I cannot stand any carnivalesque stuff so I would only join the former.
Exactly. Protests/demonstrations aren't supposed to entertain. Parades ARE. So I would go to the latter, but not the former.
Although I would make an exception for Lipstick Lesbian Mallwalkers.
SF LGBT Pride Day
- Thread starter Gryffindorian
- Start date
Depends on what kind of demonstration/protest it is. Often people are quite creative in dressing up and with their placards. There's also often music of some kind involved (very popular: drumming groups), either during the march or sometimes even at the endpoint of the rally. That's how I unintentionally got to see Nina Hagen live.
The enthusiastic insanity of the black bloc can also be entertaining if you're into that sort of thing.
A great rant by Joe Jervis, gay activist and owner of the Joe.My.God. site. Jervis has been running this piece every Pride weekend since 2005. He was inspired by hearing a gay man trash the parade as a bunch of "defectives." The whole piece is too long to post here, but here are excerpts:
Because even if Pride doesn't change many minds in the outside world, it's our PARTY, darlings. It's our Christmas, our New Year's, our Carnival. It's the one day of the year that all the crazy contingents of the gay world actually come face to face on the street and blow each other air kisses. And wish each other "Happy Pride!" Saying "Happy Pride!" is really just a shorter, easier way of saying "Congratulations on not being driven completely batshit insane!
I'm not worried what the outside world thinks about the drag queens, the topless bulldaggers, or the nearly naked leatherfolk. It's OUR party, bitches. If you think that straight America would finally pull its homokinder to its star-spangled bosom once we put down that glitter gun, then you are seriously deluding yourself. Next year, if one of the Christian camera crews that show up to film our "debauched" celebrations happen to train their cameras on you, stop dancing. And start PRANCING.
All you suburban, lawn mowing, corpo-droid homos out there, hiding behind your picket fences, the ones wringing your hands and worrying that Pride ruins YOUR personal rep, listen up. Do you think that straight Americans worry that Mardi Gras damages international perception of American culture? America, land of the free, home of "Show Us Your Tits!"? They don't and neither should we. Our Pride celebrations are just our own unique version of Mardi Gras, only instead of throwing beads, we throw shade.
[...]
I am proud of my people, the ACT-UPers, the Quilt makers, the Larry Kramers, the Harvey Fiersteins. I'm proud that I'm not constantly curled up into a ball on my bed, clutching photo albums and sobbing. And that happens sometimes, believe it.
[...]
I'll end this by making one final Jewish reference. Possibly you've heard the Jewish in-joke that sums up the meaning of all Jewish holidays? "They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat." My Pride version?
They wish we were invisible.
We're not.
Let's dance.
Watching Defectives
Because even if Pride doesn't change many minds in the outside world, it's our PARTY, darlings. It's our Christmas, our New Year's, our Carnival. It's the one day of the year that all the crazy contingents of the gay world actually come face to face on the street and blow each other air kisses. And wish each other "Happy Pride!" Saying "Happy Pride!" is really just a shorter, easier way of saying "Congratulations on not being driven completely batshit insane!
I'm not worried what the outside world thinks about the drag queens, the topless bulldaggers, or the nearly naked leatherfolk. It's OUR party, bitches. If you think that straight America would finally pull its homokinder to its star-spangled bosom once we put down that glitter gun, then you are seriously deluding yourself. Next year, if one of the Christian camera crews that show up to film our "debauched" celebrations happen to train their cameras on you, stop dancing. And start PRANCING.
All you suburban, lawn mowing, corpo-droid homos out there, hiding behind your picket fences, the ones wringing your hands and worrying that Pride ruins YOUR personal rep, listen up. Do you think that straight Americans worry that Mardi Gras damages international perception of American culture? America, land of the free, home of "Show Us Your Tits!"? They don't and neither should we. Our Pride celebrations are just our own unique version of Mardi Gras, only instead of throwing beads, we throw shade.
[...]
I am proud of my people, the ACT-UPers, the Quilt makers, the Larry Kramers, the Harvey Fiersteins. I'm proud that I'm not constantly curled up into a ball on my bed, clutching photo albums and sobbing. And that happens sometimes, believe it.
[...]
I'll end this by making one final Jewish reference. Possibly you've heard the Jewish in-joke that sums up the meaning of all Jewish holidays? "They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat." My Pride version?
They wish we were invisible.
We're not.
Let's dance.
Watching Defectives
Thanks for sharing that, Lady Eve, a really fantastic read.
We recently made the shift to more Americans being in support of gay rights than opposed. It's times like this I really wish my brother was still around...he would have been so proud of the progress this country is making.
We recently made the shift to more Americans being in support of gay rights than opposed. It's times like this I really wish my brother was still around...he would have been so proud of the progress this country is making.
Shared these in my faith in humanity thread, but they're also perfect for this thread. From a collection of inspiring Pride photos:
And best for last:
And best for last:
And a flag dancer is born. 
.
.
Sounds like fun.
It would be interesting to see an American version of this series, as U.S. have adapted TV shows, like The Office, etc.I don't go to the main pride events. What I learned early on is that they are really for a certain part of the community and not really for everyone.
Black pride events tend to be more more welcoming especially for those of us that are non-white.
That's just my observation.
Black pride events tend to be more more welcoming especially for those of us that are non-white.
That's just my observation.
Um, okay. So how exactly is an ethnic heritage parade more welcoming than an LGBT one? You realize, of course, that the Pride celebration is open for everyone regardless or sexual orientation. You don't have to be gay to watch the parade, and it's not like you're going to be turned away for being a heterosexual person.
I've been to parades in NYC that have had absolutely nothing to do with me (I'm not sure if there's ever been a parade that did! 
), I probably was very obviously an outsider at all times, yet nobody asked me to leave or even looked at me twice or anything like that. I think most parades are that welcoming. That's the whole spirit of a parade, isn't it? For everyone to have fun? You can't expect everyone in the crowd to be part of the group being celebrated. That would be statistically unlikely...
), I probably was very obviously an outsider at all times, yet nobody asked me to leave or even looked at me twice or anything like that. I think most parades are that welcoming. That's the whole spirit of a parade, isn't it? For everyone to have fun? You can't expect everyone in the crowd to be part of the group being celebrated. That would be statistically unlikely...
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Black Pride is for LGBT people of color. They were created because we tend not to be very welcome in the larger white LGBT community. So the Black Pride events tend to be very welcoming to LGBT people of color. Pride events may be OPEN to anyone...they are public after all. Open and welcoming are not the something.
Well, yes, since they were created for LGBT people of color, of course they would be very welcoming to LGBT people of color. All you're doing is stating a truism. I mean, if they were not welcoming of LGBT people of color, that'd be a problem.
But please understand that persons not part of the Black Pride community can and have felt the same way about Black Pride events, so your objection cuts both ways - and those persons are often times the same people that don't think segregating by race is really the answer to the problem - it just fosters more misunderstanding - particularly in the South where segregation and race have a strong cultural history. It's like I explained to my ex-boyfriend once. He didn't understand why I tend not to get along well with Southern black gay men but do better around those from other parts of the country. I had to explain our culture to him as Southerners (because my ex grew up in Iowa), and that I agreed, race shouldn't be a problem beyond some people like ketchup on their burgers and others prefer mustard - but in the South, sometimes, the inter-racial thing takes on some very discomforting overtones, and that with rare exception I'm not the one making it an issue. For example, my ex is a tall, muscular white guy with a baseball player/basketball player build. He's also a bottom. For some reason he seems to attract black men who seem to be mentally rehearsing the idea that top = dominant, ergo to have sex with my ex is to conquer whitey, for lack of a better way to put it. I wouldn't have any part of it, even if suggested as a role play thing, because to me, as a white Southerner who is honestly trying not to let race factor into the equation, that just brings up race and all the cultural baggage that goes with it, and frankly, I've gotten that sort of proposition myself - I don't find it attractive, and in fact am even more put off when I am made to feel like I'm the racist because I don't want to deal with it - um, no, it's not your skin color that is the issue, it's the insinuation for playing slave and master. I'm the guy that when he moved to Georgia a few years ago, had black hourly employees who called me "Mr" and then my first name, and I had to tell them to please not call me that, I am their boss, but I'm not their slave master (and my family never owned them in those days) and I don't buy into the etiquette of the Jim Crow era, please call me either by my first name alone or if they insist on calling me "Mr." please use my last name and not my first. So, the very people who say on one hand "race shouldn't be an issue" have very frequently been the ones dragging race into the equation, not me. My ex didn't quite "get it," until, a few months after our breakup, he took a trip down to Atlanta. When he got back, all he said to me was, "Remember that discussion we had about race and gays in the South." "Yeah." "Well, I didn't really understand what you were talking about until I went to Atlanta."
And I've been involved in gay politics and HIV service and education for a large part of my time since I came out 20 odd years ago, and, down here, there's a lot of infighting and territorialism going on between different parts of both communities. In the gay community we get a lot of tension between more conservative and moral liberal elements. Race tends to play a bigger role in HIV work, because the historically "gay" organizations and the historically "black" organizations are competing for pieces of the same pie. With respect to the latter, because frankly money for those organizations is involved, I can understand that and go along with some of it, but not the former. I think making race an issue, particularly by segregating events, isn't a long-term solution.
The way people treat you, the comments made, representations in the parade itself. Its an atmosphere. I'll give you an example, I was volunteering at a LGBT sheet fest here in Chicago last year. I was working a gate near the community center here. One of the workers from the center was outside helping. This group of drunk white gay guys walks past her and one of them shouts "get out of the way you fat black bitch!" His friends all laugh as they keep walking and another group of white gay guys witnessing this nearby also laughed. She cam up to me and the guy I was volunteering with and said "can you believe that?" and the guy I was working with, who happened to be an older white guy, said "sadly yes...I can believe it."
Thankfully the woman was a good natured type and just went on with her work...but it was illustrative of the type of crap that PoCs often have to put up with at "mainstream" LGBT events.
I've found that events by and for people of color are generally more welcoming. There seems to be less "attitude" and more friendliness and sense of community at these events.
Your sad experience of racism, not coincidentally also happening on the other side of the big pond, illustrates the problem of identity politics: many groups merely fight for their own interests but do not care about universal emancipation.
We need to get back to the days of the Old Left where people like MLK fought for racial equality, economic justice and the end of a criminal war. The Occupy movement which quickly established clear rules that forbid any form of discrimination might be the first little step into this direction.
We need to get back to the days of the Old Left where people like MLK fought for racial equality, economic justice and the end of a criminal war. The Occupy movement which quickly established clear rules that forbid any form of discrimination might be the first little step into this direction.
You are awesome.
In my experience, people think it's going to be much stranger than it actually is.
Our parade started* with the mayor (Rahm F@cking Emmanuel), then the governor, then some members of Congress. Next up were dozens of schools and churches. Then airlines, and Walgreens, and news anchors, and *for the first time* a contingent of active duty soldiers, and police, and firemen, and teachers.
*Actually the first thing I noticed, upon stepping outside, was this:
You know. I know that's your experience, and you're entitled to it, but it just doesn't jive with what I saw. There were thousands of black people at that parade. Thousands of latinos. Every color you could imagine.
My group of 15 included 2 girls born in Thailand, one from Burma, a South African, a first generation Filipino, 2 Indians, 2 black girls...And we didn't stand out.
Hiding in a park on the south side and segregating yourselves won't make things better. It's rather the antithesis of what the whole parade is about.
In my experience, people think it's going to be much stranger than it actually is.
Our parade started* with the mayor (Rahm F@cking Emmanuel), then the governor, then some members of Congress. Next up were dozens of schools and churches. Then airlines, and Walgreens, and news anchors, and *for the first time* a contingent of active duty soldiers, and police, and firemen, and teachers.
*Actually the first thing I noticed, upon stepping outside, was this:
You know. I know that's your experience, and you're entitled to it, but it just doesn't jive with what I saw. There were thousands of black people at that parade. Thousands of latinos. Every color you could imagine.
My group of 15 included 2 girls born in Thailand, one from Burma, a South African, a first generation Filipino, 2 Indians, 2 black girls...And we didn't stand out.
Hiding in a park on the south side and segregating yourselves won't make things better. It's rather the antithesis of what the whole parade is about.
With all due respect to you and Peacemaker...but its always that people that are not subject to the hostility that talk about segregation. Must be nice to fit in so easily but it seems ... problematic at best to suggest that those that do not should just endure the scorn. Again, must be nice...
And I'll tell you something else...it takes WAY more courage to be out and proud in that park on the South Side than it does to be hanging out in Boystown. If you really think about it...who's segregating from who?