Why A Sacred Black Body Is Known As The Blues Body

In smoky backwoods juke joints, blues music held space for Black grief, sensuality, rage, and faith. Blues was an invitation for our ancestors to reinvent themselves amid Jim Crow’s anti-Black laws and respectability politics.

The stress of being seen as “respectable” created an embodied, hypervigilant identity that our ancestors used to police each other. This policing often happened at church, especially through the sexual shaming of girls and women. But the church is also where the Blues Body was born.

Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas defines a Blues Body as a Black person, especially a Black woman or queer person, who fully embraces their body. Douglas believes a Blues Body resists oppressive systems, is actively anti-capitalist, and recognizes the sacredness of sensuality. 

A Blues Body works to disrupt anti-Black spaces and rhetoric by reclaiming itself as a living, breathing, feeling body sanctified in spirit through acts of pleasure. 

Douglas believes that we can only eliminate the legacy of respectability politics still seen throughout Black church culture through embracing our Blues Bodies. 

There’s a difference between respecting each other and using “respectability” to police each other. The world doesn’t need more cops. 

Blues Bodies are Black people existing at the crossroads of “sacredness” and “resistance.” We must recognize our sacredness and use it to fuel our resistance. Let’s meet at the crossroads.