Black Lives Matter get police float kicked out of Pride Parade

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Yeah but they could have been much more polite about their civil disobedience, don't you think?

In my experience the internet generally reacts to protests in two ways:

Civil disobedience = inconsiderate, exclusionary, dbags
Peaceful protesters = unemployed, slacktivist, hippy losers

[peter12]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I'm white, upper-middle class, ignorant, and liberalish too, Pete. I'm not a radical seer, and I know for a fact you are better than dismissing my world view as some attempt at outing myself as some unique radical. If you're not better than that, then the multiple PMs we've exchanged, even the ones where you praised the struggle of the gay community, where we've discussed things in context of your religious beliefs, were basically meaningless garbage. And that would sadden me.

My opinion is going to be different then a few posters regarding "identity politics". Obviously.

You get straight indignant when non-religious folk talk about religion in a way you don't like. But a gay person can't share their opinion on a identity politics issue directly related to the gay community without being labelled as some wannabe radical? Good to know.

I got called a jerk for responding to being called a regressive liberal who is a danger to a converged society, and a pompous radical seer for giving an opinion as a gay person on a gay politics issue. Fun, thanks you two.

But also, a genuine thanks to Cliff for being able to disagree with a bit of snarl and still not taking it personal.

Well, Pepsi, you are obviously distorting my views a little bit here, and I don't think it's very fair.

I spent quite a bit of time and effort on page 2 of this thread explaining why I don't agree with BLM's tactics. I did so with a clear nod towards the history of the gay movement, and its evolution away from confrontation, and antagonism, so I don't appreciate it when I am told that I can't speak my piece because I am somehow entitled or I don't understand gay politics.

Clearly, I do understand gay politics a little bit - for personal reasons that I will not disclose. I can't go through all that effort just to have it dismissed as "oh you are just a straight, middle-class homophobe" and you just cannot understand what I am going through.

As you have noted, I am very sympathetic, and indeed, appreciative of the gay movement's struggles over the last 30 years. I voice this often in my personal life, and in my social circles. For a white, Christian, hetero-married person to do this should speak to the success of Pride inclusiveness, and not to the divisive tactics of activist aggression emulated by BLM.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

Nope, I just know it's not my place to tell them how to handle their struggle.

You don't see the hilarity that you, peter12 the straight white Christian crusader, a part of literally the most entitled and well off group of people in the world let alone north America, is upset because these uppity blacks aren't protesting the way you see fit. If they just knew their place and did as you said things would be fine, right?

Uppity blacks? So you have to accuse me of racial parochialism to make your point? Weak.

[monkeyman]

Wouldn't they be better off walking with the police in the parade? It seems they're more content to try and drive a wedge between the two groups. Good luck ever being asked to participate in anything else.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

I don't take any of this stuff personally. If we were having this discussion in a pub, I'd be buying the next round. And I hope others take it in the same spirit.

I love argument. For me, it is part of the essence of being human. Obviously, a lot of people disagree, and this makes me happy.

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by peter12

Uppity blacks? So you have to accuse me of racial parochialism to make your point? Weak.

Why Peter, no one is accusing you of anything. Merely inferring from the information you've provided how you feel. You know, doing something like this

This sounds like a smug straight white person trying to justify everything at the cost of nothing.

I truly do love your work but you always insist on complaining when the same standards you attempt to apply to everyone else are applied to you. It's not a fatal character flaw and I'm sure you'll fix it if you work on it some more.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by monkeyman

Wouldn't they be better off walking with the police in the parade? It seems they're more content to try and drive a wedge between the two groups. Good luck ever being asked to participate in anything else.

I mean in a perfect world, yes. However we live in a world where certain segments of the population see the police as violent, oppressive, agents of the state. Try asking a bunch of posters here if they'd even walk beside the NDP in a parade.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by rubecube

I mean in a perfect world, yes. However we live in a world where certain segments of the population see the police as violent, oppressive, agents of the state. Try asking a bunch of posters here if they'd even walk beside the NDP in a parade.

Sure, I would. Whatever. I just don't know what I am doing at a parade, period.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by rubecube

The whitewashing of the identity politics, which was used by certain groups to get to the progress we're at today, under the banner of liberalism is pretty insulting to said groups.

Sorry, I don't see it that way. Black Americans made far more progress under the leadership and tactics of Martin Luther King, who was a genuine liberal who wanted blacks to be treated no differently than other Americans, than they did once the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, and Angela Davis seized the spotlight. And it bears keeping in mind that those latter groups failed miserably in their agendas of overthrowing the American government and setting up autonomous black states.

Anti-obscenity laws that prohibited references to homosexuality were rolled back under the banner of the freedom of unpopular speech, another liberal value.

Ending the systemic discrimination against natives in Canada was a liberal project. They gained the right to vote, etc. within the legal framework of Canada, which could not sustain the practice of treating them differently from other Canadians.

The problems we're faced with now are not legalistic. They're problems of poverty, of social segregation, and of cultural attitudes. These are not easy problems to address, especially as there's fierce disagreement over the source of the problems and the best way to redress them. But they won't be resolved by turning our backs on the liberal principles that drove the tremendous progress of the last 50 years. Identity politics is a siren call to tribalism and the dubious comforts of us vs them. It's folly.

[ResAlien]

Mandatory drug sentencing with disproportionate sentences for crack vs cocaine is just one example of how this is still a legal issue. The BLM movement and addressing what is essentially the state sanctioned murder of the black community seems like a legal issue as well. Rodney King wasn't the exception nor was it a turning point, it was just caught on camera. Freddie Grey, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, no indictments or not guilty.

[peter12]

EDIT: Missed your response to Cliff's post.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Sorry, I don't see it that way. Black Americans made far more progress under the leadership and tactics of Martin Luther King, who was a genuine liberal who wanted blacks to be treated no differently than other Americans, than they did once the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, and Angela Davis seized the spotlight. And it bears keeping in mind that those latter groups failed miserably in their agendas of overthrowing the American government and setting up autonomous black states.

Anti-obscenity laws that prohibited references to homosexuality were rolled back under the banner of the freedom of unpopular speech, another liberal value.

Ending the systemic discrimination against natives in Canada was a liberal project. They gained the right to vote, etc. within the legal framework of Canada, which could not sustain the practice of treating them differently from other Canadians.

The problems we're faced with now are not legalistic. They're problems of poverty, of social segregation, and of cultural attitudes. These are not easy problems to address, especially as there's fierce disagreement over the source of the problems and the best way to redress them. But they won't be resolved by turning our backs on the liberal principles that drove the tremendous progress of the last 50 years. Identity politics is a siren call to tribalism and the dubious comforts of us vs them. It's folly.

Come on Cliff, everything from race riots to sit-ins were as key to the civil rights movement as Dr. King's speeches, and those were about as clear-cut examples of identity-based civil disobedience as there's ever been. Do you truly believe that Stonewall wasn't a monumental moment in the gay rights movement? You can't sit there and talk about anti-obscenity laws, but ignore anti-sodomy laws, which were 100% used to target gay people.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Come on Cliff, everything from race riots to sit-ins were as key to the civil rights movement as Dr. King's speeches, and those were about as clear-cut examples of identity-based civil disobedience as there's ever been. Do you truly believe that Stonewall wasn't a monumental moment in the gay rights movement? You can't sit there and talk about anti-obscenity laws, but ignore anti-sodomy laws, which were 100% used to target gay people.

I believe the anti-sodomy laws were rescinded well before the 1970s in Canada and England. Anyway, talking about America, and the other Anglo democracies is really comparing apples and oranges, which is Cliff's main point here. But you are right to say that MLK was far more radical than Cliff gives credit. Near the end of his life, he was talking about class politics from a Marxist perspective. That said, he was also a Baptist minister, a philanderer, a plagiarist, maybe one of the best modern democratic public speakers, and a strong believer in the American Founding.

As they say... only in America.

They have an activist culture, they have a political crab pot, and they have much higher levels of social dysfunction. That isn't the way Canadian political culture works, and it is why so many of us oppose the importation of such aggressive methods.

Now, we can have a talk about social injustice, and how that can be addressed, but let's not mistake opposition for identity politics activism for racism, homophoba, white middle-class insouciance or whatever. You should know by now that many of us on the other side of these things tend to care a lot about those things, but maybe just not the chosen method.

EDIT: A lot of this is why I choose to say I am a conservative rather than a liberal. "You" - rube, Pepsi et al. - are right. There is something ridiculous to the liberal notion of "can't we all just get along." It is an important dictum, but one that depends upon a very fragile social fabric. Clearly, there are social injustices that have gone unaddressed for so long as to make the continuation of that fabric to be tenuous at best. The future forward is uncertain.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by peter12

Now, we can have a talk about social injustice, and how that can be addressed, but let's not mistake opposition for identity politics activism for racism, homophoba, white middle-class insouciance or whatever. You should know by now that many of us on the other side of these things tend to care a lot about those things, but maybe just not the chosen method.

I think my main issue with Cliff's ideology here is that white liberalism has never been naturally inclusive to all. Maybe in theory it was (even that's debatable going back to Locke, etc.), but it never has been in practice. Marginalized groups have always had to force their way into the discussion, and civil disobedience has generally been the best avenue to do so. Telling marginalized groups how they should try to get involved in the conversation may not be explicitly racist, homophobic, etc., but it can often unintentionally have the elements of the dominant/privileged class attempting to dictate terms to the oppressed/underprivileged class.

[icecube]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

I'm just in it to smell my own farts.

We had a perfectly good thread celebrating that too, until the powers that be took that away. Power to the people!

[icecube]

QUOTE=rubecube;5828879]I think my main issue with Cliff's ideology here is that white liberalism has never been naturally inclusive to all. Maybe in theory it was (even that's debatable going back to Locke, etc.), but it never has been in practice. Marginalized groups have always had to force their way into the discussion, and civil disobedience has generally been the best avenue to do so. Telling marginalized groups how they should try to get involved in the conversation may not be explicitly racist, homophobic, etc., but it can often unintentionally have the elements of the dominant/privileged class attempting to dictate terms to the oppressed/underprivileged class.[/QUOTE]

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by rubecube

In my experience the internet generally reacts to protests in two ways:

Civil disobedience = inconsiderate, exclusionary, dbags
Peaceful protesters = unemployed, slacktivist, hippy losers

Ahh, you're looking at it far too narrowly, Rube. Occupy Calgary, for instance, were inconsiderate, unemployed, exclusionary, slactivist, unemployed, hippy losers.

[ben voyonsdonc]

I'm of two minds on this one.

I don't know if this was the best method for BLM to accomplish their goals. Backing Toronto Pride into a corner certainly made them sign the document but I don't believe that it reflected particularly well on BLM.

However, I believe that Pride has become a place for politicians to burnish their LGBTQ bona fides and as such, Pride itself has lost an important part of it's raison d'etre - activism. I think that it has become a corporate event that (while a lot of fun) has stripped away much of what Pride is all about.

Pride has a radical history. It was a way to stand up and say we are here, we are queer, and we aren't going away. There is much to celebrate for LGBTQ these days but sadly, there are still large number of LGBTQ who struggle - particular those of colour. QPOC (queer people of colour) face an intersection of race and sexuality and as such, their experience as a member of LGBTQ community is quite a bit different than white members of the LGBTQ. I think it is important that LGBTQ remember that while we have made progress, that progress has been much slower for many members of our community.

[ben voyonsdonc]

I also don't necessarily think that excluding the police from the parade will meet the goals of BLM. What may have been more effective is to push for a "summit" of LGBTQ leaders of colour with members of the police to discuss issues around race and policing.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Are people not aware that Pride was basically sabotaged years ago by capitalism and opportunistic politicians? There's been a massive backlash going on in the gay community for quite a few years against the Pride movement.

I would argue that Pride being "cool" with capitalists and politicians is a good thing. If associating yourself with the Pride brand is mainstream enough that you are better off supporting it than not, that means we've turned a huge corner.

How can that be a bad thing? I mean, isn't that the ultimate goal? To be exploited as consumers like the rest of the us?