FORUM: On the Political Implications of Using the Term 'Queer,' as in 'Queer Politics,' 'Queer Studies,' and 'Queer Pedagogy'

Jo Anne Worley! Jo Anne Worley Hits you like the mack truck of je t'aime. Star of Laugh-In (sock it to me sock it to me) and panelist on It Pays To Be Ignorant, dreamy, big-mouthed comedienne in ball-gown or muumuu and fuschia boa, jet hair bouffant, only woman operatic enough to play Paul Lynde's wife more than once, and "when a baby begins to scream, everyone pretends to ignore it--well, almost everyone: Jo Anne Worley shoots up in her seat and smacks the mother with, `You're not getting through. Whatever you're doing, it's not working.'" Was that a cockfight? (I may be misquoting.) What is it, a bout? "Queer" theorizers tell us we just don't get it. Contemporary same-sexers, they argue, have subverted the term "Queer" and appropriated it to their own political and ideological strategies. But imagine this scene: I am the only white person at a social gathering of African Amerikan women and men (this happens with some frequency where I live). These friends casually call to each other with the N-word. I smile, but never for a moment does it enter my historical consciousness that perhaps I, too, can utter the N-word. No fancy theory needed, thank you. Moreover, not one among them (I can guarantee it) would ever emerge from that social setting to suggest: "Hey, let's appropriate. Let's subvert. Let's launch N***: A Journal of African Amerikan Politics and Culture." So, let's keep "Lesbian" and "Gay" and avoid any temptation to redeem Massa's ol' word. When the appropriate time comes--when true sexual liberation has been achieved and secured--then we'll meet in Peoria and struggle together over terminological revisions.