Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post - Black Lives Matter get police float kicked out of Pride Parade

peter12 · 07-05-2016, 11:08 AM

Pepsi is right that the Pride parades basically started as a "stick it the bougies, let's show them how weird we really are" kind of thing. I've watched a few docs, and read a few books, about Pride in the early/mid 80's in San Francisco. They weren't really intended to be family-friendly events. In fact, they were more or less preludes to the bathhouse orgy that followed soon after - ff you don't believe me, read "And the Band Played On" by Randy Shilts or F#####s by Larry Kramer.

The overall movement was antagonistic from the get-go. ACT-UP - an AIDS advocacy group - was basically the real forerunner of groups like BLM - the sit-down and confrontational style of negotiation was invented and perfected by them, and they were pretty effective from an activists' perspective.

The problem was, and is, with these kind of negotiation tactics is that they caricature their opponent. When you use bullying as a way to get things done, you tend to distort something that could be dealt with through reason and solidarity, into something fragmented, and disjointed. ACT-UP realized this in the mid-1990s after it was discovered that all of the drugs they had demanded for human trials without regulatory approval were basically ineffective, and that they had forced their opponents in the pharmaceutical, and government sector into a corner where the only effective response to ACT-UP was immediate acquiescence out of fear of retribution.

ACT-UP also caused the gay movement in major cities to break up into factions - further deteriorating the overall effectiveness of community engagement and cohesion - things like safe sex drives, home care networks etc... took a backseat to political activism, and grandstanding.

Some of the leadership of ACT-UP has later said they wished that they had worked to get closer with regulatory, government, and private sector organizations to increase cohesion within the gay community. They said that the cleavages wrought by their actions made the AIDS even worse, and also replaced hope with fear - something that the gay community clearly does not need more of.

BLM is the same. They are disrupting a community that has just started to heal. These tactics are unacceptable from a democratic, liberal, or community perspective.

07-05-2016, 11:08 AM	#34
peter12 Self Imposed Retirement Join Date: Jul 2002 Exp:	Pepsi is right that the Pride parades basically started as a "stick it the bougies, let's show them how weird we really are" kind of thing. I've watched a few docs, and read a few books, about Pride in the early/mid 80's in San Francisco. They weren't really intended to be family-friendly events. In fact, they were more or less preludes to the bathhouse orgy that followed soon after - ff you don't believe me, read "And the Band Played On" by Randy Shilts or F#####s by Larry Kramer. The overall movement was antagonistic from the get-go. ACT-UP - an AIDS advocacy group - was basically the real forerunner of groups like BLM - the sit-down and confrontational style of negotiation was invented and perfected by them, and they were pretty effective from an activists' perspective. The problem was, and is, with these kind of negotiation tactics is that they caricature their opponent. When you use bullying as a way to get things done, you tend to distort something that could be dealt with through reason and solidarity, into something fragmented, and disjointed. ACT-UP realized this in the mid-1990s after it was discovered that all of the drugs they had demanded for human trials without regulatory approval were basically ineffective, and that they had forced their opponents in the pharmaceutical, and government sector into a corner where the only effective response to ACT-UP was immediate acquiescence out of fear of retribution. ACT-UP also caused the gay movement in major cities to break up into factions - further deteriorating the overall effectiveness of community engagement and cohesion - things like safe sex drives, home care networks etc... took a backseat to political activism, and grandstanding. Some of the leadership of ACT-UP has later said they wished that they had worked to get closer with regulatory, government, and private sector organizations to increase cohesion within the gay community. They said that the cleavages wrought by their actions made the AIDS even worse, and also replaced hope with fear - something that the gay community clearly does not need more of. BLM is the same. They are disrupting a community that has just started to heal. These tactics are unacceptable from a democratic, liberal, or community perspective. Last edited by peter12; 07-05-2016 at 11:10 AM.