#bve

Aleja

Okay gays, I’ve been doing some research and here’s some of the conclusions I’ve come to.

A lot of white gays (and straights too), use AAVE, which is African American Verbacular English. If you’re not familiar with this term, it’s dialect belonging to the black community.

Now, a lot of white gays, steal terms and use them without understanding their true/full meaning and in inappropriate context. Examples of this are, “yas Queen”, “tea”, or “shade”.

Some of these AAVE terms overlap with the drag community, as in the old school underground drag community—The original, unapologetically black drag community. While these terms might be taken by white gays as “drag terms”, it’s important to remember that these terms belonged to the black community first, and black drag queens are the ones who introduced it to the queer community.

So, if you’re a white gay, bisexual, etc, please reconsider using these terms/words until you’ve educated yourself on the history, and continue to limit their use with the knowledge that this a language we are stealing.

Links to AAVE terms and articles on white appropriation of the language:

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_55ccda07e4b064d5910ac8b3

https://www.languagejones.com/blog-1/2014/6/8/what-is-aave

http://www.english-for-students.com/Ebonics.html

https://thoughtcatalog.com/maya-richard-craven/2014/04/7-words-you-didnt-know-that-came-from-ebonics/