 | |
| Author | Darnell L. Moore |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Nation Books |
Publication date | May 29, 2018 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Pages | 257 |
| ISBN | 978-1-568-58834-6 |
| OCLC | 1035947395 |
No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America is a 2018 memoir by American writer and activist Darnell L. Moore. It explore Moore's experiences growing up in poverty in New Jersey, and his struggles with his personal identity as both black and queer.
No Ashes in the Fire follows Moore's early life, growing up black and queer, born to teenage parents and living in poverty in Camden, New Jersey. [1] It explores Moore's struggle with his racial identity against the popular expectation of "little more than anger from black boys", and his sexual identity in against the popular notion of "black men as symbols of hyper-heterosexuality". [1]
The book recalls a history of bullying and discrimination, including the event from which its title is drawn, where local boys doused him in gasoline, and attempted to burn him alive. [2] [3] It follows through the throes of the AIDS epidemic in the US, [4] and explores the breadth of Moore's life from his abusive father, to his untimely heart attack at age 19, which served as his later inspiration. [5]
Kirkus Reviews call No Ashes in the Fire "an engaging meditation on identity and creativity," [2] while Publishers Weekly dubbed it "a stunning tribute to affirmation, forgiveness, and healing", and an "invigorating emotional tonic". [5] In their interview with Moore, The Philadelphia Inquirer introduced it as both compelling and vulnerable, "glorious and traumatic". [6]
The LGBTQ community is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning individuals united by a common culture and social movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality. LGBTQ activists and sociologists see LGBTQ community-building as a counterweight to heterosexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, sexualism, and conformist pressures that exist in the larger society. The term pride or sometimes gay pride expresses the LGBTQ community's identity and collective strength; pride parades provide both a prime example of the use and a demonstration of the general meaning of the term. The LGBTQ community is diverse in political affiliation. Not all people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender consider themselves part of the LGBTQ community.
Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of queer studies and women's studies.
Queer studies, sexual diversity studies, or LGBTQ studies is the study of topics relating to sexual orientation and gender identity usually focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender dysphoric, asexual, aromantic, queer, questioning, and intersex people and cultures.
Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, denomination, gender, sexual orientation, social background, caste, and social class. The term could also encompass other social phenomena which are not commonly understood as exemplifying identity politics, such as governmental migration policy that regulates mobility based on identities, or far-right nationalist agendas of exclusion of national or ethnic others. For this reason, Kurzwelly, Pérez and Spiegel, who discuss several possible definitions of the term, argue that it is an analytically imprecise concept.
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Disability studies is an academic discipline that examines the meaning, nature, and consequences of disability. Initially, the field focused on the division between "impairment" and "disability", where impairment was an impairment of an individual's mind or body, while disability was considered a social construct. This premise gave rise to two distinct models of disability: the social and medical models of disability. In 1999 the social model was universally accepted as the model preferred by the field.
Kensington is a neighborhood in Philadelphia that belongs to Lower Northeast. As with all neighborhoods in the city, the lack of any official designation means the boundaries of the area vary between sources over time and are disputed among locals. Kensington, as most long-term residents view it, refers generally to the area consisting of Kensington, East Kensington, West Kensington, and Harrowgate. The adjacent Fairhill and Norris Square neighborhoods are more separate but may be included in Kensington; Fishtown and South (Olde) Kensington were historically included. The most conservative boundaries of the neighborhood, shown in the map below, are Front Street and 5th Street to the west, the Amtrak train tracks to the North, Trenton Avenue, the Trenton Avenue train tracks, and Frankford Avenue to the east, and Cecil B. Moore Avenue to the south.
Simon Tseko Nkoli was an anti-apartheid, gay rights and AIDS activist in South Africa. Active in the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), the United Democratic Front, and the Gay Association of South Africa (GASA), he was arrested as part of the Delmas Treason Trial in 1984. After his release in 1988, he founded the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand (GLOW) and organized South Africa's first pride parade. His activism influenced the African National Congress (ANC) to enshrine gay rights in the South African constitution. One of the first South Africans to disclose that he was living with HIV/AIDS, Nkoli founded the Township AIDS Project. After his death from AIDS-related complications, his colleagues established the Treatment Action Campaign.
The Ballroom scene is an African-American and Latino underground LGBTQ+ subculture. Its origins can be found in drag balls of the mid-19th century United States, such as those hosted by William Dorsey Swann, a formerly enslaved Black man in Washington D.C.. By the early 20th century, integrated drag balls were popular in cities such as New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. In the mid-20th century, as a response to racism in integrated drag spaces, the balls evolved into house ballroom, where Black and Latino attendees could "walk" in a variety of categories for trophies and cash prizes. Most participants in ballroom belong to groups known as "houses", where chosen families of friends form relationships and communities separate from their families of origin, from which they may be estranged. The influence of ballroom culture can be seen in dance, language, music, and popular culture, and the community still exists today.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+(LGBTQ+)music is music that focuses on the experiences of gender and sexual minorities as a product of the broad gay liberation movement.
Wade Alan Davis II is an American speaker, activist, writer, educator and former American football player.
Darnell L. Moore is an American writer and activist whose work is informed by anti-racist, feminist, queer of color, and anti-colonial thought and advocacy. Darnell's essays, social commentary, poetry, and interviews have appeared in various national and international media venues, including the Feminist Wire, Ebony magazine, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, and The Advocate.
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