ABSTRACT
Queer Black joy is the grand ridiculer creating possibilities for organisms to collaborate, fracture, rock with, and throw shade. In this paper, the collective analytical frameworks of racial and Queer battle fatigue are brought together to consider the implications for Queer Black communities in light of the simultaneous disparagements created through normalized violent collectives of heteronormative, cisgender White supremacist ideologies. As exemplars of Queer Black joy, an analysis of the embodiments and music from disco innovator Sylvester and New Orleans bounce artist and “Queen Diva” Big Freedia are examined to consider the ways in which they enacted Queer Black joy in the public sphere, simultaneously in connection with the witnessing ways in which their Black Queer joy was and is attacked. In conclusion, Black Queer joy is situated as an enlivenment to embolden qualitative research lenses in the equity imagining/building project for the overall eradication racial and Queer battle fatigue.
