Today I had the extreme pleasure of being invited to be an embedded Blogger with the OccuPrid Parade Crashers. Occupride inserted themselves after the Dykes on bikes and was there to demand:
- an alternative to the commercialized, streamlined and pre-packaged events that limit your choices of how you honor and celebrate Pride.
- the kind of sponsorships and support that better reflect the ideals, values and diveristy of the communities that make up the rainbow of Pride.
- at a spectacle we're just spectator, but at a party we are participants, and we'd like to head back home feeling like a Community, not a Commodity.
"When I was young, I never thought I was going to be part of Gay History -- I didn't even expect that gay history would be in existence. So there's a lot of joy in my heart to see the 30th anniversary of Stonewall. You know what was beautiful about that night? To see the brother and sister stand as a unified people. But I get depressed when this time of yearcomes around: for 30 years I have been struggling and fighting, and still feel like an outcast in the gay community." -Sylvia Rivera 1951-2002
COMMUNITY:
- to celebrate and honor those who took to the streets before us
- to protect the gains we've made in our diverse communities
- to support those still struggling for freedom and justice
- to open whatever barriers keep us from celebrating each other today and tomorrow
- to practice building community.
The pride celebration comes from the roots of rebellion, it is our history, is is our past, and the struggle continues. So we must Occupy Pride. We must honor our radical roots. We must tear down the barriers that divide us and hold us back, we must build and nurture an inclusive community, celebrating our forgotten histories and those of us excluded from corporate Pride. Together we will reclaim the parade, bringing it back to its orgins: a march for the liberation of all oppressed peoples! Housing, health care, living wages,, porotection from discrimination - human rights are queer rights! There are no spectators!
This is about Pride, not profit.
We are a movement, not a market.
We are community, not commodity.
We walked down the street, a chant exchoed down the cement valley of Market Street, We are Here, We are QUEER, Don't Fuck with us, we're Fabulous! The crowd cheered. The Occupride banner waved in the light wind of blowing up Market street. A wall of metal Police barricades separated the marchers from the observers. This was not an inclusive march, it was more like being an animal in a cage at the zoo! And I was one of the animals. More chants, more cheers!
People were reaching over the barricades reaching for the flyers being passed out. More chants. The Occupride stopped and read a press release about why they were there. More speeches, and one of the speakers asked the marchers to sit down and hold up the parade. The crowd was not having this, they started chanting parade, and thi8s unplanned, impromptu stunt got the crowd to start BOOING, out brothers and sisters booing us!
Quickly the megaphone was removed from this persons hand and the delegation was moved on down market street, chanting. Disaster diverted.
The Pride celebration has become increasingly commercialized, co-opted by corporate intersts that use our struggle for liberation as a market for commodities and as a way to boost profit. These interests - the 1% - parade status quo candidates and parties for our consumption, wearing a mask of progressive LGBT equality while marginalizing and criminalizing the poor and disempowered. In doping so they seek to divide our community, catering only to those of us with money to spend; but the LBGTQI community is more than the affluent, we are also the disempowered, the homeless, the sick, the sufferers of discrimination and violence.
New new chant echo'ed from the buildings, WE'RE HERE, WE'RE QUEER, AND WE ARE NOT GOING SHOPPING!
The crowd cheered, the marchers strolled on!
MESSAGES - CeCe McDonalds
There were many messages in the signage that people held, one important one that should be highlighted and remembered is about CeCe. I knew nothing of the story of CeCe, so I asked a marcher and a friend about it, seems that CeCe and some friends, all of them African-American were leaving a store and walked in front of a tavern where they were called faggots, niggers and chicks with dicks. CeCe approached the group and told them that she could not tolerate hate speech. Someone smashed a glass into CeCe's face, puncturing her cheek. A fight broke out, during which one of the attackers, Dean Schmitz was fatally stabbed. The only person arrested that night was CeCE. She has now plead guilty to murder in exchange for a 41 month sentence. It is a sad story, and smacks of discrimination, and transgender hate and homophobia. So we remembered CeCe, and carried banners in her honor.
We marched on spreading our messages, and trying to remind people about our roots as a rebellion, about our struggle for equality, and how even today our community is still under attack. If one of us is under attack, it is an attack on us all. Yes, we have made a lot of gains, but there still is a lot of work to be done! And we must choose our allies well, because when we make deliberate choice, we make a better future for us allcorporations are not our allies, and as a dear friend once told me, "Corporations either make you fat, steal from you, or make you less of an individual, and always try to instill a false sense of happiness!" Change start with you!