afropunk joburg: meet the queer mafia

By Emil Wilbekin

December 23, 2019

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY LEE-ROY JASON

Forged to form the foundations for a new kind of family and fortified through fashion and flair.

The Queer Mafia is not a house but a home where the most criminal act one could do is to be untrue to one’s self.

Like all Mafia’s we have a complex and ruthless behavioral code. That code firstly is to embrace one’s complex identity and not succumb to one-dimensional misrepresentation of self.

Secondly, be ruthlessly self. Basque in your difference so we can echo the same sentiment — we do not ask for recognition, we take it.

Whether it is through invasive dictation of love, restrictive career avenues or the imposition of dull cis-heteronormative ‘fashion’ trends, the suppression of queerness is well documented. Society has long sought to make the fabric that tailors human existence uniform.

The Queer Mafia, however, is cut from a different cloth. We wear our hearts on our sleeves. The seam, where community meets confidence. In this house, the expression is breathing and every breath breaks boundaries. Every boundary is an opportunity to breathe.

The world believes we need to prove ourselves. We do not. We needn’t. We *are* the proof. Proof of excellence. Proof of black Queer excellence. Proof that queerness and art are inextricably woven because art *is* Queer.

We are The Queer Mafia. Forged like family and fortified through fashion and flair!

The Queer Mafia will be participating in the Le Grand Ball and Vogue Nights Jozi at AFROPUNK JoBurg on December 30, 2019.