The Decolonial Potential of NEITHER | Francisco-Luis White | TEDxUMD
[Applause] hello wow this mic works I would of course be the only prisoner whose face is 50 feet by 50 feet good afternoon UMD the very first word I ever spoke clearly was free actually this is a true story and I'd like to tell myself and of course I would like to tell you all that it's because even as an infant I was some sort of radical gender activist a dismantler a transgressor but the reality is and my mother tells this story much better than I can of course there was an advertisement at the time a television commercial for some deal or another something was being given away if you bought something else so with this particular advertisement that would come across come across the television the words the word free and bright red flashing letters would come across the screen though there I am maybe two or three years old sitting on the floor in front of the TV and our one-bedroom South Bronx apartment then free free free the television screen as my mother listened from the kitchen the cute enough stories door but it's actually really important because you see though I wouldn't be able to see myself or to self-identify as any sort of radical gender activists or dismantler or transgressor for years to come obviously the word free and freedom has been a persistent theme throughout my life thus far maybe even a lifelong character trait if you will speaking of freedom I'm black by the way after let be next to be more specific Porto Rican to be absolutely specific my family comes from on Sanford Rico which is on the south side of the island beautiful city they have carnival every year we also come from a town just north of Charlotte North Carolina called Mooresville which is actually also known as race vide USA home of the Earnhardt's Dale and Dale jr. fun fact random Dale and her jr. and I had the same high school English teacher gold Mooresville Blue Devils if you're in some random fun facts in NASCAR but I digress my family obviously speaks Spanish we speak Bangla shhhhhh like no family you've ever encountered I assure you and we speak English in all sorts of accents and dialects and vernacular and yet not one of them has been able to grasp they/them gender pronouns and reference to a singular person and I know that people think that's really hard and sometimes people tell me that it doesn't make sense because suddenly everyone's an expert in grammar and syntax but whatever some things take more time in patience than others what I'm confident we're gonna be able to do in the space together today is take the discussion of gender or gender identity well beyond gender pronoun the clicker is working for me so I'm not a man or a woman I'm neither I have no specified in their identity actually now all of these gender identities are clearly valid and enough and are validated everywhere all the time they just don't contain confined or define who I am and it's really okay I promise like you're okay you're cisgender identities and lives are safe in this space and to be quite frank in that regard you all are pretty much safe everywhere right which is far more than I can say for those of us who identify as gender queer or transgender especially if we're people of color and particularly you're more safe than black trans women and Femmes who are being brutalized and murdered across the country at an alarming rate so what I would like you all to consider in the space today is the fact that people with non-binary gender identities people who are under clear people who have no gender identity at all people whose genders have been ambiguous or fluid have existed in cultures throughout the world throughout the ages and have been referred to by all sorts of names many of which I don't know what I do recognize however is that when you hear gender queer when you hear non-binary gender identity I'm not really who or what comes to mind visually or aesthetically so what are the dominant representations of non-binary identity that you've seen no doubt what you've seen has been fierce and beautiful and sexy and self-assured and bending and challenging all of the conceptions and perceptions you have of gender and sexuality but what happens when someone who is not as easily other at least not visually or aesthetically decides that they no longer identify or that they've never identified along the gender binary moreover where is the black assumed cisgender body positioned in the current discourse around gender expansiveness I like to think that there's real potential and me standing here in this flesh with this beating heart with this made-up certain mind and I'd like to believe that there's real potential and conversations such as this one where we're discussing the idea that non-binary the gender really gives others the permission to self explore to self-examine to self identify to self-determine all of these self acts are really an affront to colonization particularly to colonization of the body I challenge you to consider the fact that the resistance to non-binary or genderqueer identity is really about a widespread fear right and I think that that fear is rooted in attachment to labels I'm suggesting that the fear or the pushback or the resistance the non-binary or genderqueer identities is really about a fear of us losing those labels those labels which assign certain privilege which assign status white supremacy and sis hetero patriarchy are subverted when we dare to define ourselves for ourselves right but if I in this black and unapologetic body can stand here before you today at a university and define myself for myself who can white people you something about that doesn't sound right when we dare to define ourselves for ourselves it's the beginning it's the foundation of a decolonial praxis and that sounds super lofty in academic right but I think that decolonization radicalism resistance really begins when we begin to see ourselves think about ourselves and speak about ourselves differently when we self define the parameters when we set the parameters for ourselves for me I like to say that the beginnings or the the the roots of my personal decolonial praxis formed when my response to the question and I get this question often because people are just rude right so like you're not a man so what are you a woman when my response became a calm in certain neither that was the birth of my duty colonial practice I'd like to believe that my neither here today resonates with each and every one of you and I know that that's not going to be the case but I'm sure that it resound and it reverberates and I like to believe that oppressive constructs are already cracking from the sound thank you [Applause]