Quare Etymology (with apologies to Alice Walker)
Quare (Kwär)
– n. 1. meaning queer; also, opp. of straight; odd or slightly oft kilter; from the African American vernacular for queer; sometimes homophobic in usage, but always denotes excess incapable of being contained within conventional categories of being; curiously equivalent to the Anglo-Irish (and sometimes „Black“ Irish) variant of queer, as in Brendan Behans famous play The Quare Felltow.
– adj. 2. a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered person of color who loves other men or women, sexually and/or nonsexually, and appreciates black culture and Community.
– n. 3. one who thinks and feels and acts (and, sometimes, „acts up“); committed to slruggle against all forms of oppression—racial, sexual, gender, class, religious, etc.
– n. 4. one for whom sexual and gender identities always already intersect with racial subjectivity.
5. quare is to queer as „reading“ is to „throwing shade.“
E. Patrick Johnson (2005): „Quare“ Studies, or (Almost) Everything I Know About Queer Studies I Learned From my Grandmother. In: E. Patrick Johnson, Mae G. Henderson (Ed.): Black Queer Studies. A Critical Anthology. Durham, London, S.124-157.