August 19, 2025 • 33 mins
George is joined by scholar and ballroom leader, Michael Roberson. Michael talks about the history of ballroom, its global influence on contemporary culture, and why its a tool of resistance and liberation.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I just remember I coming out in South Jersey, where
a lot of the clubs were predominantly white, And I
remember going to Virginia Beach for Labor Day and went
to across the Bridge, Norfolk, and go into a predominantly
black a club and it was my first time, and
I remember feeling like I was an heaven.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I love that that I.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Could not believe that there were that many black gay
men in the club. It was heaven in many ways
that I could be erotic and divine all at the
same time.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Michael Roberson is a visionary leader in the global ballroom community.
He's a fierce advocate for blackbre liberation and a scholar
whose work bridge is art, culture and HIV AIDS activism.
Michael's work revolves around ballroom culture as a tool of
transformative resistance and radical art.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Doctor James Cone said, the freest the black folk were
doing Jim Crow was in their home and in the
Black church. Yes, well, the friends that we were were
in the black club. Yes, ballroom is that same thing. Yes,
ball rooms reflective of the black struggle for freedom. Therefore
it is the Black church.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
All right, go fight the singing in them heavy handed
to let the world, take us to the Brandy.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
He spoke the guy. You know what the plan is?
One don't understand me.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
My name is George M. Johnson. I am the New
York Times bestselling author of the book All Boys Aren't Blue,
which is the number one most challenged book in the
United States. This is Fighting Words, a show where we
take you to the front lines of the culture wars
with the people who are using their words to make
change and who refuse to be silenced. Today's guest Michael Roberson.
(01:52):
Today we are here with Michael Roverson. How are you
doing today? Welcome to Fighting Words.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I'm blessed beyond How are you? I'm good.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
You know it's a chaotic state that we live in,
but we still got to use our words and our
power to continue fighting against these regimes that we have
to live under. Could you just tell everyone who is
listening who is Michael Robson.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I oftentimes say this that I'm a person's blessed to
be born to the womb of a black woman that
I call my mother Mary. I'm from Camden, New Jersey,
all the way across the bridge from Philadelphia. Yeah, and
you know I've been in New York now for about
twenty six years, and blessing, I have done public health
and research for the past thirty two years. I do race,
(02:33):
sexuality and theological work as well through the Center for
Race and Religion and Economic Democracy. I do international art
and politics as well through an international sound ar collectical
Ultra Red. And two last things I'll say about me
is I'm adjunct professor at the New School University, Eugene
Lane College and Union Theological Seminary, and I'm ballroom at
(02:53):
my core.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I love that ballroom at the core is found from
playing field, and so.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I know exactly I can tell and when you speak
so yes.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
So what I would love for you to do is
tell our audience, you know, like what is I was
watching your Ted talk where you you were thoroughly explaining
what ballroom is to make sure that the people in
the audience didn't get it confused with the waltz and
the fox trot. But could you let our listeners know
what is barroom and what was your introduction into ballroom?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, I oftentimes like to do a couple of things
when people ask me about ballroom. When I was younger,
I remember we used to use the language underground yes,
that it was this underground in the US context, predominantly
black and latinxt LGBTQ community that comes together through the
art of performances, that it's constructed through these notions of
(03:51):
kinship or houses. If I did in a stretch analogy,
it would be like a ball is the Olympics, and
you have a judges panel which represents each country, which
represents each house, and you have people competing for trophies
and cash and all these other things. And that's a
real surface kind of answer. The ballroom, for the most
(04:12):
part is absolutely and I know, shure, we'll talk about
it absolutely more than that.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
What was your introduction to it?
Speaker 1 (04:19):
So I'm from Camden, New Jersey, and I was introduced
to ball in a couple of ways. I remember the
first time I saw Paris Is burning and saw houses
and saw voguing, and it confirmed for me what I
was seeing in the clubs in Philadelphia. So I would
go to Philadelphia clubs and see people voguing in there
and this is like ninety one ninety two, and see
(04:40):
people voguing in there and screaming out these names. And
I had no idea what it was, but I know
it was enamored by it confirmed for me, oh this
is what I'm watching, this is what it is. And
I had no idea that it was in Philadelphia, but
I just remember I coming out in South Jersey where
a lot of the clubs were predominantly white, and I
(05:01):
remember going to Virginia Beach for labor Dad and went
to across the bridge, Norfolk and go into a predominantly
black a club and it was my first time, and
I remember feeling like I was in heaven. I love
that that I could not, in my limited imagination, could
not believe that there were that many black gay men
in the club in the world actually, And so going
(05:24):
into that space feeling enamored, feeling in awe, feeling like
it was heaven in many ways, that I could be
erotic and divine all at the same time. That's that
allowed me to go to Philadelphia start going to clubs,
which allowed me then to go to some mini balls
where at this space called Roses in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Okay, what do you think the space of ballroom provides for,
specifically younger career people who were looking for a sense
of belonging.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
What it provided for me was a history, right, a
history that I did not know existed, then signify that
what I was experiencing and the people that was experiencing
the very same things I was experienced, that was not haphazard,
that it was ordained historically, that it came from absolutely
somewhere and for me then allowed me to realize the
(06:20):
value of who I was and that the people who
I was belonging to. But my desire to create more
kinship structures within a housebald community then allowed me to
realize that ballroom, as much as it's been ostracized out
of larger communities, as much as it's been ostracized out
of family or family or origin communities, that it provides
that particular space for a lot of folk. That when
(06:43):
I first got in ballroom at the height, this is
a misnomed around what the height is, whether at the
height of the age epidemic, you know it. One of
my great friends who was helping me hear named Odu
Odamus a pining bar room seem was one of the
first people I've ever saw do HIV prevention, community organizing
and ballroom. So that then gave me space to realize
(07:04):
this is one of the things that I wanted to
do so I think that ballroom not only provides a
history for people, not only provides a space of belonging,
not only creates this kinship infrastructure in many ways, but
particularly today, have created leadership skills and leadership initiatives that
then brings value to know only to their lives, but
(07:25):
generations to come. I don't think though, I do think
the ballroom is very different today, given because these spaces
have been created, that a lot of folk are not
necessarily like you, George, coming from spaces that families are
not together or broken. Yeah, that are coming from different reasons.
But I do think that even then, so that even
the most supportive you know, I say this all the time,
(07:48):
heterosexual black man can never necessarily find it difficult to
help raise a young black a boy to be a
young Black a man in a black a community. That's
extremely difficult.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I love that point specifically because I feel the same way.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
It was like my family was very affirming but also
didn't necessarily know what to do. Yes in me finding
this community, I found people who could help me navigate
this and who could teach me the ropes and who
could prevent somebody. I mean, I have with through a
lot of mistakes, of course, because you know it's like
when you just trying to figure it out and you
ain't got nobody to show you. You just tripping up everywhere
until somebody grabbed you and just like, okay, I missed thing,
(08:25):
Like let me get you back on the right path.
But I think like just within ballroom queer community, like
ballroom gave me those people who show up for me
when we come back. Michael discusses the freedom found in
black music and the central role of ballroom in contemporary culture.
(08:49):
And now back to my conversation with Michael Roberson. Another
thing that you brought up was like the history of ballroom,
So I wrote a book on Harlem Renaissance in My
favorite people is Langston Hughes. I always say, if Langston
Hughes was alive today, he would be Wendy Williams of
like the Wndy Williams of our community, because he was
(09:09):
in everybody's business and told everybody's business. But one of
my favorite essays that he wrote, which is called Spectacles
in Color, when I read it to me, it was
describing a ball without him knowing what ballroom was or is.
But the way he described that the men were dress
as women and women dress as men, and they competed
and they did this d and I was like, wait,
(09:29):
is he describing a ball I found it very interesting
because this was written in nineteen twenty nine, and so
it's like, WHOA how old is this culture? And I
know you are one of the premier historians, So could
you just tell us a little bit about the history
of ballroom, Like, I don't think people understand that this
has been going on for much longer than people can
(09:49):
probably even comprehend.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
You know, as much as we can as historic size.
The very first drag ball was in eighteen sixty nine,
and you begin to see a raw if you will,
around eighteen eighty. And part of it has everything to
do if not for the Emancipation Proclamation, if not for
black reconstruction and the intentional dismantle right and so in
relationship to the rise of Jimmy Jing c racism. That
(10:15):
this is why I call it a black freedom movement,
that these drag balls began to emerge in a particular
kind of way, but the way that I like to historicize,
and a lineage in which that we come from. I
oftentimes say that if not for the Great migration and
black folk moving to Harlem and Harlem becoming the new
Black Mecca, the creation of an intentional, radical artistic movement,
(10:35):
the Harlem Renaissance. And if not for the Black Church,
Abyssinian Baptist A specifically and Adam Clinton Pou Senior created
this decade three decade campaigns to rik a queerness out
of Harlem, responding to report that said Harlem was the
most vice written community in New York City and engaging
(10:56):
in respectable politics. And there are three ways that we
congregate as much as we know, at rent parties, at
beauty salons, and drag balls. And so these drag balls,
to me became the largest movement in response to countering
this ridding, if you will, black queers out of Harlem.
And then after World War Two, other cities become black
or DC, Detroit, Baltimore, or Philadelphia and Chicago. These drag
(11:21):
balls migrate, whether the ethos of black trans women or
black men going up in drags or black drag queens,
it does create this movement out of asking the question,
I thought we moved to Harlem to be free now,
but while we unfree in this new free space. And
that's a theological question, right, And so in nineteen sixty seven,
we know that Crystal Labejia with her name was in
(11:42):
Loa Beejia then, but Crystal rallied against her political gesture
of sort of colorism, of white supremacy, and the pageant
circuit walks off stage a documentary called The Queen. But
if you want to look at the short version Crystal
Labejia on YouTube, she walks off stage in god named
Phil Black, who was the only African American drag performer
(12:03):
who had a screen at this guild card at that time, whispers,
and that's my reimagination, the whispering, but whispers in her ear.
Let's go back to an old drag ball circuit. Lottie,
who's another black trans woman's in many ways, says to her,
but let's do a different kind of system, because there
were drag balls happening all across New York's in other spaces,
(12:24):
and it's in the creating house structure that then begins
to change things. And so fred first house was a
House of Libasia, which was created in seventy two. I
call these five women a trans experience freedom fighters. There's
this Pepper Alabasia during Cory Avis Pandarvus, Paris, Dupree and
(12:45):
duchess La Wanka was the only living one, and houses
began to be named after some of them, and it
would be mother children and then Erskine Christians started walking
balls or where they had the very first category for
gay men, which was called Butch Queen Models magazine face
in nineteen seventy three, and when Brooklyn came into this
(13:05):
conversation or Archanelle's create the House. In nineteen seventy six,
Larry and Richard Abuney created the House of seventy eight.
More men were being instituted in ballroom for two reasons,
One because they were creating men categories, but two in
many ways they oftentimes have difficulties and addressing this in
response to patriarchy, wanted to bring more masculinity into ballroom,
(13:29):
and then you begin to have mother, father and children.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Okay, woo, history lessons. It's funny, you know, being around
ballroom and having my own kids now and everything, sometimes
I'm like, wait, where did you get that information from?
And it's like we got to get the history back. Yeah,
this isn't just like some new phenomenon just because you
finally saw it on TV. There was over a century
and a half of building this out before. As you said,
(13:56):
what was the underground you know is now a bit
more visible. Do you feel though that the commercialization in
this moment is I don't want to say it's hurting ballroom,
but is it now morphing into something else?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
What do you think commercialization is doing and what do
you foresee as like the next phase of ballroom that
we're entering with more visibility.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
That's a great question, you know. A great friend colleague
of mine in Ballroom, Arnold Saint Laurent, he posed the
question who are we now? Are we still a community
that is groundded in the construction of kinships organizing ourselves
or are we a community that's very interested into getting gigs?
(14:42):
And I said, it's both and right. One of the
things I like about ballroom. A great colleague, man and
Robert Timber, we say that ballroom invites the problem. I
like that ballroom wrestles with stuff as opposed to reconciling. Yes,
because the reconciliation is that liberal notion, symbolic justice. We
do something, we reconcile, and that over the resting with
it allows for dialectrical tensions to occur and not that
(15:06):
necessarily judge them, and then we come up with new
modes and ways of being. So that being said, in
some ways, the beginning of a commercialization of ballrooms, of
course is nineteen ninety, the moment when Paris Is Burning
is released in independent film festivals and independent film theaters
and Madonna does a song called Vote, and for a
(15:26):
lot of people, including ballroom people, including black, LATINX LGBTQ
foe outside of New York thought aha, and that was
the first time they saw Vote. So you thought that
Madonna's song introduced you, and it did to a lot
of people to Vogue and that somehow she created it
and that was the misnomer. But she globalized and what
(15:46):
we did not know a lot of folk was that
people like Jody Watley had voguing in her video nineteen
eighty seven, before Madonna or Queen Latifa had voguing in
her videos. They had Muhamma Omni and Derek Pandarvis Extravaganze,
Willie Ninja, all them prior to Madonna Vogue. But when
she globalized it through the song, Barroom uses vogue in
(16:08):
many ways as an organizing tool and begins to create
other geographical regions around the country. It's not an accident
that the explosion of different geographical regions in the nineties occur.
You begin to see in Chicago and New England, in Atlanta,
and then in nineteen ninety nine, Andre ms Raje pioneer
(16:30):
goes on a Apollo and he votes and he wins.
The first weekend of the next week, they boom him,
and then the two thousands coming. You begin to see
more commercialization. Pony and Malachi and Laonei and Prince A
Deshan go on America's Best Dance, Cool Relation. Eric Archibald,
who's a designer, has a show on MTV Isis King
(16:53):
walks Runway, becomes a very first trans woman on America's
Next Top Model. So you begin to see this open
and we are responding to as a community, a desire
to be legible, right when you've been so marginalized, when
you've been so invisibilized, believing that those who you believe
have more power than you have the power to define
(17:14):
you and how valuable you are. And so we respond
to those things. And so we are in this particular
space that it can become like any other community, gets
so co opted and so commodified by money, and it
loses his autonomy if we are not engaged in these
kinds of conversations. So I am absolutely optimist. I'm not
(17:35):
a pessimist. There's something wrong with it because folks have
gotten jobs. Folks have gotten because opposed folks are now
in the union, Folks have gotten opportunity. We've created even
bigger infrastructure. What's important for ballrooms to continue to be
engaged in the kind of dialectical, tense conversation.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
When we come back, Michael discusses the global influence of
ballroom on Queer Heart. And now back to my conversation
with Michael Roberson. I always see like the conversations around
like masks for masks, or like masculinity and all these things.
I'm like, but yeah, you do know, like there was
competitions and there are categories for these things that occurred
(18:17):
that actually created why you think you need to be
this like and whether it was a performance or not.
It's kind of like with the Devil Wears product when
she told her, like, the reason you wearing that skirt
from TJ Max is because I made this choice on
this color and you had no idea I was choosing
that for you, for you to go out to the masses.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
So you think you're being this way because of ostracizing
this particular community, with this community is what even created
you to even have the ability to name what being
this way could.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Even look like. You know, I'm a big It's not
a guilty pleasure. I'm a reality TV jonker for me too,
especially Housewives. And I've been watching old episodes on marrit
to Medicine and I started watching the particular seats. I
went back to one of my favorite and so of
course you're all going to bring up. So the two
people I'm going to bring from marriagive masters, Mariah and Quah. Yes.
(19:07):
And one of the things they said on the reunion
show from season one, when Andy Cohen said you all
have your own language, and they showed scenes from them speaking,
you know, Mariah said, well, the fact of the matter
is that all women or black women have a good duty.
Andy Cohen said a gay man and she said yes,
(19:28):
and that's where we get it from. Now. One of
the things I wish they would have pushed them back
on and say, yeah, it's true gay men. Yes, but
we're specifically talking about black as act right, We're particularly
talking about black queermen said, the language, not even just
the language, the antics, Yes, that Mariah does, the snapping
of the fingers in the formation of girl, all those
(19:51):
things absolutely comes out of the cultural production of black gayness,
of black queerness, and then their look of fim queens
from ballroom. I mean, so it's so to your point,
it is absolutely those things. So you watch all the
reality TV shows he talked like black gay man did,
dressed like black trans women, and even the love and
(20:11):
hip hop. Yeah, the way that that you know rappers
dress today, it's so high fashion sportswear, a high fashion
streetwear from ballroom.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Yeah. I do want to touch on a little bit though,
like the whole theology aspect things. As someone that grew
up in Jersey, I am a house music connoisseur and
just because my parents played it and Philips Simon is
(20:41):
my favorite artist because my father, I say, my father
made of my favorite artists. But essentially through songs like
you Know how to Love Me and you Know That
is just something that speaks to me in a way
that other music doesn't necessarily talk to me. But I
think about like Larry Levin and the Saturday night service
when his mother took him to church and he started
(21:03):
infusing the gospel music into the house music, and then
religion started to find its way through house music. And
if you think about ballroom and house music and how
it all kind of goes together, then that means that
religion also has a tie to what goes on on
the barroom floor. What are those connections, especially like during
the HIV epidemic and.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
All of that.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
How music, how ballroom became salvation?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So that's a great question. So I so I had
been doing public health and research for the past thirty
three years now. I went to Union Geological Seminary for
graduate school, not to be minister. I always tell people
don't confuse my performativity, but I wanted to play theology
and conversation with public health because it was my assertion
(21:46):
that the theology of abomination had direct impact on health
disparity impacting black gang w weremen in transfer the idea
that you tell people the very essence of who they are,
it's antithetical to God, it's abominable to God, which then
suggests that their bodies are no good to God. And
as we were doing HIV prevention, my question was that
(22:06):
how we're asking people who've been told their bodies no
good to God to engage and protect the factors over
a body that's no good to God? That would never work?
And so I went there to wrestle with those notions.
So I did my masters, my MDV there and I
did my second masters there, and my second master was
around ballrooms, a counter cultural response to their theology of abomination.
(22:28):
So to your wonderful point, I'm a believer that all
black music, all black art, period, but all black music
is theological first and foremost, because my definition of theology
is when people make me now their life and sufferers.
You know, the spirituals created on Slavocracy for a couple
of reasons, because it spoken language that the Master could
not own and codify. It was asking this question, how
(22:50):
are we praising an omni god, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent
and we're suffering, So something's not working here? Right? How
do we use these spiritual is the way to organize
not only on the plantation, but through freedom movement, through
abolitionist movement, all those other things. The blues is theological
because it's sort of the moans of a black people.
(23:12):
You know, we're free after emancipation of proclamation, but we're not.
I think about the dissonance of jazz hip hop. I
can go on and on. But to your point of
our house music, you know, house music, out of disco,
house music particularly are from the ethos of black gay men,
Doctor James Cone said, the freest the black folk were
doing Jim Crow was in their home and in the
(23:34):
black church. Yes, well, the freest that we were were
in the Black club. That oftentimes in our black home
we were not free in our black neighborhoods, but in
the Black gay club we were free. And that the
construction of the club is not accidental that the DJ
will be up here like in a pew, in a pulpit,
and he would be in some ways the minister playing
(23:54):
the music, even the minister of music. That the house music,
the lyric, house music was the preacher word, and our
dancing was the worship, and we were the congregation. That
to me is not accidental that we could be erotic
in divine all in one place. Ballroom is that same thing,
and so for me it is the Black Church. But
(24:16):
I don't christianize what I mean about Black church. I
talk about it in a way that Fred Molton talks
about the Black radical aesthetic tradition. Well, last thing I
said about that and the reason why don't christianize the
Black Church though, you know, I grew up in Christian
Church because I wondered for it to be more expansive.
I oftentimes say, and I got in trouble when I
was in a seminary about this, that Christianity didn't save
(24:36):
black people. Black people saved Christianity because we took a
religion that was used to chatto us turned to go
on his head to make meaning out of our life
and suffering and for other people to model. That's the
aweing of a black people, right. But to me, that
ability to do that came from us being ontologically West African,
(24:56):
so to be able to take all of those things
and to infuse that four hundred years later through everything
that we do. And so given that ballrooms reflective of
the Black struggle for freedom, therefore it is the Black Church.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yes, that's what I was waiting. I was like, I
knew you was gonna be able to synthesize. Sometimes I
have a lot of thoughts and I'd be like, how
do I synthesize this and get it out? But you
synthesized everything, and this whole conversation to that. I just
think about it so many different topics. You have a
(25:34):
landmark new book coming out Ballroom, a history of movement,
a celebration. What can we expect from the book and
what are you hoping to convey as the message to
get out there? People are interested in this, and they're
not just interested because they want t They're interested because
they want change, yes, and they want to be activated.
What do you hope in your book does.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
At a moment of time when we are experienced for
first time in our life domestic notions of fascism. Yes,
you know we have witnessed from Afar global notions of fascism,
but for us to experience it in this moment that
these things are happening. I did not come to this.
I wanted to write a book. A colleague of mind
named Esthera Morales. We were doing this climbing and environmental
(26:18):
justice project with Ballroom Folk. She got hit up for
a colleague of her name, Aida, who worked at Running press,
who said she wanted to do a coffee table book
in the ballroom. Did she know anyone make a long
story short? I got on a zoom with Ada. By
the end of the call, Ada says, Michael, would you
like to And I prematurely said yes because I thought
(26:39):
because I'm a consultant hole. I thought she was going
to say, would you like to consult on the project?
But she said would you like to be the author?
And I had already said yes, woo and so, And
it came out that way in purpose because had she
asked first, I probably would have hesitated. So that's the universe.
We had six to nine months to do this, and
I don't know anything about writing books. I am not.
(27:01):
My desire is not to be a writer, author, all
these other things. When I was in the academy, they
said I write too poetically. When I was writing this
and said I was writing to academically all these things.
And so I had no idea about timeline. I've done
behind saying yeah, we could do it in nine months.
But at any rate, it was a Herculingian project. I
have always won wanted to lodge this that in which
(27:23):
we do through the black struggle for freedom right their
ancestry to the cries of freedom through queer movements and
other movements. But I really wanted to lodge this through
the Black struggle for freedom. I wanted it to be
grounded in a particular kind of theology that I thought
was expansive, but also because I was influenced by woman
in theology to ground it and borrow from their tenants,
(27:46):
and I construct the six tendants in Ballroom, and doctor
Cornell West hapn't have been my professor at Union and
used to talk about this notion of prophetic witness, and
I thought I wanted to lodge the book between his
notion of the prophetic witness and doctor Angela Davis's notion
of the revolutionary hope. I did not want it to
(28:06):
be a book around this is this category, this who
walks this category, although that's in there to some degree,
but I wanted it to be larger than that, mostly
not for other folks. First, mostly for us to reframe
who we think that we are, to die from who
we've been told that we are, and to expand the
(28:27):
notion of who we are. The Ballroom is at the
epicenter me and my colleague Robert Simber. We have a
saying that says Ballroom has something to say to teach
the world over about what it means to be human
in the struggle for freedom and face with catastrophe, and
so it's the miracle. I think Ballroom is there.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
The work that you're doing is beautiful, it's necessary, and
we need more historians like you who and I'm especially
at an age of intellectual I like somebody who's able
to say this happened on this year, this happened on
this date. These are the players, this is what their
names were. I think it's a beautiful thing that you're doing.
That's when we're about to close out. Is there any
(29:13):
final thoughts you want to leave us with? Times are hard,
you know, like ballroom funding, like things with Ballroom is
hard right now, in the midst of fascism. Do you
have any final thoughts on how we remember the resilience
of those who came before us and how we need
to take that to carry us forward.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I do believe the Ballroom is a revolutionary hope, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Angela Davis talks about when the history is excavated, grounded
in women's history. She says she says, in Muslim women's histories,
she says, in Latin next women's history, and poor women
and indigenous women, and then she says this, and in
trans women, she says, specifically transmen of color. She said,
(29:54):
trans women of color have been the most marginalized, she says,
she says, the most dis franchise and the most subject
to state violence. And when they're lifted up, that the
whole world can be lifted up too. And so in
that sense, about the same thing with ballroom that because
of its construction, because of its constitution, I mean the
(30:15):
fact that it it's demographics, it's not only LGBTQ plus folk,
but it's global. So it's reflective. It is a community,
it's reflective of a globe. It is now in every
geographical region that's blacked in the US, there's a barber
community for the most part, that exists now ins Apollo,
in Mexico City, in Berlin, Germany, in Vietnam, in Paris,
(30:40):
in Putin's Russia, gather that in Ghana and Uganda, in Japan.
I mean all of these places that it exists. And
so I say that historically we've been here before. The
necessity is for us to be prepared because that which
is happening energy it's going to include on itself, and
(31:02):
so we had to be prepared to carry the mantle
when the implosion happens. And so I just think the
Ballroom is absolutely that community that's absolutely prepared, and so
the impact, the global impact of this community has can
teach other communities how to do the same thing.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
I want to thank you so much for being on
Fighting Words today when I say we are all smarter
because of you, and we are all better because of you,
and just thank you for everything that you do for
all of us. And I'm just grateful that I actually
get to meet the people who have done so many
things that allowed me to even be able to be
who I am today.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Well you all listen, you wrote books before me, so
we could benefit from those who have come after us
as well. So I'm open to that. So thank you.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
I love that. Yes, today's quote comes from Ballroom icon
Octavia Saint Laurent. I am here and nothing can push
me aside, nothing can change what goes on in this world.
This world is for me too, honey. Fighting Words is
(32:20):
a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with Best Case Studios.
I'm Georgian Johnson. This episode was produced by Charlotte Morley.
Executive producers are myself and Twiggy Puchi Guar Song with
Adam Pinks and Brick Cats for Best Case Studios. The
theme song was written and composed by Coole Vas, Bambianna
and Myself. Original music by Kvas. This episode was edited
(32:46):
and scored by Michelle macklam Our. iHeart Team is Ali
Perry and Carl Ketel. Following Rape Fighting Words Wherever you
get your podcasts ten ten Family
I just remember I coming out in South Jersey, where
a lot of the clubs were predominantly white, And I
remember going to Virginia Beach for Labor Day and went
to across the Bridge, Norfolk, and go into a predominantly
black a club and it was my first time, and
I remember feeling like I was an heaven.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I love that that I.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Could not believe that there were that many black gay
men in the club. It was heaven in many ways
that I could be erotic and divine all at the
same time.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Michael Roberson is a visionary leader in the global ballroom community.
He's a fierce advocate for blackbre liberation and a scholar
whose work bridge is art, culture and HIV AIDS activism.
Michael's work revolves around ballroom culture as a tool of
transformative resistance and radical art.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Doctor James Cone said, the freest the black folk were
doing Jim Crow was in their home and in the
Black church. Yes, well, the friends that we were were
in the black club. Yes, ballroom is that same thing. Yes,
ball rooms reflective of the black struggle for freedom. Therefore
it is the Black church.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
All right, go fight the singing in them heavy handed
to let the world, take us to the Brandy.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
He spoke the guy. You know what the plan is?
One don't understand me.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
My name is George M. Johnson. I am the New
York Times bestselling author of the book All Boys Aren't Blue,
which is the number one most challenged book in the
United States. This is Fighting Words, a show where we
take you to the front lines of the culture wars
with the people who are using their words to make
change and who refuse to be silenced. Today's guest Michael Roberson.
(01:52):
Today we are here with Michael Roverson. How are you
doing today? Welcome to Fighting Words.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I'm blessed beyond How are you? I'm good.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
You know it's a chaotic state that we live in,
but we still got to use our words and our
power to continue fighting against these regimes that we have
to live under. Could you just tell everyone who is
listening who is Michael Robson.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I oftentimes say this that I'm a person's blessed to
be born to the womb of a black woman that
I call my mother Mary. I'm from Camden, New Jersey,
all the way across the bridge from Philadelphia. Yeah, and
you know I've been in New York now for about
twenty six years, and blessing, I have done public health
and research for the past thirty two years. I do race,
(02:33):
sexuality and theological work as well through the Center for
Race and Religion and Economic Democracy. I do international art
and politics as well through an international sound ar collectical
Ultra Red. And two last things I'll say about me
is I'm adjunct professor at the New School University, Eugene
Lane College and Union Theological Seminary, and I'm ballroom at
(02:53):
my core.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I love that ballroom at the core is found from
playing field, and so.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I know exactly I can tell and when you speak
so yes.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
So what I would love for you to do is
tell our audience, you know, like what is I was
watching your Ted talk where you you were thoroughly explaining
what ballroom is to make sure that the people in
the audience didn't get it confused with the waltz and
the fox trot. But could you let our listeners know
what is barroom and what was your introduction into ballroom?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, I oftentimes like to do a couple of things
when people ask me about ballroom. When I was younger,
I remember we used to use the language underground yes,
that it was this underground in the US context, predominantly
black and latinxt LGBTQ community that comes together through the
art of performances, that it's constructed through these notions of
(03:51):
kinship or houses. If I did in a stretch analogy,
it would be like a ball is the Olympics, and
you have a judges panel which represents each country, which
represents each house, and you have people competing for trophies
and cash and all these other things. And that's a
real surface kind of answer. The ballroom, for the most
(04:12):
part is absolutely and I know, shure, we'll talk about
it absolutely more than that.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
What was your introduction to it?
Speaker 1 (04:19):
So I'm from Camden, New Jersey, and I was introduced
to ball in a couple of ways. I remember the
first time I saw Paris Is burning and saw houses
and saw voguing, and it confirmed for me what I
was seeing in the clubs in Philadelphia. So I would
go to Philadelphia clubs and see people voguing in there
and this is like ninety one ninety two, and see
(04:40):
people voguing in there and screaming out these names. And
I had no idea what it was, but I know
it was enamored by it confirmed for me, oh this
is what I'm watching, this is what it is. And
I had no idea that it was in Philadelphia, but
I just remember I coming out in South Jersey where
a lot of the clubs were predominantly white, and I
(05:01):
remember going to Virginia Beach for labor Dad and went
to across the bridge, Norfolk and go into a predominantly
black a club and it was my first time, and
I remember feeling like I was in heaven. I love
that that I could not, in my limited imagination, could
not believe that there were that many black gay men
in the club in the world actually, And so going
(05:24):
into that space feeling enamored, feeling in awe, feeling like
it was heaven in many ways, that I could be
erotic and divine all at the same time. That's that
allowed me to go to Philadelphia start going to clubs,
which allowed me then to go to some mini balls
where at this space called Roses in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Okay, what do you think the space of ballroom provides for,
specifically younger career people who were looking for a sense
of belonging.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
What it provided for me was a history, right, a
history that I did not know existed, then signify that
what I was experiencing and the people that was experiencing
the very same things I was experienced, that was not haphazard,
that it was ordained historically, that it came from absolutely
somewhere and for me then allowed me to realize the
(06:20):
value of who I was and that the people who
I was belonging to. But my desire to create more
kinship structures within a housebald community then allowed me to
realize that ballroom, as much as it's been ostracized out
of larger communities, as much as it's been ostracized out
of family or family or origin communities, that it provides
that particular space for a lot of folk. That when
(06:43):
I first got in ballroom at the height, this is
a misnomed around what the height is, whether at the
height of the age epidemic, you know it. One of
my great friends who was helping me hear named Odu
Odamus a pining bar room seem was one of the
first people I've ever saw do HIV prevention, community organizing
and ballroom. So that then gave me space to realize
(07:04):
this is one of the things that I wanted to
do so I think that ballroom not only provides a
history for people, not only provides a space of belonging,
not only creates this kinship infrastructure in many ways, but
particularly today, have created leadership skills and leadership initiatives that
then brings value to know only to their lives, but
(07:25):
generations to come. I don't think though, I do think
the ballroom is very different today, given because these spaces
have been created, that a lot of folk are not
necessarily like you, George, coming from spaces that families are
not together or broken. Yeah, that are coming from different reasons.
But I do think that even then, so that even
the most supportive you know, I say this all the time,
(07:48):
heterosexual black man can never necessarily find it difficult to
help raise a young black a boy to be a
young Black a man in a black a community. That's
extremely difficult.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I love that point specifically because I feel the same way.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
It was like my family was very affirming but also
didn't necessarily know what to do. Yes in me finding
this community, I found people who could help me navigate
this and who could teach me the ropes and who
could prevent somebody. I mean, I have with through a
lot of mistakes, of course, because you know it's like
when you just trying to figure it out and you
ain't got nobody to show you. You just tripping up everywhere
until somebody grabbed you and just like, okay, I missed thing,
(08:25):
Like let me get you back on the right path.
But I think like just within ballroom queer community, like
ballroom gave me those people who show up for me
when we come back. Michael discusses the freedom found in
black music and the central role of ballroom in contemporary culture.
(08:49):
And now back to my conversation with Michael Roberson. Another
thing that you brought up was like the history of ballroom,
So I wrote a book on Harlem Renaissance in My
favorite people is Langston Hughes. I always say, if Langston
Hughes was alive today, he would be Wendy Williams of
like the Wndy Williams of our community, because he was
(09:09):
in everybody's business and told everybody's business. But one of
my favorite essays that he wrote, which is called Spectacles
in Color, when I read it to me, it was
describing a ball without him knowing what ballroom was or is.
But the way he described that the men were dress
as women and women dress as men, and they competed
and they did this d and I was like, wait,
(09:29):
is he describing a ball I found it very interesting
because this was written in nineteen twenty nine, and so
it's like, WHOA how old is this culture? And I
know you are one of the premier historians, So could
you just tell us a little bit about the history
of ballroom, Like, I don't think people understand that this
has been going on for much longer than people can
(09:49):
probably even comprehend.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
You know, as much as we can as historic size.
The very first drag ball was in eighteen sixty nine,
and you begin to see a raw if you will,
around eighteen eighty. And part of it has everything to
do if not for the Emancipation Proclamation, if not for
black reconstruction and the intentional dismantle right and so in
relationship to the rise of Jimmy Jing c racism. That
(10:15):
this is why I call it a black freedom movement,
that these drag balls began to emerge in a particular
kind of way, but the way that I like to historicize,
and a lineage in which that we come from. I
oftentimes say that if not for the Great migration and
black folk moving to Harlem and Harlem becoming the new
Black Mecca, the creation of an intentional, radical artistic movement,
(10:35):
the Harlem Renaissance. And if not for the Black Church,
Abyssinian Baptist A specifically and Adam Clinton Pou Senior created
this decade three decade campaigns to rik a queerness out
of Harlem, responding to report that said Harlem was the
most vice written community in New York City and engaging
(10:56):
in respectable politics. And there are three ways that we
congregate as much as we know, at rent parties, at
beauty salons, and drag balls. And so these drag balls,
to me became the largest movement in response to countering
this ridding, if you will, black queers out of Harlem.
And then after World War Two, other cities become black
or DC, Detroit, Baltimore, or Philadelphia and Chicago. These drag
(11:21):
balls migrate, whether the ethos of black trans women or
black men going up in drags or black drag queens,
it does create this movement out of asking the question,
I thought we moved to Harlem to be free now,
but while we unfree in this new free space. And
that's a theological question, right, And so in nineteen sixty seven,
we know that Crystal Labejia with her name was in
(11:42):
Loa Beejia then, but Crystal rallied against her political gesture
of sort of colorism, of white supremacy, and the pageant
circuit walks off stage a documentary called The Queen. But
if you want to look at the short version Crystal
Labejia on YouTube, she walks off stage in god named
Phil Black, who was the only African American drag performer
(12:03):
who had a screen at this guild card at that time, whispers,
and that's my reimagination, the whispering, but whispers in her ear.
Let's go back to an old drag ball circuit. Lottie,
who's another black trans woman's in many ways, says to her,
but let's do a different kind of system, because there
were drag balls happening all across New York's in other spaces,
(12:24):
and it's in the creating house structure that then begins
to change things. And so fred first house was a
House of Libasia, which was created in seventy two. I
call these five women a trans experience freedom fighters. There's
this Pepper Alabasia during Cory Avis Pandarvus, Paris, Dupree and
(12:45):
duchess La Wanka was the only living one, and houses
began to be named after some of them, and it
would be mother children and then Erskine Christians started walking
balls or where they had the very first category for
gay men, which was called Butch Queen Models magazine face
in nineteen seventy three, and when Brooklyn came into this
(13:05):
conversation or Archanelle's create the House. In nineteen seventy six,
Larry and Richard Abuney created the House of seventy eight.
More men were being instituted in ballroom for two reasons,
One because they were creating men categories, but two in
many ways they oftentimes have difficulties and addressing this in
response to patriarchy, wanted to bring more masculinity into ballroom,
(13:29):
and then you begin to have mother, father and children.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Okay, woo, history lessons. It's funny, you know, being around
ballroom and having my own kids now and everything, sometimes
I'm like, wait, where did you get that information from?
And it's like we got to get the history back. Yeah,
this isn't just like some new phenomenon just because you
finally saw it on TV. There was over a century
and a half of building this out before. As you said,
(13:56):
what was the underground you know is now a bit
more visible. Do you feel though that the commercialization in
this moment is I don't want to say it's hurting ballroom,
but is it now morphing into something else?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
What do you think commercialization is doing and what do
you foresee as like the next phase of ballroom that
we're entering with more visibility.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
That's a great question, you know. A great friend colleague
of mine in Ballroom, Arnold Saint Laurent, he posed the
question who are we now? Are we still a community
that is groundded in the construction of kinships organizing ourselves
or are we a community that's very interested into getting gigs?
(14:42):
And I said, it's both and right. One of the
things I like about ballroom. A great colleague, man and
Robert Timber, we say that ballroom invites the problem. I
like that ballroom wrestles with stuff as opposed to reconciling. Yes,
because the reconciliation is that liberal notion, symbolic justice. We
do something, we reconcile, and that over the resting with
it allows for dialectrical tensions to occur and not that
(15:06):
necessarily judge them, and then we come up with new
modes and ways of being. So that being said, in
some ways, the beginning of a commercialization of ballrooms, of
course is nineteen ninety, the moment when Paris Is Burning
is released in independent film festivals and independent film theaters
and Madonna does a song called Vote, and for a
(15:26):
lot of people, including ballroom people, including black, LATINX LGBTQ
foe outside of New York thought aha, and that was
the first time they saw Vote. So you thought that
Madonna's song introduced you, and it did to a lot
of people to Vogue and that somehow she created it
and that was the misnomer. But she globalized and what
(15:46):
we did not know a lot of folk was that
people like Jody Watley had voguing in her video nineteen
eighty seven, before Madonna or Queen Latifa had voguing in
her videos. They had Muhamma Omni and Derek Pandarvis Extravaganze,
Willie Ninja, all them prior to Madonna Vogue. But when
she globalized it through the song, Barroom uses vogue in
(16:08):
many ways as an organizing tool and begins to create
other geographical regions around the country. It's not an accident
that the explosion of different geographical regions in the nineties occur.
You begin to see in Chicago and New England, in Atlanta,
and then in nineteen ninety nine, Andre ms Raje pioneer
(16:30):
goes on a Apollo and he votes and he wins.
The first weekend of the next week, they boom him,
and then the two thousands coming. You begin to see
more commercialization. Pony and Malachi and Laonei and Prince A
Deshan go on America's Best Dance, Cool Relation. Eric Archibald,
who's a designer, has a show on MTV Isis King
(16:53):
walks Runway, becomes a very first trans woman on America's
Next Top Model. So you begin to see this open
and we are responding to as a community, a desire
to be legible, right when you've been so marginalized, when
you've been so invisibilized, believing that those who you believe
have more power than you have the power to define
(17:14):
you and how valuable you are. And so we respond
to those things. And so we are in this particular
space that it can become like any other community, gets
so co opted and so commodified by money, and it
loses his autonomy if we are not engaged in these
kinds of conversations. So I am absolutely optimist. I'm not
(17:35):
a pessimist. There's something wrong with it because folks have
gotten jobs. Folks have gotten because opposed folks are now
in the union, Folks have gotten opportunity. We've created even
bigger infrastructure. What's important for ballrooms to continue to be
engaged in the kind of dialectical, tense conversation.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
When we come back, Michael discusses the global influence of
ballroom on Queer Heart. And now back to my conversation
with Michael Roberson. I always see like the conversations around
like masks for masks, or like masculinity and all these things.
I'm like, but yeah, you do know, like there was
competitions and there are categories for these things that occurred
(18:17):
that actually created why you think you need to be
this like and whether it was a performance or not.
It's kind of like with the Devil Wears product when
she told her, like, the reason you wearing that skirt
from TJ Max is because I made this choice on
this color and you had no idea I was choosing
that for you, for you to go out to the masses.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
So you think you're being this way because of ostracizing
this particular community, with this community is what even created
you to even have the ability to name what being
this way could.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Even look like. You know, I'm a big It's not
a guilty pleasure. I'm a reality TV jonker for me too,
especially Housewives. And I've been watching old episodes on marrit
to Medicine and I started watching the particular seats. I
went back to one of my favorite and so of
course you're all going to bring up. So the two
people I'm going to bring from marriagive masters, Mariah and Quah. Yes.
(19:07):
And one of the things they said on the reunion
show from season one, when Andy Cohen said you all
have your own language, and they showed scenes from them speaking,
you know, Mariah said, well, the fact of the matter
is that all women or black women have a good duty.
Andy Cohen said a gay man and she said yes,
(19:28):
and that's where we get it from. Now. One of
the things I wish they would have pushed them back
on and say, yeah, it's true gay men. Yes, but
we're specifically talking about black as act right, We're particularly
talking about black queermen said, the language, not even just
the language, the antics, Yes, that Mariah does, the snapping
of the fingers in the formation of girl, all those
(19:51):
things absolutely comes out of the cultural production of black gayness,
of black queerness, and then their look of fim queens
from ballroom. I mean, so it's so to your point,
it is absolutely those things. So you watch all the
reality TV shows he talked like black gay man did,
dressed like black trans women, and even the love and
(20:11):
hip hop. Yeah, the way that that you know rappers
dress today, it's so high fashion sportswear, a high fashion
streetwear from ballroom.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Yeah. I do want to touch on a little bit though,
like the whole theology aspect things. As someone that grew
up in Jersey, I am a house music connoisseur and
just because my parents played it and Philips Simon is
(20:41):
my favorite artist because my father, I say, my father
made of my favorite artists. But essentially through songs like
you Know how to Love Me and you Know That
is just something that speaks to me in a way
that other music doesn't necessarily talk to me. But I
think about like Larry Levin and the Saturday night service
when his mother took him to church and he started
(21:03):
infusing the gospel music into the house music, and then
religion started to find its way through house music. And
if you think about ballroom and house music and how
it all kind of goes together, then that means that
religion also has a tie to what goes on on
the barroom floor. What are those connections, especially like during
the HIV epidemic and.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
All of that.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
How music, how ballroom became salvation?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So that's a great question. So I so I had
been doing public health and research for the past thirty
three years now. I went to Union Geological Seminary for
graduate school, not to be minister. I always tell people
don't confuse my performativity, but I wanted to play theology
and conversation with public health because it was my assertion
(21:46):
that the theology of abomination had direct impact on health
disparity impacting black gang w weremen in transfer the idea
that you tell people the very essence of who they are,
it's antithetical to God, it's abominable to God, which then
suggests that their bodies are no good to God. And
as we were doing HIV prevention, my question was that
(22:06):
how we're asking people who've been told their bodies no
good to God to engage and protect the factors over
a body that's no good to God? That would never work?
And so I went there to wrestle with those notions.
So I did my masters, my MDV there and I
did my second masters there, and my second master was
around ballrooms, a counter cultural response to their theology of abomination.
(22:28):
So to your wonderful point, I'm a believer that all
black music, all black art, period, but all black music
is theological first and foremost, because my definition of theology
is when people make me now their life and sufferers.
You know, the spirituals created on Slavocracy for a couple
of reasons, because it spoken language that the Master could
not own and codify. It was asking this question, how
(22:50):
are we praising an omni god, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent
and we're suffering, So something's not working here? Right? How
do we use these spiritual is the way to organize
not only on the plantation, but through freedom movement, through
abolitionist movement, all those other things. The blues is theological
because it's sort of the moans of a black people.
(23:12):
You know, we're free after emancipation of proclamation, but we're not.
I think about the dissonance of jazz hip hop. I
can go on and on. But to your point of
our house music, you know, house music, out of disco,
house music particularly are from the ethos of black gay men,
Doctor James Cone said, the freest the black folk were
doing Jim Crow was in their home and in the
(23:34):
black church. Yes, well, the freest that we were were
in the Black club. That oftentimes in our black home
we were not free in our black neighborhoods, but in
the Black gay club we were free. And that the
construction of the club is not accidental that the DJ
will be up here like in a pew, in a pulpit,
and he would be in some ways the minister playing
(23:54):
the music, even the minister of music. That the house music,
the lyric, house music was the preacher word, and our
dancing was the worship, and we were the congregation. That
to me is not accidental that we could be erotic
in divine all in one place. Ballroom is that same thing,
and so for me it is the Black Church. But
(24:16):
I don't christianize what I mean about Black church. I
talk about it in a way that Fred Molton talks
about the Black radical aesthetic tradition. Well, last thing I
said about that and the reason why don't christianize the
Black Church though, you know, I grew up in Christian
Church because I wondered for it to be more expansive.
I oftentimes say, and I got in trouble when I
was in a seminary about this, that Christianity didn't save
(24:36):
black people. Black people saved Christianity because we took a
religion that was used to chatto us turned to go
on his head to make meaning out of our life
and suffering and for other people to model. That's the
aweing of a black people, right. But to me, that
ability to do that came from us being ontologically West African,
(24:56):
so to be able to take all of those things
and to infuse that four hundred years later through everything
that we do. And so given that ballrooms reflective of
the Black struggle for freedom, therefore it is the Black Church.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yes, that's what I was waiting. I was like, I
knew you was gonna be able to synthesize. Sometimes I
have a lot of thoughts and I'd be like, how
do I synthesize this and get it out? But you
synthesized everything, and this whole conversation to that. I just
think about it so many different topics. You have a
(25:34):
landmark new book coming out Ballroom, a history of movement,
a celebration. What can we expect from the book and
what are you hoping to convey as the message to
get out there? People are interested in this, and they're
not just interested because they want t They're interested because
they want change, yes, and they want to be activated.
What do you hope in your book does.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
At a moment of time when we are experienced for
first time in our life domestic notions of fascism. Yes,
you know we have witnessed from Afar global notions of fascism,
but for us to experience it in this moment that
these things are happening. I did not come to this.
I wanted to write a book. A colleague of mind
named Esthera Morales. We were doing this climbing and environmental
(26:18):
justice project with Ballroom Folk. She got hit up for
a colleague of her name, Aida, who worked at Running press,
who said she wanted to do a coffee table book
in the ballroom. Did she know anyone make a long
story short? I got on a zoom with Ada. By
the end of the call, Ada says, Michael, would you
like to And I prematurely said yes because I thought
(26:39):
because I'm a consultant hole. I thought she was going
to say, would you like to consult on the project?
But she said would you like to be the author?
And I had already said yes, woo and so, And
it came out that way in purpose because had she
asked first, I probably would have hesitated. So that's the universe.
We had six to nine months to do this, and
I don't know anything about writing books. I am not.
(27:01):
My desire is not to be a writer, author, all
these other things. When I was in the academy, they
said I write too poetically. When I was writing this
and said I was writing to academically all these things.
And so I had no idea about timeline. I've done
behind saying yeah, we could do it in nine months.
But at any rate, it was a Herculingian project. I
have always won wanted to lodge this that in which
(27:23):
we do through the black struggle for freedom right their
ancestry to the cries of freedom through queer movements and
other movements. But I really wanted to lodge this through
the Black struggle for freedom. I wanted it to be
grounded in a particular kind of theology that I thought
was expansive, but also because I was influenced by woman
in theology to ground it and borrow from their tenants,
(27:46):
and I construct the six tendants in Ballroom, and doctor
Cornell West hapn't have been my professor at Union and
used to talk about this notion of prophetic witness, and
I thought I wanted to lodge the book between his
notion of the prophetic witness and doctor Angela Davis's notion
of the revolutionary hope. I did not want it to
(28:06):
be a book around this is this category, this who
walks this category, although that's in there to some degree,
but I wanted it to be larger than that, mostly
not for other folks. First, mostly for us to reframe
who we think that we are, to die from who
we've been told that we are, and to expand the
(28:27):
notion of who we are. The Ballroom is at the
epicenter me and my colleague Robert Simber. We have a
saying that says Ballroom has something to say to teach
the world over about what it means to be human
in the struggle for freedom and face with catastrophe, and
so it's the miracle. I think Ballroom is there.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
The work that you're doing is beautiful, it's necessary, and
we need more historians like you who and I'm especially
at an age of intellectual I like somebody who's able
to say this happened on this year, this happened on
this date. These are the players, this is what their
names were. I think it's a beautiful thing that you're doing.
That's when we're about to close out. Is there any
(29:13):
final thoughts you want to leave us with? Times are hard,
you know, like ballroom funding, like things with Ballroom is
hard right now, in the midst of fascism. Do you
have any final thoughts on how we remember the resilience
of those who came before us and how we need
to take that to carry us forward.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I do believe the Ballroom is a revolutionary hope, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Angela Davis talks about when the history is excavated, grounded
in women's history. She says she says, in Muslim women's histories,
she says, in Latin next women's history, and poor women
and indigenous women, and then she says this, and in
trans women, she says, specifically transmen of color. She said,
(29:54):
trans women of color have been the most marginalized, she says,
she says, the most dis franchise and the most subject
to state violence. And when they're lifted up, that the
whole world can be lifted up too. And so in
that sense, about the same thing with ballroom that because
of its construction, because of its constitution, I mean the
(30:15):
fact that it it's demographics, it's not only LGBTQ plus folk,
but it's global. So it's reflective. It is a community,
it's reflective of a globe. It is now in every
geographical region that's blacked in the US, there's a barber
community for the most part, that exists now ins Apollo,
in Mexico City, in Berlin, Germany, in Vietnam, in Paris,
(30:40):
in Putin's Russia, gather that in Ghana and Uganda, in Japan.
I mean all of these places that it exists. And
so I say that historically we've been here before. The
necessity is for us to be prepared because that which
is happening energy it's going to include on itself, and
(31:02):
so we had to be prepared to carry the mantle
when the implosion happens. And so I just think the
Ballroom is absolutely that community that's absolutely prepared, and so
the impact, the global impact of this community has can
teach other communities how to do the same thing.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
I want to thank you so much for being on
Fighting Words today when I say we are all smarter
because of you, and we are all better because of you,
and just thank you for everything that you do for
all of us. And I'm just grateful that I actually
get to meet the people who have done so many
things that allowed me to even be able to be
who I am today.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Well you all listen, you wrote books before me, so
we could benefit from those who have come after us
as well. So I'm open to that. So thank you.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
I love that. Yes, today's quote comes from Ballroom icon
Octavia Saint Laurent. I am here and nothing can push
me aside, nothing can change what goes on in this world.
This world is for me too, honey. Fighting Words is
(32:20):
a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with Best Case Studios.
I'm Georgian Johnson. This episode was produced by Charlotte Morley.
Executive producers are myself and Twiggy Puchi Guar Song with
Adam Pinks and Brick Cats for Best Case Studios. The
theme song was written and composed by Coole Vas, Bambianna
and Myself. Original music by Kvas. This episode was edited
(32:46):
and scored by Michelle macklam Our. iHeart Team is Ali
Perry and Carl Ketel. Following Rape Fighting Words Wherever you
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