What work does deviance and/or disrespectability do? How do questions around deviance change the political goals and political stakes for Black life and struggle within and outside Black queer communities?

We have talked extensively in class about the politics of respectability, and we have read significant pieces on deviance as a form of resistance. E. Frances White, in her book Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability, argues that for Black women in the early 20th century: to be positioned outside the protection of womanhood was to be labeled unrespectable. (33) Yet, Black women were constructed through slavery as fundamentally outside the definition of womanhood. Expanding Whites idea of unrespectable to the present day, and opening up its relevance to all Black genders, discuss the concepts of respectability, deviance, and/or disrespectability as they are articulated in Black queer theories. What work does respectability do? What work does deviance and/or disrespectability do? How do questions around deviance change the political goals and political stakes for Black life and struggle within and outside Black queer communities?

Please use all three sources I provided throughout the paper.

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