Voguing As Resistance Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

Aug 7 2023

Location: 

New York City

There were still bloodstains outside the Midwood Mobil gas station on Friday night; a fresh sign taped to a lamppost read “A Hate Crime Happened Here.” This is the place where, less than a week prior, 28-year-old O’Shae Sibley, a gay Black dancer and choreographer, made a pit stop with friends after a Jersey beach day. They were filling their gas tank and voguing to Beyoncé’s Renaissance when a group approached, yelling homophobic and anti-Black slurs; after an argument, a 17-year-old, who has since turned himself in to police and been charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime, stabbed Sibley to death. Hundreds of friends from the ballroom scene, LGBTQ+ activists, and Black queer New Yorkers gathered to mourn Sibley — and vogue in his honor. “It’s Friday and we are here for O’Shae,” Qween Jean, a costume designer and the founder of Black Trans Liberation, told the crowd while wearing a white fascinator. “So if your energy is low, wake up, because they have taken the life of a young powerful Black human who deserved to live.”

External sources: 

https://www.curbed.com/2023/08/oshae-sibley-memorial-voguing.html?_gl=1%2A16i5uz…
Posted by yulani.r on Mar 5 2024

Staff rating: 

0

Effectiveness

How does this project help?

Activates (people)Energizes and organizes people into action. Can include emotion work
Amplifies (issue or campaign)Brings public and political attention to an issue or campaign.  Can include prefigurative action, making the invisible visible.
Strengthens (community)Strengthens, builds and celebrates community through ritual and/or symbol.

Timeframe For change

This project seems to be part of a campaign with a clear short-term goal. Short-term goals tend to be things like: create or repeal a law; get a President impeached; make the city administration repair a sidewalk. A campaign with a short-term goal needs a clear theory of change, complete with targets that can be cajoled or pressured into effecting the goal.
Make voguing, a form of dance birthed by Black trans women, not seen as a threat to cishet men, especially Black ones
This project seems to be part of a campaign with a clear long-term goal. Long-term goals tend to be things like: end racism; end homophobia; make the sun stand still in the sky. A campaign with a long-term goal also needs to have some kind of theory of change.
End homophobia and transphobia

Notes

The project was effective in normalizing voguing in the streets of New York however it's unclear if it was effective in normalizing queer culture or ending homophobia and transphobia.