Five Characteristics of "queer of colour critique"

Theoretical framework 

Proposing the theoretical framework from “queer of colour critique” movement in secular cultural studies 

Five characteristics of “queer of colour critique” that will be really interesting (Listen at 52:50)

1. “Question Identities” 

It challenges the essentialist notions of races and sexuality. Rather than seeing races and sexuality as “born this way” but as things are “constructed”. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have skin pigmentations, but defining our identities on the bases of that is a constructive thing. Like Foucault said, before the 19th century, no one would have imagined defining oneself in terms of the gender of the person they are attracted to. The notion of homosexual is strange if you think about it. Not as the natural thing. 

The whole notion of “constructed identity”… it gets complicated. What’s Asian? … When we talk about the essentialism of race, what does that mean? 

It is not about identity politics: ‘I am more oppressed than you.’ But it’s really about “building coalition.” Building coalition and honouring how you are the same, and also different, in terms of how you are valued and devalued. In terms of messy-ness, not essential characteristics. 

2. “Both/and thinking” rather than either/or thinking

Book, “Disidentifications” The whole analysis on queer of colour performance … He says it is very interesting to see they all exist in the middle of the third space - instead of choosing one pole or the other, whether it is male or female, or whether it is in queer or of colour, instead of choosing, you can “identify” with both and also “disidentify” with both. Disidentification is the methodology for survival. Rather than rejecting either or both, you choose what is beneficial for you. (adopting queer community as it is helpful, but leaving racism behind as it is not helpful.) It is very much like postcolonial theory: the notion of hybridity. As Homi Bhabha says, Hybridity is like the stereo wall ? between two forces: the colonizer and the colonized meet in the middle. In the middle space, top and bottom get reversed. Something weird is going on in that third space. 

3. “Multiple oppressions”

Rather than just focusing on one single oppression, queer of colour critiques theorists look at the way in which multiple oppressions are “interlocking”. South Asian Muslim body post 9-11, as sort of intersection of all these “deviances” There’s deviant religion, deviant sexuality, deviant race, .. It’s deviancy. vs “Homonationalism” 

4. “Non-linear time”

Thinking about queer and time. <Cruising Utopia> Cruising Utopia True queerness is never in the “present,” always beyond.  Utopia is always in the future. It’s not just in the future, though, always in the past. To think about “queer time.” How queer people exist in queer time and space. Non-linear sense of time in relationships and job trajectories… (not like “straight folks” grow up, graduate from high school, college, get married, have jobs, and you get kids, have carrier, kids leave, retire, sort of that linear trajectory.) Thinking beyond linear time is what queer of colour critiques folks help us to think about. 

5. “Fluid boundaries.” 

Instead of focusing on only United States, queer of colour critiques are really good about talking about international boundaries… (change and shift) issues of immigration, migration, globalization… they are really hot topics and yet intersecting them to queer studies is something that we need to do more of. The idea of coming out is always a universal thing, but do we expect everyone to come out in the same way? (culturally different process and many different ways can be possible.) 

Concluding 

5 characteristics/themes of queer of colour critiques which make liberation theologies of the past “undone.” It is what makes the queer of colour folks at the margins critically shift how we do theologies by bringing that actually to the center.

You move from 

• identity basis (“I am born this way” kind of thing) to “questioning identities” 
• either/or thinking - liberation verses to oppression - to really “both/and thinking of third spaces”
• singular oppressions of sexual/gender identity as the core front to “multiple oppressions” 
• linear time (“It gets better”) to really “queer time” 
• national borders (US as the center of all things) to fluid boundaries (not just the rest of the world, but also what boundaries do to the notions of sexuality and gender identity)