"In these times—and all times—daily living is a radical act of resistance if you happen toexist in the world as a suspicious boy, fag and sissy, threat, as a Black man. The onlydemise that we should now desire is that of the racist imaginary that has and continuesto construct and constrict us." —Darnell L. Moore, 2012

"Because in fact we are not noble. We are cowards, hypocrites. Hysterical in our hatredand ignorance, seeking to cast aspersions and impose ostracism via state and socialpersecution—death sentences—upon those we consider already damned." —Thomas Glave, 2005

"How does it feel to be a problem?" —W.E.B. Du Bois, 1903

As a society, our language is imbued with meaning. The words black gay man together carry so much weight and have the power to conjure strong, often mythical, ideas. These myths permeate the popular imagination to such an extent that they yield to societal constructions ofwhat it means to be black, queer and male.

Darnell L. Moore in "Black Manhood and the Racist Imagination: On Trayvon Martin and the twoUn-named Black Men Attacked in Texas," writes on this imagination, correlating how Trayvon Martin and two perceived queer, unnamed black men fall victim to a perpetrator's gaze for having problem, "suspicious bodies."

These portraits are the product of a collaboration with black queer men to whom I posed a single question: What do you think people think of you as a black queerman? Employing a device popularised by British photographer Gillian Wearing, I thus tasked these men to write their responses on large blank placards and photograph holding them.

My goal is to challenge and deconstruct the myths surrounding black masculinity, blacksexuality and blackness.