BLM sit-in stuns Toronto Pride parade
2016John Wilson 2016-08Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 10 →
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The intervention by Black Lives Matter at the annual Toronto LGBTQ Pride march held on July 3 exploded into massive media coverage that blew past every thing else related to Pride Week. BLM’s 25-minute sit-in protest at a major intersection, at the head of the parade, and in support of nine demands presented to Mathieu Chantelois, Pride’s Executive Director, will continue to resonate for a long time.
The nine demands relate to strengthening material support and real participation in decision-making in Pride for Blacks and other marginalized communi ties. Only one demand—to stop police floats in the march—was sensationalized by the corporate media. The rest were largely ignored.
BLM asked additionally for solid financial support for the Blackness Yes group, who staged Blockorama, and for a central and fully supported stage for Black Queer Youth. They also want Indigenous, Black, trans people, and those with disabilities to have better ac cess to paid Pride positions, plus the return of the South Asian stage.
The response by the LGBT “establishment” was sad ly predictable.
Chantelois accepted BLM’s demands, in writing, but immediately repudiated them once the march re sumed. He said that he signed only to end the protest. Although there was significant support for BLM in the media and the social media brouhaha that followed, there was a tsunami of outrage that “they” delayed “our” march. This kind of response went from stun ningly ignorant expressions of white privilege to out right racism.
BLM co-founder Janaya Khan reported receiving a large volume of hate mail. Despite its largely queer and trans, predominantly female leadership, BLM was viewed as an outsider and intruder, despite having been given the symbolic status of “honoured group.” Apparently, if a group is designated “honoured” it is expected to shut up and behave.
Even though BLM was recognized for its fight against police racism and brutality (including an ongoing se ries of wanton cop killings of Black people), the as similationists can’t grasp why minority communities would feel intimidated by a massive, privileged police accommodation line of the Pride bureaucracy. Toron to Police Chief Saunders’ supposedly historic “apol ogy” for 1981 is nothing of the sort. He expressed “re gret”—the word apology was missing in action.
No such regret was expressed for the multitude of actions taken by cops since then, not only against the queer population, but against racialized minorities, residents of low-income ghettoes, street people, and sex workers, all groups that are inevitably interrelat ed and should seek alliances against their oppressors. The myth that the police leopard has changed its spots is destroyed by the cops’ arrogant refusal to stop de fending the blatantly racist practice of “carding.”
It is past time for queer activists to ignore the class role of the police. When the first force was estab lished, in not-so-merrie England, its role was explicit ly to protect the privileged. That remains its core func tion in contemporary capitalist society—to “serve and protect” the rule of the tiny, obscenely rich minority, and their state institutions.
BLM-TO’s Pride protest should open a discussion about serious issues that have been bypassed by the cravenly assimilationist elites that dominate expres sion among LGBT people, and renew interest in the queer liberationist perspective from which Pride orig inated. n