Late to Your Own Crisis: Black Queers and the Consequences of Pandemic Time

• In Event: The Racial and Gender Politics of Pandemics and Healthcare

Abstract

This paper addresses an aspect of pandemic time seldom published on but present in contemporary Black queer discourse. Central here is the Black queer vernacular form of "late," colloquially used as a means of expressing frustration with an outcome or a general misalignment between Black queers and those with relatively more power. Black queer responses to the pandemic are found to be in sync with longstanding methods for navigating HIV/AIDS and economic precarity. Evidence suggests whiteness and mainstream politics which are "late" to the time of crisis, causing Black folks' disproportionate suffering from hegemonic temporalities of crisis.

Presenter

• William Mosley, University of Maryland, College Park