religion, practice it in secret and adopt the teachings of the oppressor to avoid danger.
What I found interesting in the reading by Diouf, was the mention of enslaved people who did not practice taqiya and were outwardly proud of their Islamic beliefs. Islam formed a big part of the identity of enslaved West African Muslims and they were not about to abandon it when they came to the new world. Throughout this reading, it is mentioned how African Muslims practiced the 5 pillars of Islam - shahadah, prayer, alms, fasting and hajj in their new dire circumstances of enslavement. How this gave them strength and helped build community and how some slaveowners were receptive to this and let enslaved people build centres for communal worship like in Brazil.
Religion has always been a tool used by the oppressed to advocate for their emancipation. Since we are all created in the image of God as his children and submit collectively before Him, believers have an easier time envisioning their liberation. Being religious helps people hold on to their humanity and see themselves as servants of God first and foremost despite the oppression against them. In this regard I would reiterate Islam’s power as a tool of hope and harbinger of liberation which is why enslaved West Africans continued to practice it in the New World.

A Morisco/Morisca is someone of North African heritage who was Muslim but then forcibly converted to Christianity in order to avoid persecution. Despite, their conversion, Moriscos were looked at with suspicion in Spain and not considered equal to Spaniards. They were expelled from Spain during la Reconquista. On their arrival in New Spain, they hoped to escape from the mistrust and discrimination but it followed them. Their arrival was seen as a threat to the creation of a unified Catholic community by the Spanish empire, who believed that they would undermine efforts to proselytize Indigenous peoples or even betray the Spaniards and side with the Ottomans, due to their shared religious heritage.
This fear of being mistrusted and denounced made many Moriscos want to proactively confess, as can be seen in the example of Maria Ruiz, who confessed to still following and believing in Islam despite having converted. In my opinion, the reason she could have done this is to ease her internal anxieties of having to keep her religion a secret. This prompted the friars to give her milder punishments and keep her discretions private.
On the other hand, Moriscos who engaged in iconoclasm, i.e. the rejection and ridicule of Catholic symbols were publicly reprimanded. Their lack of belief in the Trinity and their non-worship of saints was something that united them with the Protestants, to the dismay of the Spanish Catholic empire. Both of these groups with their outspoken disdain of Catholic practices, were seen as a common enemy. Their public rejection of Catholic practices was often done in the presence of Indigenous peoples who were working on their land, as members of these 2 groups were encomienderos, thus undermining efforts at proselytization and the creation of “a uniform Catholic empire across new Spain”. Thinking about it on a deeper level, these Protestant and Morisco encomienderos were actually a foil to the same empire they were propping up - as in they extracted land and labour from Indigenous people, but refused to facilitate their conversion (according to Spanish standards) - this could probably be a testament to the exploitative nature of colonialism, as opposed to the guise of bringing the “benevolent Christian faith” to Indigenous peoples.

Melancholia due to migration is often attributed to the inability to move on from what is lost. This is false, as migrants of colour often have to contend with racism and the effects of imperialism, leading them to not want to integrate into their host countries in the West, which is why they seem melancholic. Mr. Bhamra from Bend it Like Beckham, is an example of this. He initially discourages his daughter Jess from playing football because of his own experiences with racism in the English cricket scene which demotivates him from playing the game he loves. He wants Jess to be shielded from that experience and the grief it causes. Mr. Bhamra has to let go of his experiences with racism to overcome his melancholia. He has to abandon the sentiments he feels towards the English for treating him as inferior, and integrate into English society in order to be a “happy citizen”. This view is extremely problematic as it suggests that “whether racism hurts depends upon individual choice and capacity” (Ahmad, 144). It also attributes getting over racism to skill, when you are good enough at something you don’t have to worry about the racism you may face. In this way, it removes accountability from racist Western societies and places blame on migrants for their inability to move on from racism. This approach represents an explicitly white desire to get over melancholia, for migrants to integrate into the national environment, for them to rushedly get over the trauma, grief and displacement that comes with migration, and become happy citizens, and show gratitude to the countries that they now call home. This sentiment is also expressed by Nitin Sawhney’s parents when they speak about their experience of migration. They express grief at leaving their homeland and longing to return to it one day and show it to their children but they are also grateful for where they are now, despite having struggled a lot initially, because they get to see their children grow up happy and with better opportunities than they themselves had.

Western countries throughout modern history have taken to systematically othering non-white peoples and cultures in order to subjugate them. By positioning themselves as “enlightened” and superior to these cultures, European nations have been able to justify the conquest and subjugation of non-Western countries and people. We can see this throughout pre-colonial and colonial history where non-Western groups have been labelled as savages and enemies of the state to rationalize their oppression. The Spanish did this to Muslims and Jews in their homeland, labelling them as perpetual outsiders and enemies and forcing them to give up their ways and convert to Christianity and subjecting them to tests of blood purity. This racism served as the basis for how the Spanish would racialize the Indigenous peoples of the Americas - seeing them as heathens and enemies of European ways of life. Indigenous peoples were often likened to Muslims by the racialization practices of the Spanish. This shows the connection between Islamophobia/Orientalism and anti-Indigenous racism - they were both based on Othering of Muslims and Indigenous people, labelling them as inferior so that Europeans could subjugate them.
Orientalism served to imagine a non-Western world that was unlike and even opposed to a Western one, with practices and people that were different from those in the West. The queering of Muslim/Indian men was one way they did this. By painting Muslim/Indian men as queer and/or effeminate they served to emasculate them and set them up against the masculine Western man. This categorization was not benign - as there was a clear hierarchy, the Eastern man was weak and effeminate and the Western man was perceived as dominant and strong, this justified the Western conquest of Eastern lands. Criminalizing queerness was also a tool used by Western colonizers to impose their sexual mores over non-Western cultures, where historically people had been more accepting of queer sexualities.

Racialized people know white people so well because of their experience of looking in on whiteness from a non-white perspective. They know what it is like not to have the privilege of whiteness therefore they are the first people to take notice of it and point it out. White people who have been living with this privilege are oblivious to it and do not have the necessary skills to examine or critique it. Whiteness is invisible to those who have it and therefore only those outside its bounds can examine it. Knowing what it is like not living with white privilege makes one acutely aware of what this privilege entails and how to become more mindful of it. This is why James Baldwin suggests that we accept white people with love even if they don’t do the same for us - it is because of their ignorance and obliviousness to their own positionality in the world that they act in unconsciously racist ways. By approaching them with love and calling them in instead of calling out we can enlighten them about their privilege so that they understand its extent and follow up by living consciously and trying to use that power to dismantle the systems that unfairly favour them. White people are not free living under White supremacy because their privilege is afforded to them only through the oppression of people of colour and because they choose to live in denial about the reality of the world. When we talk about integration we say we want to make White people aware of themselves and their privilege as they are, to cease fleeing reality and to actively work to change it. This is the love we must offer White people; love and understanding so that they might learn of their own privilege and use it for good.

Racialized people know white people so well because of their experience of looking in on whiteness from a non-white perspective. They know what it is like not to have the privilege of whiteness therefore they are the first people to take notice of it and point it out. White people who have been living with this privilege are oblivious to it and do not have the necessary skills to examine or critique it. Whiteness is invisible to those who have it and therefore only those outside its bounds can examine it. Knowing what it is like not living with white privilege makes one acutely aware of what this privilege entails and how to become more mindful of it. This is why James Baldwin suggests that we accept white people with love even if they don’t do the same for us - it is because of their ignorance and obliviousness to their own positionality in the world that they act in unconsciously racist ways. By approaching them with love and calling them in instead of calling out we can enlighten them about their privilege so that they understand its extent and follow up by living consciously and trying to use that power to dismantle the systems that unfairly favour them. White people are not free living under White supremacy because their privilege is afforded to them only through the oppression of people of colour and because they choose to live in denial about the reality of the world. When we talk about integration we say we want to make White people aware of themselves and their privilege as they are, to cease fleeing reality and to actively work to change it. This is the love we must offer White people; love and understanding so that they might learn of their own privilege and use it for good.

To the Western eye, the cultures of the Near and Far East have always been exoticized - these places are seen as far from one’s own full of people who are backwards, dangerous, but at the same time vulnerable unlike Westerners who are modern, rational and “civilized”. The West’s fascination with all things Oriental could be advantageous for all those that are perceived as such, if they choose to act according to the White gaze. This can be seen in Vivek Bald’s piece, where he talks about Black men in the segregated South passing as Indians by choosing to perform Indianness for the White gaze, selling “exotic Oriental” garments to unsuspecting White tourists enamoured by South Asia. This way, these Black men were not only able to make a living for themselves but also navigate life in the segregated South, especially when it came to physically traversing and moving about. But this relief was short lived, as when the turbans came off, they went back to being Black men, subject to all the discrimination that came with living in an anti-black society. Thus this embrace of Orientalism comes with a trade off - one can choose to live off the White gaze, succeed economically and make a name for oneself, but be beholden to dehumanizing stereotypes about yourself and your culture, or you can choose to challenge the system but struggle immensely while doing so.
The video for Batalvi makes a case for when orientalist rhetoric can be spun on its head to create something that is just for the marginalized audience. Batalvi appears to have all the elements of an Orientalist fever dream - with women dancing in traditional clothes, men on the streets with guns, and unknown to the white audience, completely unrelated Perso-arabic letters as “subtitles”. This music video probably seeks to subvert the Orientalist image, and create somewhat of an inside joke unbeknownst to the the White western audience.
In conclusion, since we are living in a White supremacist society where the dignity of people of colour is determined by how much they are worth to White people, playing up Orientalist stereotypes to win favourable treatment comes at the cost of reducing oneself to do so. But refusing to do so could spell further discrimination by means of exclusion and active violence.

Colonialism is about exploitation of resources - it’s about the establishment of a power in an external location through the appropriation of Indigenous land and labour. Capitalism is a system that thrives under colonial systems because of the division of the population into 2 distinct classes - the colonizer who exploits and the colonized who are exploited. When colonial European countries (especially Britain) experienced labour shortages after the War, they had to loosen up immigration laws to allow for migrant labour. They had two options, either to allow migrants from other less developed parts of Europe, or from colonies and ex-colonies of the British empire. It is this increase in free market demand for labour that inevitably led Britain to loosen its immigration laws. Thus immigration rose in times of economic expansion and declined in times of recession. Capitalism weaponized both race and class to exploit workers. Racialized workers were prevented from organizing with their white working class brethren due racism in unions - this prevented workers from building a unified front against the capitalists. Therefore in the periods after the 2 world wars, colonialism, the free market, immigration and race are very much connected - as racialised people from former colonies were allowed into the UK to fill up unskilled positions in light of a labour shortage. In Sivanandan’s piece, he remarks how immigrants of colour were called to fill up low status and unskilled jobs, that white workers were unwilling to do. They were also given the worst housing in the country, often overcrowded and unmaintained. This led to the ghettoization of their communities, showing that although they were being economically integrated, they were still socially rejected by the majority.
This made me think about a different although less acknowledged reality mentioned in the reading by Bald. How early South Asian migrants to the US integrated themselves into the culture of the communities they settled in, living interdependently with African American, Puerto Rican and Creole people in places such as Harlem and New Orleans, showing us the immense strength and power of communities of colour in looking out for each other and showing solidarity and support. This is a stark contrast to the geographic and social isolation experienced by immigrants of colour in the UK.
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Quare is a term that articulates identities, especially across race and class. As individuals living in systems that are dominated by white supremacy, colonialism and capitalism, quare folk have a special relationship with identity, both to their queerness and racialisation. In his paper on Quare Studies, Johnson elaborates all the lessons on queerness and Black queer identity that he has learnt from his homophobic grandmother. People of colour, queer or not, have often found themselves outside the norms and values of dominant society, which has led to the suppression or negation of their legal, social, and physical relationships and rights (Cohen). Being a person of colour, especially Black, in an extremely white supremacist society, often feels like an uphill battle where one must fight constantly for their humanity. This is why quare folk cannot afford to exclude their heterosexual and even homophobic siblings from their fight for liberation. It is white supremacy that has broken down communities of colour for generations, ravaging us, leaving us poor, and devoid of humanity in the eyes of dominant white society. White supremacy is responsible for social ills like misogyny and queerphobia in our communities, they are not endemic to us as White society would like to have us believe. Quaring all disciplines and identities whether racial, class or gender, is important because it helps us articulate key differences that would not be done under queer theory - differences in experience that are unique to being racially marginalized. Our siblings, queer or not, are all suffering under white supremacy and colonialism, so we cannot exclude them from our lives or our fight. Even in the case where homophobia is evident, it doesn’t negate one’s fights against racism, classism and misogyny, as Johnson mentions about his grandmother (Johnson, 130). At the same time, it is important to call out and root out homophobia within communities of colour, both through academic credentials and political praxis (Johnson, 148).
I would like to add that answering this prompt motivated me to think about the material that I had read in Homa Hoodfar’s paper, where she mentioned how Muslim women have to constantly pick a battle between fighting sexism or racism owing to the false constructs created by Western colonial society about themselves and their communities. It is this Orientalist and racist construction that chooses us to pick a battle when the actual war is against White supremacy.