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Review by Rebecka Rehnström

JAFARI S. ALLEN, 2021,  There's a Disco Ball Between Us: A Theory of Black Gay Life ,
Durham and London: Duke University Press, 448 pp., ISBN: 978-1-4780-2189-6

Keywords: Black gay life, Black history, queer history, Blackfullness, blackness

In his recent book, There's a Disco Ball Between Us, Jafari S. Allen presents a history of what
he names “Black gay habits of mind.” Despite moving between various places around the
world,  this  work is  more “an ethnography of an idea” than multi-sited fieldwork. A key
inspiration for this approach could be Audre Lorde’s neologism “Blackfullness,” “the space
of possibility and belonging beyond any particular place” (p. 325n2). Allen emphasizes the
importance that poetry, music, art, novels, theory, and historiography have to the archive of
Black political philosophy, not least of the long 1980s. He takes us to the time of the 1980s
AIDS crisis, the before and after, the ends and beginnings, for the “more possible.” The title,
borrowed from the artist Wura-Natasha Ogunji and further inspired by performance artist and
impresario Kevin Aviance1, speaks of losses and desires. In these numerously colored lights
of the disco ball, communicating at various angles/times, Allen writes a theory of Black gay
life.

The language of the book is poetic, lyrical, and conversational. It  follows various rhythms,
develops processually (like the rhizome) – the history is not, cannot be, teleological/”straight”
(pp. 165-166). Nevertheless, I welcomed the moments when Allen encouraged me as a reader
to pause for a second or to take a few breaths before continuing, but also the invitations to
read with the voices of those behind the words (e.g., pp. 56, 222). This reader (me) is a white
(Swedish),  lesbian  (femme)  woman  –  positionings  impacting  on  which  layers  of  the
text/history I will be able to reach and in what way. However, no matter how (un)familiar the
reader is, it is a book to re-read in order to reach new depths, to see the reflections from the
disco ball from yet another angle. Another aspect that stood out for me was how Allen uses
the forenames of those he cites, an invitation to and reflection of intimacy he says. It also has
another meaning, found in the history (of e.g., colonialism, religion, slavery) that has erased
names and named by force (pp. 67-68). I found this way of citing at times confusing, but it
also provides an opportunity to understand the words and the people behind them from a
“different” perspective.

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� See pp. 1-4 for further discussion on work by Ogunji and Aviance. 

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It is a thick book, both in terms of ethnography and number of pages. The book starts with an
“Invitation” to the read from the author, then an introduction followed by ten chapters and a
conclusion – divided into three parts. Hereafter come some acknowledgments, to be read as
an  additional  (short)  chapter.  Readers  are  encouraged to  take time to  read the  footnotes,
constituting yet another layer of the book. Chapter 1 focuses on the foundational work of
radical Black lesbian feminists, the endangered Black male/masculinity discourse of the long
1980s and the impact this time had on Black gay politics. Chapter 2 is about Black habits of
minds – Black gay men writers of the 1980s (e.g., James Baldwin, Joseph Beam, Melvin
Dixon).  Allen brings forward the important  lesson from this time of the AIDS crisis that
“visibility is not equal to survival” (p. 63). The chapter also calls out the (white) statement
that “the AIDS crisis is over,” pointing at the unequal access to adequate health care Black
and brown people all around the world still experience (p. 71). In Chapter 3, Allen stresses
the  important  contribution  “femmes”  and  “queens,”  like  Marsha  P.  Johnson  and  Sylvia
Rivera, have to the archive. Another key discussion is on antiblackness, which is everything
“from what and who is beautiful to who and what is true … to no breath at all” (p. 112).
Perhaps, Allen asks, in a world of antiblackness it is not interracial desire but Black folks (not
least gay men) loving and desiring Black folks and blackness that is “the more radical or so-
called ‘transgression of racial boundaries’” (pp. 102-112). Chapter 4 invites us to the Disco,
to the sounds at the end (and beginning) of the world (i.e., the 1980s). Allen describes this era
in the USA as a time of anticipation for the revolution, a waiting for the independence from
European colonial powers to finally come to North America. It was also a time when the
“War on Drugs” gained strong political  ground and became equal to “War on Black and
brown people.” In Chapter 5 we leave the 1980s and queer as a concept debut in the book.
Movements and meanings of art, porn and digital media is here discussed in a transnational
setting.  The chapter also treats “blackness,” in terms of agency and also in relation to the
doings of white supremacy.  

The second part of the book starts (with a preface and Chapter 6) in the Black/queerpolis –
“after ‘diaspora’ but before reparations and before freedom” (p. 165).  It was the time when
Black queer studies in the US academy were established and events such as the antiapartheid
movement  and  HIV/AIDS  had  created  space  for  the  production  of  Black  diasporic
connections  (p.  189).  The  chapter  also  turns  to  the  alternative  archive  created  by  Black
(especially lesbian)  writers (not least  novelists)  and how it  can help to reconstruct Black
memory. After this chapter follows a triptych of methodological chapters. Chapter 7 takes the
reader to the archival turn through a virtual roundtable. Chapter 8, in turn, treats transnational
Black  queer  sociality  and  differentiates  Black/queerpolity  from  “global  gay”  and  “gay
international,” formulations Allen stresses as uncritical. In Chapter 9 Allen goes deeper into
the  politics.  Here  he  examines  positionings  of  the  Black  anthropologist  doing
fieldwork/ethnography within/among African (descended) cultures. The chapter also looks
upon ways activists are shaping a new political agenda. In Chapter 10 Allen discusses the
overcoming of (“romantic,” masculinist) freedom dreams of the Black radical tradition. The
chapter  also  emphasizes  the  importance  of  bringing  forward  the  1980s  as  a  historically
significant  “break,”  when analyzing relations between Black people.  It  was  a  time when
Black gay (LGBT) activists, artists, and organizations shattered and reconstituted structures
of  the  past  (p.  262).  Allen  finishes  by  addressing  how  local  activists  reverse
homo/transphobic  discourses  disguised  as  local  tradition  by  foreign  current/historical
interests, this by referring to homo/transphobia as part of a colonial, racist, foreign heritage.
In the conclusion,  Allen asserts  the importance of “advocating dynamic sociality tarrying
with/for the dead and being alive to our messy and difficult-to-translate Blackfull nows” (p.

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307).  The acknowledgments  that  follow invites  the  readers/seekers  to  be  inspired by the
book, both its content and its form, when navigating their own routes. 

An important takeaway from this book is what Allen states in the introduction. The world, he
writes, needs us to both commit to “master” specific methods and theoretical frameworks and
then loosen our  grip around them. An anthological  approach that is  new in academe,  he
continues, but has “… a longer history in Black feminist, Black gay, queer-of-color activist
work,  artistic practice,  and art  of living life” (p.  20).  I  strongly recommend this book to
scholars  and student  within  academia,  across  disciplines,  to  artists,  writers,  and  activists
outside of academia – to anyone seeking to explore and become more intimate with Black
gay (and queer) habits of mind.

Rebecka  Rehnström has  a  BSc  and  MSc  in  Social  Anthropology  from  Stockholm
University. She is interested in feminist and queer athropology, material and visual culture,
LGBTQ+, activism and performance.

© 2022 Rebecka Rehnström 

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