Dear Queer Caucus of Berkeley Law,

We — concerned black queer/female Berkeley Law students and those operating in solidarity with us — write to you because the above poster is racist and sexist. Reasoned requests for those responsible for the flier to remove it and apologize have been deleted, ignored, and met with dismissive explanations that it is “camp” and meant to be a joke. This is unacceptable. Sadly, over the past two years, we have become accustomed to this type of behavior from some members of the Queer Caucus. White students at this school, and at many other legal institutions across the country, engage in what is widely known as “cultural appropriation” in all its forms and permutations, especially the forms complicit in anti-black racism. In the past few years, a lot of discussions have arisen in pop culture forums concerning the harmful dangers of different forms of cultural appropriation. From Macklemore to Miley Cyrus, it seems that many white celebrities have recently found themselves the subject of a debate that has gained fresh currency in the (white) mainstream, despite its familiar sting in black and brown communities.

By extension, this small expansion in national dialogues has inspired (and encouraged) us to share with you why the flier you created contributes to the denigration and dehumanization of black women in particular and all women of color generally. While certainly not all of our interactions with the Queer Caucus have been problematic, the above picture is only the most recent example of Berkeley’s black community’s run-ins with the bludgeon of ignorance that the Queer Caucus, a collective dominated by white gay men, consistently wields towards black people, specifically black women, without caution. More pointedly, it is a hurtful display of racist and sexist “humor” that casts light on ideologies and actions that many of us hoped we could avoid in Berkeley, California, the “liberal” bastion of the West Coast. It is yet another reminder that a place we imagined could and would be our home, our safe haven, has proven itself a space more haunted by racism, misogyny, and the particular nastiness that careens from their intersection, than we could have imagined. Even more painful is that its source is an organization and individuals who we would expect to stand in solidarity with us against such -isms.

While this behavior may seem shocking to those of us who recognize the radical weight of the word “Queer” (as opposed to LG[sometimes BT]) in the group’s title, black men and women, and other people of color, who have attempted active membership in QC find that the radical (read: anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-ableist, etc.) definition of queer fades soon after our arrival.

To be more clear, in more than one way, the Queer Caucus (QC) at Berkeley Law has reified racist and sexist ideologies in the same way its allegedly less radical counterparts do. For example, 1L year, I, Trevor Burton, was the only openly black, gay man in the 2015 class, which made me quite easy to spot, but no one from the QC reached out to me in any meaningful way to inform me about the group or its membership. I soon discovered that without any black members, they had little occasion to welcome me or the few black queer students at the school. That same year, a debate erupted as to whether students in QC should invite queer-identified admitted students out to an Oakland club or to adhere to the tradition of visiting San Francisco’s notoriously white (and often racially hostile), gay male dominated Castro district. Needless to say, the racialized reputation of the Bay Area’s blackest city did not sit well with many members who chose not to attend the Oakland affair.

Even several personal anecdotes, while pointed, don’t do much in the way of proving QC’s widespread reiteration of systemic racism and sexism. What is evidentiary of this willful proliferation of -is ms, however, is the fact that QC’s dearth of black membership (and women, other people of color, and transgender people) is happening at a time when Berkeley Law has at least eight openly queer black students, a (relatively) large number for a student body numbering less than 1,000 students. Furthermore, while the QC has occasionally attempted to recruit queer women of all colors, it consistently fails to support queer women of color in leadership positions and heed their judgment regarding issues directly pertaining to them. Furthermore, QC continues to be dominated by white gay males despite the Berkeley Law student population being more than 50% female and nearly 40% students of color. Facts like these strongly suggest why most black queer students at Berkeley Law bow out of the fight for space in QC.

This newest transgression in the form of the above poster is another instance of exclusion and alienation.

Below are some historical, social, political, and personal reasons why the above Neon Party Poster is racist and sexist:

The Poster is an Example of White Use and Abuse of the Black Female Body as an Aberrant, Abhorrent, and Amusing Spectacle Which has a Long and Harmful History of Racism and Sexism

First, this type of behavior isn’t new. It exists within a significant historical context that we cannot ignore. White people have been appropriating black art forms, lingo, and using black people, particularly black women, as props, backdrops, and comedic fodder for centuries in America and elsewhere. For black people who are aware of this history, images of Saartjie Baartman (also known as Hottentot Venus) or antebellum Jezebels come to mind. This use, abuse, and misuse of black women at the hands of white people is the historical foundation upon which the image like the one QC produced is made possible, built, and from which it gains its racist and sexist potency. Characterizing racist and oppressive images as “jokes” or “campy” does not make them any less offensive and does not erase, but instead strengthens, this racist legacy.

The Poster is an Example of White Appropriation of Black-Originated Concepts and Arts Forms Which Permeates (White) Popular Culture for the Amusement of White People and to the Detriment of Black People

White use and abuse of the black female body is just the foundation. This racist and sexist house has been built, stories upon stories added every day, and it is filled to bursting with perpetrators. From the ironic (white) mainstream abscondence of “Bling, Bling” from B.G. and the Cash Money Millionaires, to 2012’s sad, racist, mocking, and viral bastardization of the Harlem Shake, the columbusing of Black-originated (and other) art has been a consistent thread throughout American culture and history. Black innovations have long been systematically stolen from their creators, divorced from the original but subsequently demonized context, and served in a white package for the masses. The consequences of appropriation are unique for black women. For example, while Beyoncé was key in popularizing the term “Bootylicious,” she dare not embody the meaning or image of that word because, well, that would make her a “whore” and an unfit feminist. Even Nicki Minaj herself can’t embody the “twerk” she recently reclaimed from the likes of Miley Cyrus (who columbused the dance and popularized it in White America) without the distinct aftertaste of anti-black, sexist sensationalism of which this poster is one example. These are just a few of the racist, appropriative transgressions of the recent years. Innumerable is the list of ways in which white people, particularly white gay men, have used black women’s images to both make black women hypervisible as sexually deviant and ridiculous caricatures, while also making invisible and silencing their efforts to combat this commodified, hypersexual image. The poster QC created and proliferated is a microcosm of Miley Cyrus’s appropriation of twerking and strategic association and professed identification with (presumed deviant) black female sexuality in order to create a spectacle from which she could profit.

The Poster is an Example of the Growing Tendency of White Gay Males to Position Black Women as Mascots for the White Gay Male Experience, A Practice Which Reifies Deadly Stereotypes Wielded Against Black Women

The rampant white appropriation of the black female body, specifically, speaks to the more widely-known happening of cultural appropriation. But, what exactly are the harms of cultural appropriation in this context? Let’s be clear: twerking, or any form of dancing, doesn’t define black women or their distinct culture(s). Many black women are unable or choose not to twerk. However, it is true that twerking is a distinctly Black innovation. Its use here, in the QC flier, is simply mocking mimicry that serves to reduce Nicki Minaj, and those who resemble her, to a caricature of the latest Black innovation columbused by white society–a prop through which white gay males express their “campy” humor. Consequently, what is likely a clumsy attempt at solidarity has instead resulted in further stereotyping, exotifying, commodifying, and subordinating of the black female. Devil’s advocates, apologists, and protectors of white privilege likely will argue that Nicki Minaj created and distributed this image herself. That is precisely the point. The image of Nicki Minaj belongs to Nicki Minaj and is hers, not QC’s, to use as she sees fit. Ever since the first European colonizers set foot on the African continent and saw not people but property, African Americans have been robbed of and denied the agency of ownership, even over our own bodies. It is this refusal to acknowledge black female ownership and the subsequent theft of the products of her labor, the fruits of her mind, and even of her own body that are at the core of the violation inflicted by appropriation and that have been inflicted once again by the poster.

Additionally, a victim-blaming, entitled, and historically ignorant response to this truth does not negate the fact that QC’s use of her picture was mockery and mascot-ing of a black woman as a conduit for expression of predominantly white male homosexuality. Nicki Minaj, as the sole agent of her humanity and sexuality, is allowed to publish the photo for her purposes, whether commercial or personal (itself a radical act, given this nation’s history). However, here, QC used her as the butt (pun intended) of the joke, which, if her superimposed image next to the made-up word “Twerkeley” is the vehicle, loudly and clearly delivers the message that loosely translates to: “lol, big-bootied black women twerking, amirite?”

Black women are not and must not be allowed to be used as mascots for white gay maleness, solely trotted out onto the field of white mainstream visibility for laughs and entertainment. It is not funny nor “campy” when white gay males continuously and recklessly attempt to define their experiences, mannerisms, and characteristics, by appealing to stereotypic images of black women whose real experiences they can never know and the worst of which they are shielded from and often blind to precisely because of the privilege bestowed to them by their white maleness, regardless of their sexual orientation. It is disrespectful, dangerous, and dehumanizing. This “black play,” specifically “black female play” often perpetrated by white gay males serves to further instantiate and proliferate harmful and lethal stereotypes that result in the othering, murder, rape, and violation of the very (real) black women, whose existence many white gay males claim to identify with and yet mock.

The recognition and acknowledgement that QC members deliberately used Nicki Minaj as a prop and mascot to advertise the Neon Party begs the question: why the omission of other, more recent purveyors of the twerk? Why, for example, was Miley Cyrus not used? Why was no homage paid to Iggy Azalea, who more closely aligns with this whole scheme of appropriation? But, we do not seriously suggest that Miley or Iggy would have been good choices, just less racist ones. QC still would not have escaped the sexism inherently embedded in using a sexualized image of a female of any color to advertise an event. Put simply, why not just feature yourselves in your neon ensembles, especially since the demographic that normally attends these parties looks like you? After all, that has been done before and seems to work just fine for your organization.

This Poster Has Personal and Professional Consequences for Your Fellow Black Female Berkeley Classmates and Potential Queer Caucus Members

A final point: this is not just racist or sexist in a theoretical, these-kids-can’t-take-a-joke sense. These images, when controlled by the wrong people (here, racially unconscious white men) are harmful to those of us, particularly to black women, who enter the halls of Berkeley Law and other law schools fighting a nearly insurmountable presumption that we do not belong, lack merit, and are ignorant and incompetent. Now, images of bodies like ours and dance forms which first found life in the minds of our sisters, for which we have been defamed, ridiculed, called outside of our names, and punished for performing and merely being associated with, have been stolen, bastardized, and reduced to jokes and posted for the consumption of the privileged white heterosexual men walking the halls of an elite, top-ten law school. These are institutions which have been historically hostile to us, but which we (perhaps naively) hoped could be a site of our overcoming. It hurts. It is a slap in the face–a reminder that our presence is only desired in the symbolic form of props, mascots, and metaphors, in this case, for the white gay male experience.

Today, we say, “No more!” We are tired of creating, only to be punished for those creations, then made to watch white society pilfer our creations, pretend they invented them, then profit from their mocking commodification. We are tired of being denied agency and ownership even over our own bodies. Our bodies are ours. Our creations are ours. We demand that if you are to engage and share with us, you must do so respectfully and without reproducing systems of oppression from which you historically and presently benefit to our detriment. This is the responsibility you have inherited from history.

As a first step, considering the Queer Caucus has no dues-paying black members (by our most recent count), and that the school as a whole has fewer black women than classrooms, it would behoove you to examine your behavior with a more critical lens and listen to (instead of erasing and silencing) our critiques. Given your group’s name, people might be under the impression that the black women and queer people most “othered” in these halls would be welcome. Sadly, you’ve once again proven that the assumption is all too naïve. But, happily, we won’t have to (and don’t plan to) see you at the Neon Party to find that out.

For those of you who will stand against the reckless objectification of the black female body, don’t worry: there are plenty of other things to do on a Friday night, including the “Eff It Party” created as an alternative to the Neon Party by individuals who understand the degrading and dehumanizing nature of this advertisement and stand with us in solidarity.

Sincerely,

Trevor Burton

Tamila Gresham

Tigist Kassahun

Sloan Whiteside

ETA (Sept. 27): QC board members essentially ignored this letter, continued to silence and attempt to control debate. QC board members labeled us as “fringe radicals” and accused us of instigating an “attack campaign” and “witch hunt.” Additionally, they posted three “statements” that were unacceptable. In response, we wrote a follow-up letter and other students standing in solidarity began a petition. Please read the follow-up letter, here, (with a timeline and photo documentation of statements) and sign and support our petition to show that we are not alone.