QTBIPOC Culture in Puerto Rico
Bré Rivera in converstion with Dania “Betún” Warhol, JMase III, and Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi
Featuring a performance by Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi
HunterDae “HD” Goodridge, 2023 GIA Conference Blog
“What is bringing you Joy?” a friendly recurring question asked by Bré Rivera, Director of the Black Trans Fund. It's both an invitation to the panelists of Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) Conference’s final plenary and a strategy tool that she organizes folks with. Wednesday closed the conference with a beautiful presentation of Blackness, JOY, transness, tears, holding, and an ask to make things more explicit when collectively forging a future New World. A New World built with art, built with love and built with Black-transness at the center.
“If you have a problem right now, it’s likely because of White Supremacy.”
“If you have a problem right now, it's likely because of White Supremacy,'' said Lady Dane of The Black Trans Prayer Book, to a crowd of folks who have held circles during the conference to talk about what comes next when we think about protecting our national treasures, affirming commitments to our culture bearers, and organizing to stabilize the lineage of giving practices that extend far back before traditional charity work. How honest are we being when we find ourselves stricken with exhaust, and with barriers that feel arbitrary?
“We know the people that we fund, and our deep relationships are core to this work.”
I overheard someone say that they were in a session where everyone was asked if they had acknowledged the elders in the room upon entering. If attendees had looked these elders in the eyes with respect and care for their existence. I remember hearing this attendee grappling with the prompt, thinking and applying it in conversation because of its significance when affirming the role of intermediaries; she said, “I think we are the elders here too. We know the people that we fund, and our deep relationships are core to this work”, I fully agree. Previous to this plenary I also sat in on a panel of QtBIPoc artists who shared a strategy for uprooting power by taking the lead as artists and decision-makers. Invigorated by the rapid-fire shares of the artists who invited dialogue from participants, I am clear on why I believe that the people closest to the ground have the most integral relationships to the roots of our culture and that they require further and deeper investment. My crew in Puerto Rico (The Black Trans Prayer Book, Betun, Moré, and Sora from Espicy Nipples, Texas Isaiah, Omaria Sanchez Pratt, FreeQuency) are reincarnates of bombastic and fierce ancestors who have reappeared with an ask to listen to the ground, care for the seeds that have fallen from ripened fruits, and follow the patterns left behind that will grow a future iteration. The artists, the intermediaries, BIPOC folks, disabled folks, queer folks, trans folks are these elders. They are the folks who have organized themselves and their communities to keep showing up and showing out, morphing, and re-imagining themselves into the new world that will be available to us all.
“We want to create spaces where folks can’t lie about who Black trans folks are, and that … will get us to the root of our path to freedom.”
sharing about a history of Black trans artists and healers who have been locked out of positions of power under colonialism
“How do we talk about Blackness in Puerto Rico? How many organizations are led by Black trans people in Puerto Rico? What does it mean to be Black and trans in Puerto Rico, on this island as opposed to in the greater US? These are the questions we think about when we do this work.”
“The elders know how strong a storm is going to be, because of how strong the salt is in the air, we smelt it a week before the water crashed, gathered, and destroyed everything here,” said Moré of Espicy Nipples. During the closing plenary, I am remembering the climate of the room now after Dane performed “A Trans Woman Speaks (of America)”. Like another wave coming to land, the scent of salt in the air was strong but silent, as attendees wet the bibs of their shirts, letting their souls spill out. Where is the space to revisit the ancestral blackness of this island? While revisiting our pasts to build a future, our panelists brought us to the space of soul searching. “Before I answer your question about what is bringing me joy, and what I am dreaming of, I have to ask the audience three things,” said Betún of EspicyNipples. “How do we talk about Blackness in Puerto Rico?” How many organizations are led by Black trans people in Puerto Rico? What does it mean to be Black and trans in Puerto Rico, on this island as opposed to in the greater US? These are the questions we think about when we do this work.” Betun paused and invited other leaders from Espicy Nipples to add and Sora Ferri, approached the stage and delightfully shared about the importance of “Jayaera,” a full body sense of euphoria that lives within the spirit of Black Trans Ricans. I walked up to her after the presentation to thank her because sometimes our language is restricting when it comes to the things that liven us, and although I am not fluent, I fully understood what she meant when she and Moré filled me up with an understanding that its more than joy, more than feeling good, but that this word is bigger than our bodies, bigger than “spirit” and that it can be something that we can experience together, euphoria but bigger. The panelists shared about the impact of colonialism and a settler mentality that has stolen time and time again from the culture bearers, the folks who are ART without even knowing it, and the folks who fight like hell to have the means to live with a sense of joy while creating the things we value.
I’m writing this piece with loads of soundbites swirling as reflections on my way home, after walking out virtually in solidarity with youth movements demanding a #Ceasefire in Gaza, and after recovering from a mild anxiety attack when I flubbed and attended a fishbowl conversation at El Museo a bit late and had the nerve to “swim” in the conversation (thanks y’all for the grace). Don’t quote me on the prompt, but I remember folks cycling in and out of the bowl, sharing about what is needed now to ensure that artists stay central as we move ahead. I remember the mention of “Hygiene and Fitness” as a note to how we strategize, and also how we stay in practice with each other. I’m a newer funder in this space, but the relationship-building and cultural practices remain the same to me when I think about my role in philanthropy being similar to my role as a community organizer in the movement and my role as a storyteller and protector for the people I love that are my family.
If you were there in that room for that last 60-75 minutes of the plenary, I hope that you too felt a call to dismantle the traditions that keep showing up to confine us – even in creative spaces, even spaces that are led by community leaders and to yield the floor to listen, trust, advocate, and protect the voices and the practices of the so-called “marginalized” who are robustly living, loving, and creating with a Black trans queer joy lens. Narratives that we didn’t create focus on struggle, and it creates more distance and fear because of discomfort, but this presentation is full evidence that we are a people capable and proven to manifest a liberation that requires investment in Black trans joy.
