Good White Queers?: Racism and Whiteness in Queer U.S. Comics (Queer Studies)

How do white queer people portray our own whiteness? Can we, in the stories we tell about ourselves, face the uncomfortable fact that, while queer, we might still be racist? If we cannot, what does that say about us as potential allies in intersectional struggles? A careful analysis of __Dykes To Watch Out For__ and __Stuck Rubber Baby__ by queer comic icons Alison Bechdel and Howard Cruse traces the intersections of queerness and racism in the neglected medium of queer comics, while a close reading of Jaime Cortez's striking graphic novel __Sexile/Sexilio__ offers glimpses of the complexities and difficult truths that lie beyond the limits of where white queer self-representations dare to tread. Contents Acknowledgements 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 What to Expect in this Book: A Very Brief Overview 1.2 A Few Words on Formal Decisions 1.3 How I Came to Write this Book 2 THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS 2.1 Why Comics? 2.2 Unequal Distributions of Power, Rights, and Resources 2.3 A Brief History of Intersectional LGBTIQ Politics in the U.S. 3 ALISON BECHDEL’S DYKES TO WATCH OUT FOR: A WHITE FANTASY OF A POST-RACIAL LESBIAN COMMUNITY 3.1 A “Chronicle of Lesbian Culture and History” 3.2 A Multicultural Universe with Whiteness at Its Center 3.3 Armchair Anti-Racism: A Post-Racial Lesbian Community in a Racist Society 3.4 White Lesbians as a Better Kind of White 3.5 Political Consequences of Dykes’ Armchair Anti-Racism 3.6 Conclusion: When Fantasy Is Read as Fact 4 HOWARD CRUSE’S STUCK RUBBER BABY: HOW ‘GAY IS THE NEW BLACK’ DISCOURSES SHAPE THE WHITE GAY IMAGINARY 4.1 A Groundbreaking Work 4.2 A Window Seat to History? 4.3 ‘Gay Is the New Black:’ A Dominant Discourse 4.4 Conservative Critiques 4.5 Common Intersectional Critiques 4.6 Further Intersectional Critiques 4.7 Conclusion: Stuck in a White Fantasy 5 JAIME CORTEZ’S SEXILE/SEXILIO: UNLEARNING HOMONATIONALISM AND DEVELOPING ALTERNATIVE DISCOURSES 5.1 “Decentering Whiteness” 5.2 Disidentifications with Homonationalist Discourses 5.3 Centering Resilience 5.4 By Way of Conclusion: Reading Sexile/Sexilio from a Place of (Relative) Privilege 6 CONCLUSION: THE LIMITS OF WHITE LGBTIQ SELF-REPRESENTATIONS List of Works Cited

How do white queer people portray our own whiteness? Can we, in the stories we tell about ourselves, face the uncomfortable fact that, while queer, we might still be racist? If we cannot, what does that say about us as potential allies in intersectional struggles? A careful analysis of Dykes To Watch Out For and Stuck Rubber Baby by queer comic icons Alison Bechdel and Howard Cruse traces the intersections of queerness and racism in the neglected medium of queer comics, while a close reading of Jaime Cortez's striking graphic novel Sexile/Sexilio offers glimpses of the complexities and difficult truths that lie beyond the limits of the white queer imaginary.