Pride or Politics?
Spectrum Street Epistemology in New York City
In this Street Epistemology discussion, I’m joined by Charles Love, Corinna Cohn, and Maud Maron. We begin with the claim: “The best explanation for why straight people support gay pride is because supporting white pride is taboo.” Our culture has been damaged by the infiltration of invasive ideologies, particularly in how we approach "pride”.
Can white people express pride in their race, or is pride reserved only for accomplishment? What would happen if someone publicly declared pride in being white? Is it possible to be proud of an immutable characteristic? These questions highlight the cultural divide around racial pride.
We also explore the nature of pride events. Would these events be more authentic if they were predominantly gay, rather than overwhelmingly featuring T&Q (transgender and queer) representation? If more gays and lesbians attended, would the focus shift to sexuality versus the current trend of promoting transgender ideology?
Additionally, we question the corporatization of pride events. Have these celebrations been hijacked by corporations pushing an agenda? Why aren’t US corporations celebrating gay pride in the Islamic world? Is the gay and lesbian community being sidelined by the dominance of T&Q? Should these groups separate to preserve the original message of pride?
This discussion challenges us to think critically about identity, activism, and the changing landscape of pride in modern culture.
I wish to clarity for readers a few things about Lesbian and Gay events which show how the political movement has been utterly co-opted by non-Gay and non-Lesbian forces over the decades. If you have a moment, click the link I added for a view on actual information from early Lesbian and Gay Freedom, or Liberation Parades.
https://www.bolerium.com/advSearchResults.php?action=search&orderBy=relevance&category_id=0&keywordsField=gay+parade
In 1980, if you went to a Gay or Lesbian Parade perhaps in LA, it was called the "Lesbian and Gay Freedom Day Parade". At the time, you might have seen me marching in the parade, and a similarly named parade in Houston, in the "Gay Freedom Band". The link I attached a link to my friends at Bolerium Books, which has a remarkable collection of Ephemera, including Lesbian and Gay event posters, brochures, and other printed material. Internet is not an archive of Lesbian and Gay life, not even close, and Wikipedia has remarkably false information in this historical front.
The focus - freedom, liberation continued from the 60's through to almost the end of the 90's, but you can see from pamphlets that by 1997, in San Francisco, it became the the Lesbian / Gay / Bisexual / Transgender Pride Parade in San Francisco.
Originally of course idea was to celebrate Lesbian and Gay liberation - that we could enjoy our First Amendment rights of free association, freedom of the speech, and could not be arrested, imprisoned, fined, and in some states forced into emasculation, chemical castration, lobotomy, or psychological conversion. These were ever-present dangers, even after the events of the 60's, particularly Stonewall. Even as late as the 2000's, men could be arrested and imprisoned for soliciting other men for sex, for instance in Texas. That, at least is over now, and we enjoy true Freedoms. Since 2014, that included the Freedom to marry. Coincidentally, it also freed non-lesbian and non-gay people from many misconceptions and fears, and allowed everyone to operate on a relatively even keel, or relative equality. We achieved in great part "Freedom From" along the lines of Isaiah Berlin.
Unfortunately, then a huge number of Gay men died in the '80s from HIV/AIDS, including virtually all political leaders, and as people can see daily, lack of leadership has ghastly consequences. Every gay friend I had was dead by 1990 in LA, which seems amazing as I write it today. Lesbians soldiered with their side of leadership, but by 1991 they were being 'colonized' by heterosexual men. The turning point event was at Mitchfest (a Lesbian festival) was challenged to include men, to the point of active parallel protests by men in 1995. These were men who claimed to be female of course, but also claimed solidarity with LGB. Most if not all Gay men were pretty happy to have Lesbians go off and have their own bars and events, and most Lesbians were totally happy to have Gays go off and have their own bars and events. This freedom was not to last however.
What this then gradually mutated into in the 90's was the encroachment of 'queer', and 'transgender' into the political movement, and the belief that the events not only should celebrate freedom, but the 'A' word made it's way - 'affirmation'. It wasn't enough to be able to go to a bar without being arrested, or being able to buy a magazine, the direction was that there must be positive affirmation that everything lesbian and gay - and bisexual - and queer - and trans - and whatever - must be positively affirmed, ceaselessly, with rainbow.
Events at Mitchfest were the beginning of the end as gradually the L&G movement started to erode, with encroachment primarily by heterosexual men. By 2014 of course, 20 years later, with the advent of Lesbian and Gay marriage, the vacuum left by an entire generation of gay men as well as the lack of apparent need for political support in protection of young lesbians and gays, as well as for job protection and housing, the movement turned inside out.
Now, most if not all gay and lesbian political institutions deny the existence of homosexuality, or critique it as some sort of genital bias, and level the same critiques used back in the 60's and 70's to promote ideas of conversion of (particularly young) gays and lesbians into functional heterosexuals using emasculation, chemical castration, and psychological conversion (operant conditioning). This comes of course from a cabal of men (the entire board, note) of WPATH building on the success of destruction of Lesbian life started at Mitchfest to propagate an astonishingly retrogressive and malevolent fetishism on the world dressed as "Pride", affirmation, and gladness.
When you comment on "pride parade" vs "white pride", realize that it has as much to do with Lesbian and Gay freedom as "BLM" and "DEI" has to do with racial desegregation and civil rights.
It is the antithesis of the original movement, a groteseque sad parody leaving must of us cold.
Yes, the corporatized left of Occupy Wall Street was a major factor in the rise of Woke ideology. The corporate oligarchs couldn't actually adopt the economic critique of the left and instead adopted the luxury beliefs of identity politics.