“Queering” #BlackLivesMatter: Unpredictable Intimacies and Political Affects

#BlackLivesMatter (#BLM) has garnered considerable attention in recent years with its commitment to honor all black lives, yet the affective dimensions of this global cause remain largely under- theorized. Within this piece, I explore how #BLM, as a larger sociopolitical movement, works to collectively bind strangers together by transmitting affects that produce a sense of immediacy, intimacy, and belonging. I argue that these affective intensities incite an ‘unpredictable intimacy’ that closely connects strangers to black bodies and intensifies the forces of race, gender, and hetero/ sexuality in ways that—counter to the movement’s purpose— violate the bodies of queer/black women, in particular, via the processes of replication and erasure. I conclude by proposing that, while #BLM aims to empower black lives and build a collective, we remember the political possibilities that affect and queer theories have to offer in order to attend to, and potentially disrupt, the violence that such collectives bring.