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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nWhen I saw and heard that Black Britons were\nbeing taught only MLK and Malcom X quotes for Black History month, and the\nexplosion that was the global acknowledgment of Juneteenth this year; I knew\nright then and there that my Black American culture was global and rode on the\ncoattails of the empire to some extent\u2013this scared me. It scared me a lot\nbecause I wanted to know more about the Black British timeline\u2013with an emphasis\non the queer leaders. I had to then remind myself of the past labor that was\nrequired of me to find Bayard Rustin, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin,\nLangston Hughes, Essex Hemphill, Audre Lorde, and other Black Queer folks of the\nAmerican past. But who were these Black queer British folks and where were they\non screen? Julien, being Black Queer and British himself, was a start for me.\nFilms like Young Soul Rebels<\/em> (1991) took me to a place in Britain that\nmost Black Americans don’t get to see. The pressure and tension of the times,\nand the class and racial alignment within the ongoing fight against fascisms,\nracism, and classism were so prominent in the film’s narrative. But there were\nother directors that I stumbled on during this search. Ajamu X\u2019s Homecoming<\/em> (1995) took me through South\nLondon and gave me a queer history lesson on the thriving and distinctive Black\ngay movement that took place there in the 1980s and 90s. While doing this, he\nalso showcased his focal point as an artist; which shows his pioneering framing\nof Black masculinity through its subversion with fem-play and power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Both Julien and Ajamu\u2019s work scratch the\nsurface for me when it comes to Black queer British filmmakers. While short\nfilms like BEYOND There’s always a Black\nissue Dear <\/em>(2018) explores and celebrates Black LGBT identities in Britain,\nothers like actor and director Rikki Beadle-Blair and his filmography of Black queer\nBritish cinema, the film Adaora Nwandu’s\nRag Tag <\/em>(2006), Forbidden Games: The Justin Fashanu Story<\/em> (2017),\nand other titles in between both commercial and on the art circuit, continue to\ncave out stories for people like me in the UK. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Your history matters and seeing yourself on\nscreen is a part of that journey. Sadly, in a state of being Black throughout\nthe diaspora, in order to begin tracking one\u2019s Black history, we must grapple\nwith the devastating systems of racism through the lens of colonialism and\nwhite supremacy in order to even see ourselves in the past. But decolonization\nand dismantling white supremacy is a process, not a single act. And in order to\nfind one\u2019s own history, we must know that the story doesn\u2019t stop and start at\nany particular point. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Author: Kenneth Norwood Isaac Julien\u2019s Looking for Langston (1989) makes me cry every time I watch it. My first time seeing it was in the Lincoln Centre in New York City\u2013 privately\u2013on a 35-mm reel via a projector. As it clicked and fluttered away in the darkness, spitting out visual poetry of black and white … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/cifr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/232\/2021\/03\/kenneth-blog-image.jpg\")
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