Why cast queer BIPOC couples ?

BIPOC: Black/Indigenous/People of color

I know that if I had seen healthy BIPOC queer relationships in mainstream media or if I had known some BIPOC queer couples in real life, it would have partially counteracted what I was learning about love from my mom. I also would have felt more comfortable with my queerness. Instead, I had to rely on queer couples in media that were almost always white and usually had toxic, chaotic relationships. When I was about 17, representation of queerness and healthy queer relationships started easing into mainstream movies and tv shows, but the queer characters still were overwhelmingly white. I couldn’t see myself in those depictions because my brownness is inseparable from my queerness. I live both experiences simultaneously.

I chose to cast BIPOC couples (all of which happen to be in interracial relationships) because every interracial couple of color that proudly displays love publicly is foreseeably putting themselves in danger. Both the Latinx community and Asian community are anti-black. The Filipinx and Latinx communities are deep-rootedly racist towards each other. And all communities of color, to some extent, buy into the stigmas attached to the others (as a product of internalizing white supremacy).

In addition to navigating queerness, queer BIPOC have to navigate this space. We have to unlearn years of social conditioning to feel comfortable in our skin, we have to educate our families on heteronormativity and white supremacy, we have to advocate for ourselves politically while also dealing with racism in our personal lives. We have to protect ourselves and our loved ones from harm everyday. As I said in the introduction of this project, queer BIPOC love is an act of resistance.

I had a choice when curating this project of whether or not I would include queer couples where 1 person in the relationship was non-white and the other was white. I ended up choosing to cast only couples where both of the people were BIPOC because representation of queer couples of color is extremely limited. The main way I have come across representation of BIPOC queer couples in the past is through Instagram, but even then, it can be hard to find that representation if you are not specifically looking for it. And if you are a white straight person or a white queer person, your Instagram algorithm is probably not going to show you queer BIPOC couples if that is not what your friend circle consists of.

Something I learned during this project that I was not very aware of before: many queer BIPOC have white partners. In my experience, sometimes internalized whiteness, subtle white supremacy/ colorism / Eurocentric beauty standards can seep into our dating preferences. I grew up in a Chicanx household where my mom insisted that I only date white boys. She was also very anti-black. When I was first navigating my queerness, I thought I had rejected these ridiculous romantic standards- I was only interested in girls and non-binary people at the time. However, I was constantly developing crushes on white/ light-skinned people. It was a boost in my self-confidence when a white girl reciprocated romantic feelings for me. I felt like I was doing something “right.“ I did not know it at the time but my preference for white girls/white people was a form of idealized whiteness.

Unlearning that deep-rooted, sub-conscious white supremacy was a bitch. But I started by questioning myself: Why am I uncomfortable with the thought of dating within my racial/ethnic community? Why am I attracted to some races more than others? What assumptions do I make about people that are based in prejudice and not in fact? Do I associate beauty/ purity/ intelligence with whiteness and why? What things did my mom teach me that were a product of her self-hatred? And there is one question that my Sociology of Race professor asked our class that I always circle back to:

Who taught you to hate yourself?

I hope that this project helps queer BIPOC navigate these difficult questions. I hope that collectively (as BIPOC) we can normalize dating other BIPOC.