Zeek.net – Sarah Lefton
“Rituals of legitimization for extant corrupt political structures”: Joan JettBlakk
Joan JettBlakk, the creation and “soul sister” of Chicagoan Terence Smith, is a queer black drag queen who dons a masculine look in her dresses and fishnets. No fake breasts here; she’s interested in gender confusion, not illusion.
Queer Nation/Chicago, an activist group that JettBlakk co-founded, asked Joan to run for Chicago?s 1991 mayoral race, for just the final three weeks of the campaign, in order to attract as much visibility as possible to queer life in Chicago. An absurd as idea as it was to run a drag queen against the Chicago Daley dynasty, Queer Nation bristled at the easygoing re-election farce and became determined to disrupt it however they could. JettBlakk rolled with the absurdity and embraced her freedom as a preposterous candidate to make speeches about universal healthcare, lowering taxes, the abolishment of parking tickets and the advent of gay marriage. In her own words, “Fuck Dick Daley, with my dick, daily.”
Was this queen really running for mayor? Of course not — but the visibility that her campaign brought to queer people and ideas in the local media was irresistible, and so Queer Nation decided to extend the farce towards the race for the U.S. Presidency. The purpose was not just to force mainstream journalists to address issues of queer identity, but to radically force a clash of ideas with gay community leaders less inclined to rock the boat of social norms.