In her book, Ana-Maurine Lara argues that being Black and queer challenges Christian colonial hermeticism and paves the way for values, knowledge, and being that never cease to exist despite the colonial order’s attempts to marginalize, deny, and eradicate. The dominating theme throughout the chapter is that of war and violence, which is evident from the linguistic choices and subject matter. In other words, how the book is written and what it writes about for reflects its unifying theme of war.
Firstly, the books employs both English and Spanish, making it understandable to neither those who speaks solely English or Spanish. Similarly, neither Christian colonial hermeticism nor Queer freedom : Black sovereignty claims total dominance over the other, instead they exist and continue to engage in violence. Secondly, the book mentions several figures, most of which represents a display of conflicts. The las Mercedes is morena, but forced to appear blanca; Her presence is both seen as a sign of conquest and a sign of justice. Wilma’s clinic and Adela’s healing practice introduce another conflict. Wilma’s clinic was a place that claims to uphold the love of God, yet it shows no love for the people, turning them away on the basis of religion. Adela’s household grows out of such marginalization, and exists primarily to welcome the marginalized.
Reading the book reminds me of a persistent question I have about anthropology: Given the dense style of writing adopted by most ethnographic work, how can ethnographic written create meaningful impacts on the problems it targets? This book is certainly not written in the most reader-friendly style, and will be unlikely to appear appealing to the common reader especially when placed next to other books on ‘trendy’ topics written in easy-to-understand and lively styles. Perhaps unintentionally, the author partially addresses my question. Specifically, the author talked about how publications and presentations by anthropologists, historians, and other scholars in helped foster the emergence of alternative discourse. Accordingly, is the role of ethnographic writing to cause alternative conversations to emerge even just within the exclusive scholar world, and in doing so, lay the first stones for subsequent effort to popularize these dialogues and trigger relevant policy changes?