On Touching, Where Tender Meets Tough

Abstract

In one of the most pivotal moments in Moonlight, the nowgrown Chiron visits his childhood friend, Kevin, who is now a chef. In this crucial reunion scene, two formerly incarcerated men, Kevin and Chiron, meet at a diner and reconcile through intimacy and touch. Knowing that Kevin was the cause of Chiron’s carceral past, we see a moment that stands contrary to hegemonic masculine expectations— as tenderness replaces anticipated revenge or animus. In this scene, the normative constructions of Black masculinity as decidedly violent and illustratively criminal are sharply contrasted to a relatively gentle, kind, and sensual Chiron. In as much as one can sense the pain, anguish, and perfidy in the weirdly, sometimes almost uncomfortable penetrating gaze between Chiron and Kevin, this scene illustrates something more commanding: the centrality of touch and touching between Black men. In this short article commemorating Moonlight, I want to reflect on the rhetorical force of “touch” between the Black men in Moonlight as a socially disorienting force against the backdrop of Black carceral animus. F O R U M