What Becomes Possible When “Y/Our Slip is Showin?”: Practicing Reflexivity to Preserve Spirit

Abstract

What pains and possibilities reside behind and emerge from mask wearing? This performative essay uses the Black idiom, “your slip is showin’” to ruminate upon masks, masking, mobilizing spirit, and their symbiotic possibilities. In Black vernacular, the metaphor of a showin’ slip, is an error, an unintended reveal. An undergarment believed to conceal what lies beneath clothing, it offers a boundary, usually between stockings and a skirt or dress. A slip ensures opacity. Organized around this metaphor, this essay presents four auto/ethnographic moments, from a larger emergent auto/performance text “When Crisis and Sprit Meet Inside a Seasoned Grl” to explore dialogics between physical masking, spiritual uncovering, and showin’ of the slip. Ultimately, this essay asserts the showin’ slip as a productive transgression for meditating upon and enlivening our interpersonal interactions during crisis.