What are your pronouns6/19/2023 Throughout my life, I’ve connected with people who made me literate in my gender expression, outside of the binary. It’s here that many people become preoccupied with the transgression against gender binaries - and specifically the binary inherent to the English language - as opposed to engaging the Black queer thing on offer: freedom. ![]() Social illiteracy around the many different languages of Black life is the conversation of my generation. The discussion often returns to pronouns: she, her, he, him, they, and them. And in the same breath, I know lives are ruined when not in possession of that power. ![]() Growing up poor, Black, and queer, I am acutely aware that my life was saved by literacy. Black people are still experiencing illiteracy due to lack of education opportunities, and are born into environments that don’t facilitate or prioritize intellectual expansion or mission. In 2019, language remains a place of struggle. These alphabet cards serve as a reminder that anything is possible a people whose literacy was outlawed have advanced into a space where we are creating our own devices to promote reading with images and words that resonate with us. The photographs are nostalgic to me, even as a 28-year old who didn’t actually live through the era. To honor this reminder, I purchased vintage alphabet cards from the 1970s that represented each letter of the alphabet with a different Afrocentric image and theme: A is for Afro, J is for Jazz, and so on. Our ability to wield language was not free, but paid for by risk and blood. It’s easy to forget that literacy is revolutionary. ![]() That goes for both utopias and revolutions. It’s the spirit of the idea that, if we can write something down - and truly believe it - we can have it. Language is where revolutions and utopias alike are negotiated and created. Language - how we first translate our emotions and ideas from the abstract into something legible - is where change begins. It’s a direct result of having a keen understanding that Black people’s relationship with language has always been a challenge. My fixation on language is not coincidental, it’s consequential. There’s no other way for me as a writer to enter the conversation about gender and pronouns as it concerns Black folks without returning to language. ![]() “Language is a place of struggle.” - bell hooks
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