This essay explores how Black LGBTQ students use writing to translate and transmit African American vernacular language codes in their everyday lives. Through documenting how students experience and interpret homophobia through the prism of African American vernacular English (AAVE), I demonstrate how some use language and literacy practices to critique and perform dominant gender behaviors reflected in their community. I theorize a Black queer rhetoric as a framework for understanding and nuancing the discursive limits of African American vernacular English

This essay explores Black male literacy practices as institutional critique at a large Midwestern land grant university. Through documenting a student’s process of reinstatement at his university, I demonstrate how vernacular perspectives, language, and networking strategies are used for developing self-efficacy and critical literacies. Black college males can use critical literacies to effectively navigate asymmetrical power structures at predominately White universities.