Stuck Between A Rock and BLM

[Stringbean]

What to do when an oppressed minority finds itself in the crosshairs of a louder, less polite, and less scrupulous minority? Well, on Sunday, the soft-spoken, dignified gay community of Toronto found out: you get steamrolled. That’s right, it’s the old ugly duckling of our chronically self-oppressed sub-groups: Black Lives Matter. The Gay Pride Parade being held in Toronto made a point to show their solidarity with the Toronto chapter of Black Lives Matter. Having granted BLM “guests of honor” status along with their own float in the parade, it must have seemed like BLM was in the company of kindred spirits.

Well, what better way to show your appreciation than to stop your float, stage a sit-in, and set off smoke bombs, scaring the living daylights out of bystanders attempting to enjoy the joyous celebration. Nothing smells of joy like the sweaty pangs of nearby panic & potassium chlorate, amirite? What a glorious methodology to raise awareness. And, boy, are we all aware.

What, you may say, was the reason for this courageous upstaging of an event so minor in relation to your cause that most people didn’t even know you were there? Why, you see, the oppressive, privileged evil GAYS were discriminating against blacks and holding them down. Screwed by the man. Err, transgender former-man. Err, not-quite-sure-what-I-am-but-definitely-not-a-gender-conformed-man. But I digress.

You see, there was indeed a grand plan to all this totally necessary rudeness: blackmail. That’s right, nothing shows the moral imperative of your cause like upstaging an event you were invited to as a guest of honor, engulfing bystanders in harmful chemicals, and, oh yes, saying that you won’t budge until the event organizers acquiesce to a list of demands.

Among the highlights of this blackmai…I mean “list of demands:”

1. Double funding for Blockorama (Hmm, demanding money. Nice.)

2. “Prioritizing” black trans women, indigenous folk, and people from “vulnerable communities” in hiring. (Oooh, special treatment. I guess this means the gay community at large is no longer “vulnerable.” Way to belittle them during their own parade.)

3. Banning all floats sponsored by police for future parades. (A wonderful gesture of inclusivity.)

4. A mandatory town hall to be held in 6 months where Toronto Pride explains how it will meet all your entirely legitimate demands. (Yeah, we’ll see about that.)

Folks, how fucking stupid as shit do you have to be to ban law enforcement from having its own float when they are at the parade keeping people safe from lunatics like these BLM morons? It’s such idiocy as to render the reasonable person apoplectic. I think the LA Times said it best:

@LA Times

Defenders of Black Lives Matter insist that the gay rights movement was birthed in protest against police harassment at Stonewall, and in Canada, amid riots triggered by raids on a gay bathhouse. Gay people, thus, should indulge BLM in its anti-police agitation. But invoking Stonewall and similar episodes of historic police abuse only shows how far our two countries have come. In so many places around the world — Russia, and, most recently, Turkey — the police attack pride parades and arrest gay rights activists. In North America, police protect them.

Shame on you, Black Lives Matter. Grow the fuck up.

[andros]

Goddamn, they uppity.

[El_Kabong]

Damn that Bureau of Land Management. They’re even raising a ruckus in foreign countries now!

[Saint_Cad]

So Clive Bundy had a point?

[Kimstu]

Another op-ed with a somewhat different take from the OP’s linked op-ed:

Waiting twenty-five minutes is not suffering or being taken hostage. Claiming this during a protest by a community that has suffered greatly over the years, including being disproportionately carded and killed by police, is as insulting as it is ironic.

While white LGBT communities may have moved on, LGBT people of colour are still facing policing issues on a daily basis.

Also ironic? Complaints about a Black Lives Matter sit-in when they were the parade’s “Honoured Group” because of their history of direct action and police protests. […]

But here’s some context for people who say Pride should just be a celebration and not a police protest.

The first Pride ever was a protest against police brutality after New York’s Stonewall Inn was raided in 1969. Toronto staged a subsequent anti-police protest in 1981 when thousands took to the streets following the infamous bathhouse raids, an act that police only just apologized for last month. Though there had been small events in the 70s, this protest led to Toronto’s modern-day Pride movement. […]

The most notable thing to me, just a straight, white ally, about the BLM backlash is the lack of concern for more marginalized members of the community. It can obviously be tough being a white gay man and even tougher being a white lesbian but what about queer and trans minorities who are facing a host of intersecting prejudices, even from their Pride compatriots?

“I didn’t think the Pride parade was a venue to launch one’s concerns,” gay conservative Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy said on News 1010 on Monday morning, following up an anti-BLM article that might as well have had “uppity” in the headline.

“Black Lives Matter, rightly or wrongly, were the honoured group at pride, and I felt like they disrespected that,” she said. “It was about gay rights, not black rights. Gay rights.”

But the members of BLM: Toronto are fighting for both, and that’s what this brouhaha boils down to. The LGBT equality movement has been better for white people than it has been for people of colour because some folks are discriminated for more than just being LGBT. […]

LGBT rights have progressed because of protest and people who have benefited from those actions should look beyond themselves and consider the struggles of those still fighting because Pride is, always has been and always will be, political.

[bobot]

@Stringbean

What to do when an oppressed minority finds itself in the crosshairs …

“Itself”? You are one classy motherfucker.

[Folacin]

@bobot

@Stringbean

What to do when an oppressed minority finds itself in the crosshairs

…“Itself”? You are one classy motherfucker.

I can be as touchy as the next guy (not in a creepy sexual way (usually)) - what word would you have preferred there?

[Rysto]

Never thought I’d say this, but I’m with Stringbean here. Protesting against Gay Pride Toronto was a despicable and bigoted move by BLM Toronto.

[John_Mace]

@Rysto

Never thought I’d say this, but I’m with Stringbean here. Protesting against Gay Pride Toronto was a despicable and bigoted move by BLM Toronto.

Does Canada have a problem similar to the US wrt blacks and cops?

[Rysto]

@John_Mace

Does Canada have a problem similar to the US wrt blacks and cops?

Well, I don’t think that we have the same level of problem of killings by police officers. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that there’s still a racism problem in Canada’s police. I think that it’s very good that we have a group trying to raise awareness of the problem, but to do that by attacking the gay community is beyond the pale.

[BigT]

@Rysto

Never thought I’d say this, but I’m with Stringbean here. Protesting against Gay Pride Toronto was a despicable and bigoted move by BLM Toronto.

I wouldn’t necessarily go that far. But it was dumb as fuck. We are working really hard to let people know this isn’t just a basic anti-police protest. That Black Lives is what we are talking about. And you sure as hell are not going to garner sympathy when you protest at a place that was specifically honoring you.

The reason it’s not the place for it is not some idea that pride parades should be about celebration. It’s that you weren’t being fucking oppressed, even symbolically, by being there. You were being elevated. Protesting when you are the honored guests only makes you seem like spoiled children.

If you want people to think you are agitating for agitation’s sake, this is how you communicate that. The lack of awareness of how what you are doing affects your goals has to be understood. Not all publicity is good publicity for protestors.

We’re at a point where BLM is getting treated like Gamergate–people who ostensibly support something good, but people assume are really about something else. And what happened to Gamergate?

For fuck’s sake, pay attention to what message you are sending when you protest. That’s the point of a protest, not just fucking shit up to get on the news.

[Gatopescado]

@El_Kabong

Damn that Bureau of Land Management. They’re even raising a ruckus in foreign countries now!

When you have a thread with “rock” and “BLM” in the title, you kind of expect something else, don’t you?

[bobot]

@Folacin

I can be as touchy as the next guy (not in a creepy sexual way (usually)) - what word would you have preferred there?

I may have overreacted. But in my defense, I was responding to a Stringbean post, so I didn’t read the whole thing.

[watchwolf49]

Well … do black lives matter in Toronto? If they do (and this is entirely possible) then yeah they went too far.

The Black Lives Matter movement in a sense isn’t a national movement, there’s plenty of places and communities where the police do act without regard to skin color, places where black lives do matter. It’s a local movement, local to the places where black lives do not matter; like Flint, Michigan.

We shouldn’t hold all Black Lives Matter groups responsible for the misdeeds of a few assholes. Please, pay attention to your local District Attorney’s election race, this is where change begins. It’s up to you, the voter, to make it so.

The Gay Pride people wanted to be inclusive and show why diversity is important by inviting the homophobic community … just too funny …

[Ukulele_Ike]

Alton Sterling, followed closely by Philando Castile…spectacularly bad timing for an anti-BLM thread, stringbeanarino.

[levdrakon]

Are these the black lives that voted for the homophobic anti-gay prop 8 in California? Those black lives? The black lives that have been trying to remove police protection from gay pride events?

I’m a bit over it. They seem to enjoy biting the hand outstretched to them in friendship and solidarity. The more you embrace them, the more likely you’re going to get fucked. Seriously, no security at large gay pride events after what happened in Florida?

Someone should tell BLM that the reason gays have made so much social progress was by showing society they deserve it, not by being assholes every chance they got.

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

That dogshit chortling Garrison Keillor writing style, though.

[Dangerosa]

@Ukulele_Ike

Alton Sterling, followed closely by Philando Castile…spectacularly bad timing for an anti-BLM thread, stringbeanarino.

I don’t know…to play up the whole “we’ve gone overboard” I think you are “tone-policing.” His disappointment at having a once a year celebration of gay PRIDE hijacked has little to do with current events. And he is making a valid criticism.

YES, Black Lives Matter. YES, police brutality against black people is a huge problem - its abhorrent. YES, activist must stand up and scream and yell to continue to focus attention on it.

BUT, you don’t keep your allies by making it all about you all the time. Sometimes, it is about them. Sometimes it is about their wins, not your losses. Sometimes, instead of saying “you haven’t done enough” you need to make sure you say “thank you for what you have done, we’ve notice and its helped” Otherwise, you become that guy who doesn’t have friends because all he does is complain about his life and how no one ever does enough for him.

Even today, with two horrible shootings of black men by police, BLM needs to be aware that they are in danger of becoming the toxic friend of the activist set. If nothing we do is good enough for you, why should we try?

[levdrakon]

Gay cop writes open letter after Black Lives Matter demands ban on Pride police floats

Police officers are significantly represented in the LGBTQ community and it would be unacceptable to alienate and discriminate against them and those who support them. They too struggled to gain a place and workplace free from discrimination and bias.

I do not speak for the police, and I do not speak for the LGBTQ community. I speak as an individual, one who saw his first Pride, only to be excluded from the next.

Exclusion does not promote inclusion.

Chuck Krangle​

I suppose BLM will blacksplain to us why this guy is white and should therefore be denied a voice.

[elucidator]

…If nothing we do is good enough for you, why should we try?

Because pleasing them is not the point, not the issue. Justice is the point and the issue. There are always assholes who will attach themselves to worthy and valid causes to enhance their own sense of significance. There is no cause so sacred and so perfect that it can repel such attachments.

So far as i am aware, BLM has no central committee, no governing body that can endorse or deny any group of people who wish to claim the designation. They do not issue membership cards, they do not empower public spokespersons, there is no authority. As an entity, they don’t really exist, they are a cloud.

Which is to say, BLM in Toronto is BLM in Toronto, period. I have no doubt that reasonable persons of conscience and good will thought of themselves as BLM before this wretched decision was made, but not after. What BLM did or did not do in Toronto means reflects only upon BLM members in Toronto. Statements and positions of BLM Toronto have no significance outside of their tiny little sandbox.