BbyMutha’s Refusal as Black Queer Feminine Fugitivity

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-1-2021

Abstract

The dominant grammar of visuality often circulated through dominant and white supremacist visual tropes—such as the “welfare queen”—produce shortcut readings of Black womanness that rest easily on the suffocating logics of desubjectification. However, situated at the intersections of myriad oppressions, we argue that Black queer feminine fugitive performance is a fecund site of refusal to such readings. To illustrate this, we trace Chattanooga-based rap artist BbyMutha—a Black queer woman who has four children—as an exemplar of Black queer feminine fugitivity. BbyMutha’s performance incites queer corrections, diversions, and disruptions of controlling readings of BbyMutha. BbyMutha’s various performatives provide opportunity to imagine queer possibilities of Black queer feminine fugitivity and futures outside of white cisheteronormative negation.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

QED

First Page

1

Last Page

24

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