Canadian Race Relations Foundation

'Queering the Color Line' engages in the discourse on sexuality and racial identity. The author examines these discourses as they pertain to the cultural revolution of cinema, African American literature and written works on sexology in the United States during the nineteenth century. Her work sheds light on the division of homosexuality and heterosexuality brought on by 'scientific racism' and shows that throughout history, race has been the key element in the cultural revolution of homosexuality.

Although gender insubordination offers a powerful explanatory model for the 'invention' of homosexuality, ideologies of gender also, of course, shaped and were shaped by dominant constructions of race. (p.16) The visibility and invisibility of African Americans on-screen and in movie audiences structured the perceptions of white audiences. In practice, of course, many African Americans who could pass for white, temporarily or permanently, were indeed present in segregated theaters - as audience members, as workers, and as actors. Their actual presence, however, depended on their invisibility within racially segregated social spaces. (p. 70)