"Reading Came First": A Consideration of Black Queer and Trans Reading Practices

• In Event: Black Queer World-Making and the Pursuit of Truth in Educational Research

Abstract

Among its many definitions, “reading” is a stylized form of verbal expression in Black queer and trans cultures that can be deployed to call out individuals or entities for their wrongdoing, often by combining chastisement with quick wit and Black queer and trans vernacular expressions and inflections (Pritchard, 2017). As such, reading has functioned as a uniquely powerful and consequential mode of truth-telling for Black queer and trans communities, facilitating Black queer and trans navigations of hostile social contexts as documented prominently in Black queer cultural productions from the 1980s through the 2000s (see Polk, 2005; Riggs, 1989). Given the disproportionate punishment of Black students for a wide range of purported offenses (Crenshaw, Ocen, & Nanda, 2015; Scott, Moses, Finnigan, Trujillo, & Jackson, 2017), how might we make the case for honoring Black queer and trans students who talk back against repression in K-12 schools through their reading practices? This paper will draw upon theorizations from Black queer and trans studies (Allen, 2022; Pritchard, 2017), empirical data from two studies on Black queer and trans youth’s educational experiences, and audio clips from two Black queer and trans popular media texts to establish the necessity and efficacy of reading as a practice that enables Black queer and trans subjects to resist anti-Blackness, queerphobia, and transphobia across educational and social contexts. It will then consider teacher education as a potential site for preparing practitioners to accommodate resistive strategies like Black queer and trans reading, particularly by disrupting deficit perspectives that cast reading as another instance of insubordation by the stereotypically unruly Black student. This disruption, as suggested in the paper’s conclusion, could have consequences for the schooling experiences of Black students across gender and sexual identities.

Author

• Ed Brockenbrough, University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author