The late activist, scholar, and filmmaker Marlon T. Riggs wanted to bury the silence and exhume the voice, especially when it came to conversations and stories about Black people, and specifically LGBTQ Black folks. He successfully did this in “Tongues Untied,” his 1989 documentary/performance work exploring Black gay identity, and race and sexuality. (The film is being screened at 6 p.m. June 16 in the Neil Morgan Auditorium at the San Diego Central Library.)
“For a couple of years now, the sisters have done various film collaborations with the library. This year, we are focusing on this film because it’s (during) the week of Juneteenth,” said Sister Rita Booke, a member of the San Diego Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a nonprofit and order of nonreligious, queer and transgender nuns who serve the LGBTQ community through mutual aid, fundraising, helping other nonprofits, community service and spreading joy. “There’s Juneteenth programming that we want to incorporate in our programming because there’s no queer community without people of color. There’s no queer community without the Black men in our in our community. This film is well known among a certain percentage of the population, but I think a lot of folks have not seen it, aren’t aware of it.”
The local film screening will feature a video introduction by Cornelius Moore, a friend and colleague of Riggs, who is also co-director of California Newsreel, a film distribution and production company that focuses on health equity, Black American history and culture, and African cinema, according to the San Diego Public Library. The San Diego Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will also be in attendance offering secular blessings.
Jordan Daniels is the president of the nonprofit San Diego Black Pride, which provides programming and resources for San Diego’s Black queer and trans community. Daniels is ed in conversation by Booke (who goes by Jeremy Davies when not representing his organization) to talk about why the conversations Riggs created in his work, about race and sexuality, are necessary for marginalized people and why silence can be so harmful. (These interviews have been edited for length and clarity. For a longer version of these conversations, visit sandiegouniontribune.com/author/lisa-deaderick/.)
Q: Riggs has been quoted as saying that he made this documentary/performance work to “shatter the nation’s brutalizing silence on matters of sexual and racial difference.” Can you talk about why this kind of work and conversation was necessary during this time?
Booke: I’m sure things have improved, but there’s still ongoing racial segregation in the LGBTQ community. Especially as the AIDS crisis was rearing its ugly head in the early days and continues, it’s affected Black folks, Black men, people of color, disproportionately over their White counterparts. I know this film was really meant to show all aspects of not just HIV, but Black joy and the struggle to connect across those racial lines. So, yeah, we’re very interested in presenting his work and the history that it represents, but also how it relates to the ongoing conversation around race in the LGBTQ community.
Daniels: I think, in 1989, this is happening right on the heels of the AIDS crisis, which really affected gay people and trans folks in the ‘80s, especially as gay men were the most covered (in the media). I know the film explored the hypersexualization of Black men. Also, at the time, the ’90s were the time of the Rodney King riots, the OJ Simpson case, and just how people painted Black men. I think there’s a hypersexualization of Black men, but also a hypermasculinization and fear created of Black men. Then, with gay men or queer men there becomes a hyperfeminization, which is also interesting. So, you have this space that you sit in where, in the time period, they’re challenging what notions of masculinity are and of how Black men are perceived, both as Black men in of masculinity, but also by the hypersexualization, especially by the White gaze. And I’m using “gaze” as g-a-z-e, but also the White gays, like g-a-y-s because I also think of the man, in the last five or six years, who was often targeting Black men and drugging them (in 2022, Ed Buck, a wealthy Democratic political donor, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for injecting two men with methamphetamine, which killed them). There’s a great documentary by Michael Rice called “parTy boi: black diamonds in ice castles” that explores substance usage, particularly in Black men, and how, oftentimes, drugs are given by non-Black men to Black men, and that’s happening today. So, for this movie to be out in 1989, really is, to his point, shattering the nation’s brutalizing silence because Black queer men, for years, have been treated differently. Treated differently in of racism, racial profiling, people on their Grindr profiles stating “no Blacks, no femmes, no fats, no Asians,” but definitely no Black folks, and yet, they’re not desirable for love, but seen as hypersexual and desirable for sex.
Q: Early in the film, there’s a recitation about silence that says, “Silence is my shield / it crushes. Silence is my cloak / it smothers. Silence is my sword / it cuts both ways. Silence is the deadliest weapon.” Can you talk about the ways that you’ve found silence to be harmful, particularly as it relates to these conversations about sexuality and race?
Booke: Oh, definitely. I mean, I’m White. I was cultured as a child, as a White person, and I have seen the ways that my White family counterparts have been silent or even actively suppressed Black stories and the racial challenges in our community. I’ve seen how harmful it is, I see how harmful it continues to be. I think there’s still a lot of resistance to even acknowledging that there’s an issue, let alone having a conversation about it.
For myself, personally, I received zero sex education about the ways that queer people have sex, so I had to navigate that on my own. I was lucky to find resources as I got older and met more queer people, but it’s definitely been a struggle, affected my life personally, and I see how it’s affected other folks, as well, particularly around sexual health and the damaging ways that we talked about STDs and STIs, especially HIV. There’s still so much misunderstanding about HIV and how it’s transmitted, how it is not transmitted, and the ways we can protect ourselves against HIV and other STIs, but I’m glad to see the conversation improving. There’s definitely still work to do, especially for our youngest community . I haven’t been a student in a long time, and I don’t know what the sex education curriculum is in schools currently, butI imagine there’s probably still some room for improvement.
Daniels: I find silence to be harmful. When people are silent, it means that it sometimes looks as if they aren’t advocating. There’s a chosen silence and sometimes we are silenced. When it comes to experiences of Black queer men, the silence around how we treat Black queer men demonstrates our inability, culturally and as a society, to reckon with how we have attempted to shape Black male identity without the agency of Black men. In some cases, we are usurping agency from Black queer men, from Black queer culture. Usurping agency in trying to prescribe what identity looks like, which is dangerous because that’s what leads to people being harmed-whether physically, emotionally, mentally-or even killed. I see silence happen. We see it every day, like we saw the killings of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland and George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many more Black folks who are killed. And then we see it in the numerous murders of Black trans women that happen every day, as well. We see it in the statistics, that silence is a weapon because it is what leads to people being perceived negatively and then attacked for being who they are. Then, the silence that we may have in the community, as Black folks ourselves, I think there’s sometimes the silence we have if people are queer, trans. Whether that’s out of fear or because it’s against our religious or social construction, I think our response, as a community, about folks is also what leads to more to more harm for Black queer and trans folks.
Q: At another point in the film, Riggs talks about being a school-aged child and being in his Black neighborhood and hearing homophobic slurs, and then also getting bused to predominantly White schools and being called racial slurs. He says, “Cornered by identities I never wanted to claim, I ran. Fast. Hard. Deep. Inside myself where it was still, silent, safe. Deception.” I want to ask you to talk about this idea of running away, internally, and why that kind of silence would serve as a deception rather than safety.
Booke: I think it’s a little bit of both. I think there’s definitely a safety element. I mean, we have to protect ourselves, whatever perceived difference in our identity, we have to protect ourselves. I think it becomes harmful if it becomes a more permanent way of life because the reality is we’re not an island-we are all connected and it’s basically impossible to run away forever. I think that’s really apparent now more than ever. I think a lot of folks are waking up, I hope are waking up, to the reality that we can’t ignore these challenges forever. If we do, it’s going to rear its head in really ugly ways that might be even more difficult, if not impossible, to overcome. So, certainly, running away is an important tool in everyone’s tool belt (in that) we have to protect ourselves, but I think we do, eventually, whether we like it or not, have a sort of reckoning to contend with.
Daniels: So, I think the deception of hiding is perceived as safety because I think there’s this certain way to see it. One way is there’s safety and comfort in closing yourself off because there’s a safety in that silence of not showing who you are. Then, people can’t clock you for it, or you think they can’t. They argue that they actually do clock you for it, but you thought you made yourself feel safe because you think, ‘If I share myself, people will, one, feel vindicated that they’re correct in assuming who I was,’ and then also, ‘You don’t get to harm me.’ But, it’s deception because people see regardless. People see you whether you want them to or not. I know there’s a range of Millennials and Gen Z folks who have this thing of not wanting to be perceived, but we’re perceived whether we want to be or not. Unfortunately, public perception is not something that we can often control. We don’t always have agency in how people perceive us if we hide ourselves, especially if people are looking.
I think silence is a double-edged sword because you’re also harming yourself. You’re also telling yourself, ‘I’m not worth being seen.’ In hiding, I hate to say it, but I think it’s so true that when you hide something of yourself, or hide yourself in the world, the pain of hiding grows more and more until one day it does bubble up. It does release itself, right? If you’re boiling (something), at some point it will spill over if you’re not watching it, if you’re not releasing that tension, if you’re not letting the steam out. We often do see people’s silence leading them to unsafe choices with their bodies or with substances. It leads to not the best decisions that they make with themselves. It leads to them hurting others in defense of themselves, and then being discovered as being that same identity, too. So, silence for yourself is also dangerous.
In some cases, I also do see why it’s safe. I also de see why, especially for youth and especially in states where they really can be harmed or not receive care for being their identities, their silence does keep them safe, and they have to then put in extra work to and be perceived as who they are not. I also want to be clear that, for me, I did not find my safety in silence, but I also understand a lot of people do because it may be their only option at present.
Q: In the introduction written about Riggs on his website, it says that “Perhaps the most critical element of his legacy is Riggs’s ability to analyze the world from its margins. This is not only what we all should not only honor and about Marlon Riggs, but also strive to emulate.” Do you also feel like that’s often what you’re doing in your own work? What has that analysis looked like for you?
Booke: Definitely. I mean, the sisters are pretty visually radical, so we tend to attract other radical folks, and usually scare away the folks at the center. Or, at least, they’re not as willing to engage a lot of the time.
Another way we phrase our mission is “we comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable,” so we really are more interested in helping the folks who are coming to us for help, and it’s usually folks who have been maligned, who’ve been through a lot of challenges in life, and they often just need someone to listen. We’re not therapists, we’re not social workers, but we do help connect folks to those services, and similar services, if they’re interested in that and willing to look into those professional services. But yeah, we definitely are there for folks at the margins.
Daniels: I actually do. I think, like with San Diego Black Pride, our work is involving some of the most marginalized identities and communities of people. All of our analysis, all of our praxis, is from that space, right? Like, I don’t want to use such academic words, so I’ll say all of our insight and experience is from the margins. We all exist on this constant line of othering and belonging. Our work is to erase the margin. A margin is a container of what’s appropriate or acceptable, and I think our work is to erase that margin so we can just exist in what already is; not the lens of wanting to be acceptable, but regardless of the lens, being embraced for who we are. You can’t be in the middle of the acceptability space and see what’s happening on the margins because there’s a wall up, right? This is a great point about borders, that borders can be dangerous. You actually can’t see the other side, you can’t help what’s across that side if you have a wall up and the margins themselves are walls. The margins are what prevent people from seeing us. You would think it’s both ways, but on the margins, we poke holes to see what’s happening inside, but the people inside aren’t looking at us. We’re sitting on the edge of that wall. We climb that wall, we’re sitting on the edge of it, we’re watching everything happen, and our experience is coming from the other side. We’re constantly thinking about how do we create, make, and shift spaces that inherently create belonging for us through a radical way? Not just belonging to ones of inclusion, but belonging in of we have ownership of ourselves and who we want to be, how we show up. Organizationally, that’s Black queer and trans folks in the San Diego.
Q: As you’re talking about it, I’m thinking about the idea of being stuck on the sidelines. If it’s a game, the game is going on and everyone on the sideline is seeing the game and watching the game, but the people in the game aren’t paying attention to who’s on the sidelines. They know the people on the sidelines exist and they can kind of see them in the periphery, but they’re not paying attention to them. They’re paying attention to their game.
Daniels: Yeah, sometimes I forget that I’ve been trying to shift my language so that, instead of saying, “I’m marginalized,” I will say “intentionally sidelined,” for that reason. So, I appreciate you saying that.
