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Re: Happy Pride Day!
Sun, June 29, 2008 - 2:45 PMThanks! but today I'm boycotting gay pride here in Chicago for a few reasons. Mostly because I'm not feeling all that well and diarrhea sucks when you are away from the toilet..Ugh..
But also and mainly because I'm just not into the idea of "pride" right now, at least for a country like the US that seems to think that just because you have gay marriage in San Francisco, means that there's no more battles yet to fight. Wouldn't it be wonderful to take all of that talent, money, hard work and energy and put it into canceling gay pride in the big cities and focus on the GLBT groups in the littler cities that need the support, energy and financial help to survive
Instead, go to the smaller towns where people still get beat up and being out and queer is way more of a challenge. Many people discriminate against gay people because they think they don't know any gays or that they haven't met any. I think if people were to go to where we are needed, then amazing things would happen even with a little struggle. It would keep the conversation going about our self worth and it would bring out those in the closet and help to create a support system of sorts in all the little hamlets and burgs that GLBTQ's live in..
I'm turned off by the crass steroided commercialism and what gay pride festivals have become in the big cities.
Next year, I'm thinking about going to a smaller pride celebration, encouraging others to turn out and marching..
Are we post gay yet? -
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Re: Happy Pride Day!
Mon, June 30, 2008 - 6:42 AMTimothy, I hope you are feeling better today.
I agree that the commercialism displayed at big city pride events is a turn off and IMHO dulls any political impact the parades used to have. On the other hand the big numbers of people who turn out in those cities is one sign of our strength. I would be interested in seeing how pride day is observed in small town America. -
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Re: Happy Pride Day!
Mon, June 30, 2008 - 7:45 AMIn (Judy)Garland, the eighth largest city in TX there is no observance whatsoever. In Dallas, the celebrate Pride the second week in September.
We hosted a gay film night at my house in this vast suburban wasteland. Posted online invitations, invitations on local coffee house bulletin boards etc.
Four people showed up!
So not much energy for celebrating 'round these parts either it seems.
Esteban
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Re: Happy Pride Day!
Mon, June 30, 2008 - 7:52 AM...and I, also, hope you're feeling better...
Last year during Pride month I chuckled, sighed, and got pissed all at the same time when I saw promotional spots for our local news featuring all the "personalities", including the stuffy old white guy anchor, beaming into the camera with a thumbs up and saying "I have Pride!". That, I think, was the ultimate hallmark of having arrived in the official land of crass commercialism, hungry capitalism, and the shallow veneer of pretty-as-plastic culture. Ewwww!
On the other hand, the historian in me noticed that, as James Broughton wrote in "Masque of the Bridegrooms", the day had finally arrived when "Eternity had a change of heart". This was a quote Liebchen and I used in our wedding ceremony, legally recognized here in Vancouver, BC. The gay marriage thing is no small enchilada. I openly chat about my husband in casual conversations, when people ask me where I live, etc., and the universal response when I first got here, in Canada, almost 4 years ago, was "Cool! How wonderful!". I've noticed the tone has calmed down now to just a nice smile, or maybe not even acknowledgement at all, it's become so normalized. Canadians by a huge majority are simply proud of being on the forefront of history. It goes well beyond the wedding issue. The weddings are electric, stunning - to me anyway - but really, gay marriage is just the icing on the cake.
I mean, we have been severely persecuted for centuries, having to develop this (wonderful) outsider culture to survive, but also hundreds of thousands who did not survive, who couldn't bear the load of secrecy, shame and hatred heaped upon any man who happened to love men. Men who leaped off the roof, men who drowned in the river, men who ate razor blades... Boys of loving mothers who hated themselves too much to live...
The marriage issue has been a way for people to consider the fairness with which they treat a group of people who, as it turns out, just so happen to be Citizens, too. The Canadian mosaic suddenly includes Gay people, officially, and the marriage issue is just a way for them to legally recognize this. I think this is what's happening in the States, too. I think people are using it as a way to transcend the legacy of history, maybe something like the way people are seeing Barack Obama as a way to finally escape the constricting box of our racial history.
So there's work still to be done - the small towns are not yet free, and in the large towns "They" are trying to shoehorn us into a market segment and steal our soul. Not to worry, I say - our souls are inviolate, and will create something new, soon, I hope. Let Pride be Pride, the big, tacky party that it is, and be grateful for all that. But there is a yearning for something deeper, more real, more historical and more political, and I think soon someone's gonna figure out some ritual that provides this for us.
Somewhere it's out there, the next Revolutionary idea, something to feed our minds and souls... -
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Re: Happy Pride Day!
Mon, June 30, 2008 - 12:26 PMYes, I'm feeling better, thanks! Yes, I also feel torn in some ways. I mean I see the value of marching and celebration, I just feel that the roots of most gay pride festivals have been poisoned by the extreme amount of commercialism that occurs.
In places like Cuba and Bulgaria, people were attacked during a gay pride march recently... I also remember hearing recently about a man in McMinville, TN about 20 miles from Short MT getting his house spray painted with the words "FAG" and "Queer".. etc.. The state has done little to help him..
We're here, we're sorta queer, we spend money, get used to us? -
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Re: Happy Pride Day!
Mon, June 30, 2008 - 1:06 PMand then you have people like jack malebranche telling us that there's really no use for the gay rights struggle any longer because "things just aren't that bad now." -
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Re: Happy Pride Day!
Mon, June 30, 2008 - 1:28 PMHow about "They wish we were invisible / We're not / Let's dance"?
I enjoyed NYC blogger Joe My God's take on the Pride debate, specifically the assimilationist critique of its freak show aspects.
joemygod.blogspot.com/2008/06...ves.html
love Stella
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Re: Happy Pride Day!
Mon, June 30, 2008 - 2:40 PMHenry, It doesn't sound like you've taken much time to read Malebranche's criticisms in depth. I feel alot of what he has to say is relevant so I'll clarify.
Malebranche argues that many American homosexuals--especially the younger generation--have no clue what real oppression looks like. And for the most part this is true considering that police harassment, jail sentences, job losses and homophobic violence in this country happen far less often then they used to. As a result, the American 'gay rights movement' has become the 'gay advocacy industry' which tends to nitpick and speech police instead of offering much of any assistance to people in places where the homophobic oppression is brutally real. If gays really cared about fight homophobic oppression, he points out, more of them would be donating to organizations in countries where real anti-homosexual oppression is taking place instead of wasting their money on "Pride" merchandise at parades, at bars, circuit parties, etc....
Gay culture, Malebranche maintains, tends to promote victim mentality, destructive self-indulgence and bitchy, whiny effeminate affectations which substitutes what he calls the "synthetic opiate of gay pride" for a genuine sense of self-esteem based on actual achievement. He believes that gay culture encourages smarmy self- acceptance and blaming the world's homophobia for one's problems instead of taking responsibility for one's choices. Malebranche tends to overgeneralize and be reactionarily anti-gay (while also staunchly pro-homosexual), but his critiques are worth taking into account--for those who aren't put off by his deliberately self-righteous, aggressive tone.
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it was fun at fairy village here in s,f,
Mon, June 30, 2008 - 8:13 PMwish u could of seen what kerand milki? did to make the space so pretty... glad u are better.... how about some queer pride wisdom...from the late great fag of the world.////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////..Abatement in the hostility of one's enemies must never be thought to signify they have been won over. It only means that one has ceased to constitute a threat.
Quentin Crisp
An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing.
Quentin Crisp
Decency must be an even more exhausting state to maintain than its opposite. Those who succeed seem to need a stupefying amount of sleep.
Quentin Crisp
Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.
Quentin Crisp
Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.
Quentin Crisp
For an introvert his environment is himself and can never be subject to startling or unforeseen change.
Quentin Crisp
For flavor, instant sex will never supersede the stuff you have to peel and cook.
Quentin Crisp
Health consists of having the same diseases as one's neighbors.
Quentin Crisp
However low a man sinks he never reaches the level of the police.
Quentin Crisp
I recommend limiting one's involvement in other people's lives to a pleasantly scant minimum.
Quentin Crisp
I simply haven't the nerve to imagine a being, a force, a cause which keeps the planets revolving in their orbits and then suddenly stops in order to give me a bicycle with three speeds.
Quentin Crisp
If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.
Quentin Crisp
In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast. Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis.
Quentin Crisp
Is not the whole world a vast house of assignation of which the filing system has been lost?
Quentin Crisp
It is explained that all relationships require a little give and take. This is untrue. Any partnership demands that we give and give and give and at the last, as we flop into our graves exhausted, we are told that we didn't give enough.
Quentin Crisp
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Re: Happy Pride Day!
Sat, July 5, 2008 - 9:46 AMI imagine to a large degree, complaining about the commercialization of the Pride festivities in big cities on this particular Tribe is preaching to the choir. I am one of many who disdain the senseless largely drunken embrace of the corporate takeover of our parade — but then I ask everyone: What did you do this year to challenge it?
Does your city have a Dyke March? (Chicago does.) If so, did you attend? I did. And this year, it wasn't in a "safe" queer enclave on the north side; it was in a neighborhood on the south side, one with lots of artists and a lot of Latino/a immigrants. Most of them embraced us. It was a super day, so much fun and empowering. And of course, attended by the most interesting queer people — dykes, fags, trannies — who know there's still work to be done. (Including work around the racism in our own LGBT community.)
And then a few of us faeries went to the big Pride Parade on Sunday dressed like corporate mascots. We did a mock wedding (the vows were hilarious, although I'll admit, we needed a bullhorn to make them heard) and we got to celebrate California's gay marriage advancement (still important for many of us in terms of equal rights, whether or not we personally value the two-person marriage model) while satirizing the corporations who just tap us as a market with extra disposable income. (Whew, sorry about that run-on sentence!) You can click on my profile for a pic to give you an idea of what we looked like.
My point is: We can stay home and gripe about what Pride has become. Or we can get busy and do something about it. Hopefully with humor — that always seems to work best. (What's the old adage? "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.")
Is there much work still to be done? Of course. But let us not forget, there's also a place for celebration. And then, there's always going to be people who ONLY want to party. (Witness the fact that Mardi Gras still happens every year in New Orleans, even though parts of the city still haven't recovered from Katrina.) People would rather drink and revel than work and rebuild. Ah well, whatcha gonna do? Strive for balance.
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Gay has become a marketing ploy!
Mon, June 30, 2008 - 1:51 PMI like The Onion's take on Gay Pride:
www.theonion.com/content/node/28491
and also it's poking fun at affected 'gay' behaviors:
www.theonion.com/content/n...ng_upholds
I'm not going to any 'pride' events this year. Last year i went to a few in different cities and I was so fucking bummed out by all the obvious product placement, shitty entertainment and sponsorship by alcohol distibuters. I walked around chanting:
"Take my love of cocks. Put it in a box. And sell it back to me!"
and "Straight Guy Special!! Today Only! A 6 pack of Beer, Blowjob and a Finger up the butt, All for only $9.99!!!"
This year if I went I would chant: "You're here! You're Queer! Drink booze, wine and beer!"
Some smaller cities like Santa Cruz have non-corporate pride events which are more community oriented. But even there, gay is still a corporate capitalists ultimate wet dream: it's a consumer identity marketed to homos by the LGBTQ coalition which assumes a faux sense of solidarity among 'queers' as if we all belong in one homo-genized category.
'Diversity' is celebrated as long as by 'diversity' you mean 'buys into one of a few pre-approved labels' and 'pays lip-service in support of marriage, denouncing 'homophobia' and 'transphobia' as 'hate speech' and challenging the patriarchy,' etc. etc...
Different people will find different ways that work for them. For me, "gay" is just another closet i eventually had to come out of. Sure, it was full of lots of fun parties and 'fabulous' clothes, but it was still a closet, and after a few years it was too stifling and conformist for me.
What is radical or transgressive for one generation becomes the next generation's sacred cash cow. Men dressing in women's clothes was radical in the 1960's. These days, drag is almost all cliche and counter-revolutionary. Instead of challenging gender norms, most drag today serves to reinforce tired old stereotypes that loving other men makes a man feminine. Many queens insist on disrespectful caricatures of women as stupid, bitchy, slutty and/or shallow. Gay culture has become a multinational corporate entity which exports herd mentality and sassy-sounding platitudes disguised in the packaging of 'liberation' and 'revolution' to people around the globe.... -
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Re: Gay has become a marketing ploy!
Sat, July 5, 2008 - 8:26 PMI love this dialogue! or triaolgue or polylogue!
It represents more thinking and conscious awareness. I feel that is what is becoming unbalanced in pride parades:
Outsiders getting hip ideas from the radical different forms of our culture and using it for their new hip outlet. Probably most of these do not have any clue of the heart and spirit that lead to the development of or culture, only the superficial forms are apparent.
Our fore-brothers had terrible oppression that perversely forced an intense focus. It was this crucible that burned away all but pure golden awareness of our precious beautiful radical queer heart. Practice of this was focus by necessity, but the result was a revolution and a culture. (As well as horrendous human tragedy)
So like african art or ragtime music, Queer style has become a commercial genre. The revolutionary spirit smothered with dollars and animation. Not the worst fate in the world! In fact to me it is a sign of a world that is becoming kinder.
I agree with Sinnerjee that we don't have to look far to find a place where revolution and heart need to be cultivated, like in small towns and countries where oppression still exists with merciless malice.
I once wished as a teenager that there were a pill that would make me straight. Today if offered to me I would not only refuse but see it as a thief of my soul's awareness. I see in many of us the soul of the revolutionary grown in response to oppression. So do we seek oppression, our beloved enemy and essential counterpart or do we relinquish attachment to this part of our being? I think it may be an opportunity to focus our awareness and grow in unexpected ways spiritually.
Blessed Adversity I call it. I find so many times in my daily mindfullness meditations new awareness an astonishing wonder of living conscious of the world and ourselves. One this is for certain. You are all beautiful to me because of what you are and what you will become. I send lovingkindness (Metta) tonight.
-Ash
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