Are You Quare?

Rod 2.0 informs his readers of a new anthology devoted to Black Queer Studies where the neologism "quare" is posited as a replacement for the "queer" construct. African Americans in particular have generally been perceived as rejecting queer for other non-White identified terms of non-heterosexuality like "same-gender loving" (often abbreviated "SGL") or "down-low." Don't get me started on the clinical "men who have sex with men" (MSM) term!

Anyway, I have no problem whatsoever with Queer. My initial reaction to "quare" is decidedly negative. Apparently it comes from a Southern drawl-affected pronunciation of "queer" by E. Patrick Johnson's grandmother! Interestingly, quare is also an alternate spelling for queer used in Ireland meaning "slightly off-kilter." I actually don't have much against Johnson for finding a word that resonates for him more genuinely than "queer" to define his identity and I applaud his project of promoting its use (fairly successfully, it seems in some LGBTQ studies circles) but I find it hard to believe it would achieve a common colloquial usage. But then again, who thought "crunk" would reach the masses? English, she is a strange beast!