Rainbow Theology

Bridging Race, Sexuality, and Spirit

Patrick S. Cheng

• Publisher: Seabury Books
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781596272422
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Theology

To date, no book has systematically examined the theological writings of LGBT people of color. Nor has any book explored how such writings might actually transform contemporary theological reflections on race and sexuality. This book remedies these gaps by constructing a rainbow theology around the theme of bridging or mediation. Rainbow Theology is the first book to reflect upon the theological significance of the intersections of race and queer sexuality across multiple ethnic and cultural groups. This is particularly important in light of the current polarizing debates over issues of race, sexuality, and religion within churches and communities of faith around the world.

Part I

Race, Sexuality, and Spirit

Chapter 1

Queer of Color Theologies

For the last three years, I’ve had the privilege of serving as a mentor at the Human Rights Campaign Summer Institute at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee. Each summer, the HRC Summer Institute brings together fifteen talented doctoral and advanced master’s degree students who do work in LGBTIQ theology and religious studies. The students live and study together for a week, and they have a chance to network among themselves as well as with prominent scholars from across the country who are doing similar work in LGBTIQ theology and religious studies.

For me, one of the most rewarding aspects of serving as a mentor at the HRC Summer Institute has been working with queer students of color who are interested in the intersections of race, sexuality, and spirituality. Over the years, I’ve had the chance to work closely with many LGBTIQ and allied Black, Asian American, and Latina/o students, and it’s been interesting to observe how many similarities—and differences—there are in terms of our research agendas.

For example, in 2012 the LGBTIQ and allied scholars of color at the HRC Summer Institute worked on a dizzying variety of projects, including the reclaiming of queer Black voices in the Civil Rights Movement, examining how LGBTIQ Asian Americans use religion as a means for decolonization and healing, studying the religious lives of LGBTIQ Muslims, examining methods of Latin American queer biblical interpretation, rethinking sexual ethics in Korean American churches, recording and archiving oral histories from queer spiritual leaders, analyzing the practices of radically welcoming spiritual communities with respect to race and sexuality, studying the work of North American Two-Spirit activists, and examining notions of sexual purity in the context of global sex trafficking.

This experience of working with younger queer scholars of color across different racial and ethnic groups has led me to think deeply about whether it is possible—or even desirable—to construct a queer of color theology.¹ On the one hand, all of us share an acute awareness of the ways in which issues of race and sexuality mutually reinforce each other with respect to oppression. On the other hand, these scholars each have very different research topics, methodologies, faith traditions, and communities of accountability. So is it possible to construct a queer of color theology? It is to this question that we now turn.

1. Is “Queer of Color” a Valid Category?

Is it even possible to talk about a queer of color theology? On the one hand, the very notion of queer is to “denaturalize or de-essentialize formerly stable identities such as homosexuality, heterosexuality, race, nationality, woman, and man.”² In other words, the term “queer”—at least in the academic discipline of queer theory—challenges notions of fixed identity. It would seem, therefore, that using a term such as “queer of color” is to reinforce “natural” identity categories, and not to further the understanding that such categories are socially constructed. As such, it would seem that the term “queer of color” is highly problematic.

Furthermore, it could be argued that the use of the term “queer of color” as an umbrella term for LGBTIQ people of color does violence—metaphorically speaking—to the particular social contexts for each subgroup (for example, queer Asian Americans) within the umbrella. That is, it is important for any given marginalized group to name itself and come to voice about its own particular experiences. Take, for example, the parallel example of womanist theology. Womanist theology arose out of the fact that neither Black (male) liberation theology nor (white) feminist theology spoke to the experiences of African American women. Thus, to use the broader categories of “Black theology” or “feminist theology” would fail to honor the womanist experience.

In my view, the “queer of color” category is an important one, and I believe that the above objections to its use can be addressed in a number of ways. First, Gayatri Spivak’s notion of strategic essentialism can be helpful with respect to the issue of fixed identity. That is, it is possible to speak about “queers of color” for strategic purposes—such as in the context of “struggles for liberation from the effects of colonial and neocolonial oppression”—without reinscribing essentialist notions of identity.³ For example, an April 2012 report by the Center for American Progress shows that LGBTIQ people of color are often the very ones who are “left behind” with respect to educational attainment, economic insecurity, and health disparities.⁴ Thus, it is vitally important to speak about “queers of color,” as long as we do so in a strategic manner.

Second, with respect to the umbrella term issue (that is, whether the category of “queer of color” does violence to its subgroups), it can be argued that “queer of color” does in fact serve a useful function while also honoring the experiences of its various subgroups. There are in fact important similarities among the work done by LGBTIQ scholars of color across racial and ethnic boundaries. For example, there is a deep “family resemblance,” to cite the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work on language theory, with respect to this scholarship.⁵ This can be seen in the secular academy in which a “queer of color critique” movement has arisen among LGBTIQ scholars of color. This movement has recognized the importance of bringing together similar voices while also preserving their differences.⁶ Thus, it makes sense to look more closely at queer of color work as its own category.

Third, it may be the case that “queer of color” is less about an identity—that is, constructing yet another identity-based theology—and more about positionality. That is, LGBTIQ people of color share a unique “in between” position with respect to both the queer community and communities of color, and thus may actually require a unique signifier that discusses the specific issues that arise out of this social location. For all of these reasons, I believe that “queer of color” is a valid category that can—and must—be used.

2. Shared Scholarly Heritage

In addition to the above theoretical issues, LGBTIQ people of color also share a common genealogy, or heritage, with respect to scholarly writings about living at the intersections of race and sexuality. Although this genealogy is not as widely known as the more “canonical” works in queer theory by Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and David M. Halperin, this history of queer of color scholarship does in fact exist and can help LGBTIQ people of color find a sense of community and belonging.

In the 1970s, there were few, if any, writings by LGBTIQ people of color about their experiences. As Barbara Smith wrote in her groundbreaking 1977 essay, “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism,” it was “unprecedented” and “dangerous” to write about the Black lesbian experience because “these things have not been done” by Black men, by white feminists, or even by Black women.⁷ Smith writes poignantly: “I finally want to express how much easier both my waking and my sleeping hours would be if there were one book in existence that would tell me something specific about my life.”⁸

In the thirty-five years following the publication of Smith’s essay, however, there have been many books written about the queer of color experience. These books include anthologies on the queer Asian American experience such as Q&A: Queer in Asian America (1998);⁹ the queer Black experience such as The Greatest Taboo: Homosexuality in Black Communities (2000);¹⁰ the queer Latina/o experience such as Gay Latino Studies: A Critical Reader (2011);¹¹ and the Two-Spirit Indigenous experience such as Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics, and Litera...