Blockorama

Any QPOC who attends Toronto Pride usually knows where, when and who's performing at Blockorama. It is a space when you enter, you immediately breathe a sigh of relief as you feel that sense of belonging. For many, it's the one space in which that lingering feeling of homesickness is finally pushed back. As we document the spaces, places and initiatives that were created by queer and trans black people, Blockorama is an essential one to remind everyone of it's place in queer history.

In 1999 Blockorama made its appearance as the very first black queer space in the Toronto pride festival in a parking lot across from the Wellesley subway station. Today it is an all day dance party and stage during Pride to celebrate Black Queer and Trans history, creativity and activism.

The idea for Blockorama came from Jamea Suberi, a Trinidadian lesbian, feminist, educator and activist in 1998. Suberi felt that the Pride parade bore a resemblance to Trinidad Carnival with its vibrant colours and colourful costumes but it lacked the presence of people of colour. She reached out to her friends Angela Robertson, Camille Orridge, Junior Harrison and Douglas Stewart, with the idea to create a Carnival type section in the Toronto Pride Parade called 'Pelau'  made up of primarily queer people of colour. This idea was shelved but it was determined by the group that this would be the year that there would be a larger more visible presence of Black Queer people at Pride. Then, Suberi brought the idea of a Blockorama, an all-day party with drag, steelpan, drummers, dancers and DJs, fashioned after a Trinidad 'Panorama' event.

In 1999 they formed a coordinating committee called Blackness Yes! This committee was made up of queer activists and feminists who were active in the women’s, anti-racism and wider LGBTQ movements in Toronto. They were part of a community who had marched against racist police violence, fought racism in the women’s movement and challenged sexism and homophobia in the Black community.  The Blockorama space was a way to reinsert Black diasporic queerness into Toronto Pride. 

""As Black diasporic queers, we have always occupied multiple spaces but have often experienced these spaces as restricting, invisibilizing and undermining of our Blackness and queerness."

Blockorama is an event that exists at the crossroads of intersectionality and it's an important reminder why visibility, inclusivity and safe spaces around the black queer community are not only worthy of protecting but are intrinsic and necessary to Toronto's queer black culture.

"Blocko shows us that we are not alone, that we are resilient and [that] we know how to have fun in a [world] where we were never meant to survive".

Blockorama has grown tremendously since 1998 and throughout those years, Blackness Yes! continued to host several events that traced Black diasporic queer and trans histories that affirmed and celebrated our visibility and activism. Blockorama has not been without its struggles to keep its place in Toronto Pride as for many years the space was undervalued, underfunded and shifted further and further away from the main hub of Pride festivities. The committee and community has tirelessly fought to keep this space as part of Pride and today, Blockorama remains a declaration of Black queer fearlessness, resilience, desire and power.

Sources:

R. Cassandra Lord in conversation with Jamea Zuberi, Blackness Yes! Blockorama: Making Black Queer Diasporic Space in Toronto Pride. Any Other Way: How Toronto Got Queer. 2017

Patrizia Gentile, ‎Gary Kinsman, ‎L. Pauline Rankin. We Still Demand!: Redefining Resistance in Sex and Gender Struggles. 2017