Explain the significance of the interactions that emerged around the audience participation in the Fifty Cent “faggot ass nigga” line. That is, why does this particular moment occupy such a large part of this article and how does it help to explain the dynamics of Black queers in the club?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Author is originally shocked and disheartened by the fact that the participants would celebrate around such homophobic, heterosexist, and racist language. He comes to realize that this is cool in the sense that the queers who participate can feel part of a larger Black masculine culture. Additionally, by taking hold of such terms it reduces the legitimacy of them while elevating the status of the speaker/chanter as “appropriately” masculine. This creates a hip-hop room space where real men reside. It also reinforces that the space is hot (in vogue). It functions to allow gay men to temporarily “de-queer” themselves, disavowing one brand of masculinity for another (e.g., for those outside traditional masculine codes marked as inferior-femmes, bottoms, and punks). It also opens up a space for reappropriating the language: “we are Black faggots but look who’s in possession of those words now?” The author concludes this section by saying: “I spend critical time in this essay discussing this moment of hip-hop heterosexist and homophobic chanting because it exposes what I believe is the true pleasure of this queer zone, for Black gay men and DL men alike. In this space, performances of gender and sexuality are in flux--men are able to be queer while also acting straight, or even straight while acting queer.”