Abstract
I conducted ethnographic fieldwork between 2012 and 2016 for my research about what was colloquially referred to as the Scene in DC among Black Queer Women (BQW). The BQW’s Scene is an amorphous, loosely connected set of social networks comprised of BQW and their allies, as well as the spaces those social networks create to socialize (Lane 2015). I refer to these spaces, where the Scene was most often instantiated, as scene spaces. Scene spaces included sites such as house parties, book club, social support groups, professional women’s sporting events, semi-private parties at restaurants, lounges, and bars. Additionally, musical performances by queer artists, burlesque shows, one-off Black queer-themed events, and Meetups organized by Black queer people were also scene spaces. During my fieldwork, I made it a point to go to all of the scene spaces that were available to me so when I was invited to Timi’s birthday celebration at a “Women’s Happy Hour” a new gay bar just off U Street, I happily accepted. There were five of us, including the birthday girl, standing together amongst the crowd. We stood nursing our drinks and, as is customary at happy hours with casual acquaintances, we engaged in small talk and someone asked me, “Oh, so what do you do?”
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Notes
- 1.
Pseudonym.
- 2.
Cash Money Records took over the ‘99 and the 2000 with rapper Juvenile’s hit “Back that azz up.” The phrase, “back that ass up,” was not necessarily new, but entered into broader use and when said within the context of African American English users, often evokes the song itself. If you find yourself at a club where the majority of the people there are Black, if the DJ plays this song from the very beginning, you will witness people “backing that ass up.” The movement involves shaking one’s buttocks, or ass, while simultaneously thrusting out and backward rhythmically.
- 3.
“Drop it like its hot” is a 2004 song by Snoop Dogg featuring super producer and performer, Pharell. The actual act of “dropping it like it’s hot,” refers to dipping one’s ass down as low as possible.
- 4.
The Trap refers to the world of dealing illicit substances. Dealing illicit substances is inherently dangerous and will, most often, result in death and/or prison. Entering into that line of work is an acknowledgment that one has signed up for being “trapped” within one of those two possibilities. “Trap music,” therefore, discusses the realities (and perhaps fantasy) of dealing illicit drugs and the dangers associated with it.
- 5.
I strongly encourage white people reading this to use “n-word” when reading this out loud, and to themselves.
- 6.
Title of an elder woman in a Black church.
- 7.
Black churches notoriously keep their “flock” in church for several hours. The church of my childhood was one such church. My church also required elaborate set-up and break down as it often took place in either the home of the pastor or a hotel meeting room. Following Sunday school which began around 10 am and ended around 11:30 am, there were several church announcements. Then, praise and worship service, which, depending on the move of the spirit, could last anywhere between an hour or two. If the pastor was feeling particularly boisterous that afternoon, services could last until 2 pm–3 pm.
- 8.
Songs such as Juvenile’s “Back that Azz Up” would always bring people out to the dance floor in Atlanta.
- 9.
When I refer to the word in the form of a noun, it is italicized. When using the word with its specified connotation it is in regular type.
- 10.
See Brittney C. Cooper’s Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017).
- 11.
Read: whiter. More white people have been using the word, giving the impression that it is “new,” however, it is not.
- 12.
Being “ghetto,” was to act as if one was from a lower-class, or “underclass” and without the dignities required for “civilized,” “respectable” living.
- 13.
Meaning that their immediate families may have been working-class, but they experienced a “bump” in material resources often as a result of attainment of undergraduate or graduate education that allows them to experience middle-class lifestyles.
- 14.
It should be noted that two films, the successful independent film Pariah and HBO’s biographic film Bessie staring Queen Latifah, both directed by Dee Rees, a self-identified Black lesbian, have gained notable mainstream attention. However, these representations of Black queer women are “atypical.”
- 15.
Transcript: Robin Roberts ABC News Interview With President Obama.
- 16.
An early twentieth century epithet for lesbian; often used to refer to Black lesbians.
- 17.
Current U.S. Census Bureau estimates have 47.1% of the population to be Black or African American, and 45.1% as white, and 11% Hispanic. United States Census Bureau, “Quick Facts: District of Columbia” Last accessed July 22, 2018. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/dc/PST045217.
- 18.
DuMonthier, Asha, Chandra Childers, and Jessica Milli. “The Status of Black Women in the United States.” Washington, DC: Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 2017.
- 19.
Ibid.
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Lane, N. (2019). The Ethnography of Ratchet: Studying Language Practices of the Black (Queer) Middle-Class. In: The Black Queer Work of Ratchet. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23319-8_1
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