This article proposes that Black queer blogs from the early 2000s demonstrate how to preserve Black life and personhood, as the case of Sakia Gunn demonstrates, while still offering a political platform. This differs from contemporary movements whose online discourse is overwhelmingly organized around the circulation of Black death, especially because spectacle and attention are fuel for virality and money. The preservation of life that these blogs afforded emerge from a history of Black counterpublics, and consistent with these publications, they have affordances for preserving Black life that social media today is missing. This article employs close readings of two blogs written by Keith Boykin and Alicia Banks. While both seek to flesh out Sakia's life, Boykin takes a postmortem approach, while Banks connects through experiences and understandings of Black lesbian sociality. In turn, the article also offers space to the potentials of lesbian personhood and masculinity within Black girlhood.
Casidy Campbell (Mon,) studied this question.