Editor’s note: Names have been changed to protect privacy.
By Yvonne Marquez
Kait Rae craved a space to meet fellow queer Black people in San Antonio, Texas. So, at age 22, they decided to take matters into their own hands and to create the space they wanted to see. In October 2017, Rae joined forces with two friends and started a zine for and by queer people color called No Whites Allowed. “It’s important for people of color to express our sexuality and gender because I know, for many people of color, it feels like we should be silent or hidden or that [queerness] doesn’t even exist in our families, but that’s definitely not true,” Rae, who identifies as queer and non-binary, says.
Rae, a recent graduate of the University of Texas at San Antonio, describes how they were inspired by Chiflada Zine, as well as other Latinx and Latina-run zines. They witnessed how empowering these zines were for Latinx folks and wanted to create a similar experience for queer Black people. Rae was familiar with zine making, as they had created a mini-zine about gender during a Houston Zine Festival workshop, and—with the help of their friends—began plans for No Whites Allowed.
When brainstorming the zine’s cover, Rae drew inspiration from the bright colors and floral patterns of Tyler the Creator’s Flower Boy album. They also came up with the name No Whites Allowed, a title that reclaims space and pays homage to the era of punk zines that were “very in your face.” Rae was initially apprehensive about how people would react to the name, but was encouraged by their co-creators to keep it. “The name obviously causes some discomfort and some questions, especially from white people, and I think that’s important,” Rae explains. “A lot of the times they get upset, it’s because they feel excluded from the title. I think that’s important because that’s kind of how queer people, especially queer Black folks, have felt in this country. It may make them take a step back. Especially once we explain it a little bit, they start to maybe deconstruct how they’ve [existed] in spaces.”
The inaugural issue of No Whites Allowed debuted in March of this year and centered queer, Black experiences. “It took awhile, but I was really happy with the response from people wanting to help us and wanting to share their information as well,” Rae says.
To celebrate their first issue, Rae and friends hosted a zine release party at La Botánica, a queer-owned vegan Tex-Mex bar. Rae put up flyers around the UTSA campus to advertise the event, but was immediately met with backlash from both students and staff. People were confused by the name of the zine, Rae says, and thought the event was excluding white people completely, resulting in the flyers being removed. “A lot of the backlash was online,” Rae says. “It was mostly trolls and a lot of people who didn’t even live in Texas who found out about [the event] and were just upset about not being included. It was mostly people on Facebook saying racist things and saying that we were racist.”
Despite the online uproar, no one actually came to disrupt the party, Rae reports. “It was actually a very beautiful space with all queer people of color who [were able to] express themselves,” Rae says. About 100 people attended the event, which also included musical and poetry performances from both zine contributors and community members.
Rae hopes the zine fosters community and creates representation for younger generations. “I don’t want other queer people of color to believe that they’re the only ones who exist like this, because that can be really scary and isolating and depressing,” Rae says. “You can have your own space and can be happy and are still a beautiful person, even though there are other things telling you that you shouldn’t exist the way you do.”
The No Whites Allowed team is now working on the zine’s second issue, which focuses on mental health and is currently open to submissions from all queer people of color. Ultimately, they hope the zine reaches contributors and readers beyond Texas and becomes an international zine. “I hope to inspire other people through our work,” Rae says. “I want other people to feel like they have a space that they can come back to and I hope to inspire others to create and to be themselves.”
Follow No Whites Allowed Zine on instagram at @NWAZine or buy the first issue on their online store. QTPOC, send your submissions to [email protected] by July 1.
