The Pride season is beginning with the first Pride in New England is May 5th in Northampton MA which will be followed by a new Pride in Bethel CT.
But all is not nice in this climate of hate; there have been pushback in communities where Pride events are being held.
Your Turn: It's not safe for LGBT people of color, and Phoenix Pride doesn't careThey bring up some very important issues. Pride should before everyone, not just for white middle class.
Your Turn: Trans Queer Pueblo interrupted last year's Pride parade because Phoenix Pride has turned its back on the LGBT community.
AZ Central
By Karla Bautista, Deybeth Ruiz and Crystal Zaragoza
April 3, 2018
The LGBTQ+ Pride tradition started in 1969, when Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Miss Major and others sparked an anti-police riot to challenge state violence against LGBTQ+ people. Today, as racist police departments and anti-LGBTQ+ and misogynist politicians target us, this legacy is vital.
We are a coalition of trans- and queer-led organizations building justice for black and brown communities in Phoenix. We continue Marsha, Sylvia and Miss Major’s legacy by inviting you to LGBTQ+ Justice Week, a new tradition that celebrates all our identities in the struggle toward a world where all LGBTQ+ people are free.
We interrupted last year’s Pride parade because Phoenix Pride had turned its back on the community.
Pride offers photo-ops for politicians but refuses to hold them accountable. Pride pays respect neither to the founding mothers of Pride nor to the native people upon whose land we march.There is a legacy from the early Pride events where they didn’t want anyone who could assimilate into society; they want only people of looked like white middle class straight people to march and sometimes I think that legacy is still with us.
Down in Mississippi they had a legal battle to fight before they were able to hold the Pride parade.
After Homophobes Tried to Stop It, Mississippi Pride Parade Attracts ThousandsYeah right… they are not bigots. That’s why it took legal action to hold the prade.
It was a long journey to this weekend's jubilant event.
The Advocate
By Ariel Sobel
March 27 2018
Weeks after the Starkville, Miss., city council initially denied LGBT organizers a parade permit, over 2,500 people marched this Saturday for the city's Pride event. The Pride celebration took place without incident, according to the Associated Press, and was the city's biggest parade in its history, reports the Starkville Daily News.
Starkville's city council originally denied the parade a permit in February, even though more than a dozen people spoke in support of Pride, in contrast to two residents who opposed the event. The outcome led to a federal lawsuit against the city, which prompted another vote on the issue. The council was in a 3-3 tie, which was broken by Mayor Lynn Spruill, who green-lit the parade
[…]
Opponents to the parade claim they aren't bigoted; resident Tim Cummings said being a veterinarian taught him that same-sex relationships are unnatural, allegedly due to antaomy. However, it has been scientifically proven that plenty of animals engage in homosexual mating and have been observed doing so for decades.
Down in Miami there was violence after the Pride parade.
Brutal attack of gay couple caught on camera after Miami PrideThe police made arrests in the case…
Police called it 'uncalled for and unnecessary'
Gay Star News
By Anya Crittenton
April 10, 2018
Unveiled surveillance footage shows a group of men brutally attacking a gay couple at Miami Pride this weekend.
Rene Chalarca and his boyfriend, Dmitry Logunov, were holding hands as they left the celebration. Outside of a public restroom, four men attacked them in an alleged anti-gay assault.
Another man, Helmut Muller, tried to intervene but he was knocked unconscious when one of the four men struck him and he hit his head on the pavement. He received four stitches at the hospital.
Suspects in attack after gay pride parade could be charged with hate crime, cops say
Miami Herald
By Carli Teproff, Kyra Gurney and David J. Neal
April 10, 2018
Four men turned themselves in to Miami Beach police on Tuesday afternoon in the case of a gay couple brutally attacked after the city’s gay pride parade.
The men surrendered through an attorney and have been charged with aggravated battery, according to the arrest reports. It is now up to the state attorney's office to decide whether to classify the attack as a hate crime, the Miami Beach Police Department said in a statement.
The attack occurred Sunday evening around 7:40 p.m. as two gay men identified in the police reports only by their last names, Logunov and Chalarca, left a bathroom area near Ocean Drive and Sixth Street following the parade. Logunov and one of the attackers, 21-year-old Juan Carlos Lopez, bumped into each other, according to the arrest reports. Lopez and his companions, Luis M. Alonso Piovet, 20; Adonis Diaz, 21; and Pablo Reinaldo Romo-Figueroa, 21, began to call the victims "maricones," an anti-gay slur in Spanish.
I began to lose interest in PRIDE many years ago. However due to social pressure I gave in and went along always trying to bring a message to the event. To me PRIDE had moved to far to the white middle-class idea assimilating ideas that were almost foreign to me . From the politician who parade their wares, to the large corporations that were destroying not only people but the very earth we lived on. My politicks were not the politicks of most of the organizers. A most terrible time in ourstories was PRIDE 1973. Yes, you remember it well. When our comrade Sylvia Rivera was booed on the stage by not only white middle-class men and women but feminists as well. In my opinion it began with the community that which it was at that time taking a wrong turn on the road to liberation when the white middle class gay men broke from the Gay Liberation Front and formed an exclusive Gay Activists Alliance which decided to work only on “Gay issues” which in turned were truly white middle class concerns. Lets just change the law. Let’s just transform societies institutions instead of toppling them. BS then BS now. No great change will come from the band-aid of reform. My stomach still growls. Crumbs do not satisfy me.
ReplyDeleteTrans Queer Pueblo, No Justice, No Pride are groups that I as a 70 year old white queer who still considers myself to be revolutionary support. Folks who are going up against years of BS by the Gay and Lesbian Community. Years of BS from the assimilationists who just want to snuggle up with power forgetting about all our people. My blog furbirdsqueerly has recently published 4 essays on queer response to power, the cops and the institutions. Trans Queer Pueblo has published this year a wonderful zine that was passed out at PRIDE in Phoneix. One page explains quite well why many of us say NO COPS AT PRIDE! You can check out the whole zine with a link included.
If anyone is interested in the 4 essays published on furbirdsqueerly here is the link https://furbirdsqueerly.wordpress.com/. Anyone wanting to take a look at the history of some of the fight back not only by our community but by others against the cops, against power and against the mainstream love fest with power take a scroll down our pages. Quite a lot of information is there so we suggest folks skim and read. Remember there are 4 essays.
My best to all in this fight for true liberation.