Reclaim Pride: No Pride in Genocide
We are a coalition of organizers here to share the problems of Corporate Pride, Police in Queer spaces, and to expose that a number of the corporations sponsoring pride are directly linked to the oppression of queer communities and the genocide of Palestinians.
Coalition members: Divest Cincy Pride, Cincinnati Community Aid & Praxis (CCAP), Cincinnati Socialists, Coalition for Community Safety (CCS), Democratic Socialists of America Cincy, Cincinnati Trans Support Network, Students for Justice in Palestine NKU, and Revolutionary Communists of America Columbus.
History of Pride
The celebration of Pride is a commemoration of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. The 60s saw persistent police raids on gay bars. Frustrations boiled over in late June when police raided the Stonewall Inn, brutalizing and arresting employees and patrons. Nearly a week of unrest followed. Thousands in Greenwich Village clashed with police, throwing objects at them and freeing their detained community members. Led by trans women of color like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, the queer community challenged queerphobic state repression and anti-queer laws.
Years later, in 1987, AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) was founded in response to the US government’s handling of the AIDS epidemic. ACT UP was very effective in organizing and mobilizing people against the government’s homophobia and disregard for people with AIDS, carrying on the anti-state/anti-police tradition of Stonewall. Their demonstrations were continually met with police brutality and arrests. Cincinnati’s Pride festival of today bears little resemblance to its revolutionary heritage. Struggle against the state, police and the ruling capitalist class they serve has been replaced by celebration of corporate Pride sponsors and heavy police presence. Instead of challenging our oppressors as those at Stonewall did, we’re expected to hold hands and embrace them in the name of rainbow capitalism. We reject this iteration of Pride which seeks to render the Queer Liberation movement impotent. The history and principles of Stonewall must be upheld. We cannot let corporations and the state redirect the course of the movement away from the struggle for liberation.
Why “No Copts at Pride?”
Especially within the context of Stonewall, the presence of police at Pride creates an unsafe environment for the most marginalized members of our community. The US police have a longstanding history of harassment, brutalization, and the enforcement of unjust laws upon Black Americans, as well as queer, trans, and disabled communities. People existing at the intersection of these identities are particularly vulnerable to police violence.
The realization of Pride as a safe space to celebrate these identities in the face of oppression is not possible under the governance of police forces. The Cincinnati Police Department has an established record of violence against underserved communities, notably in the 2001 shooting of unarmed Timothy Thomas (19) during a traffic citation, which marked the 15th murder of a black suspect by CPD within a period of five years. CPD also has a prominent history of violence against protestors, revealed by the brutal suppression of demonstrations in response to the murder of Thomas, and also in 2020, during protests against police brutality sparked by the murder of George Floyd, in which dissenters experienced an extreme response including violence and unlawful mass arrest. Particularly during a time when our state is legislating against visible queerness, the supervision of Pride festivities by the Cincinnati Police creates an unsafe environment for all of us, particularly our most marginalized community members. The invited presence of CPD at Cincinnati Pride is antithetical to the message of Pride as a protest against the state and social persecution of queerness.
Corporations Betray the Queer Community
Pride has become a rainbow-coated commercial for corporations to lure queer and progressive consumers. Rainbow capitalism allows corporations to cosplay as progressive by sponsoring Pride events, and manufacturing Pride products while betraying progressive ideals; paying lip service to the queer movement while lobbying for anti-queer legislation and providing financial contributions to conservative politicians. Local company and major Cincy Pride sponsor P&G has donated thousands to anti-queer lawmakers like Steve Scalise and Cathy McMorris Rodgers just this year. Scalise voted against the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022 and opposed repealing the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. In 1997 Rodgers co-sponsored legislation that banned same-sex marriage in Washington state. Both voted against the Respect for Marriage act in 2022, which established federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages.
Capitalists have a vested interest in preserving historically bourgeois heteronormativity, traditional gender roles, and the nuclear family because they need the working class to reproduce the next generations of workers to exploit. Traditional gender roles also reinforce the positions of the ruling class, most of whom are white cis men. The struggle for queer liberation is a struggle against capitalism and constructs like bourgeois heteronormativity that uphold it. Just as invited police presence is incompatible with Pride and its history, so is the administration of Pride by big corporations. To quote Sylvia Rivera, “this movement has become so capitalist...this is no longer my pride. I gave them their pride but they have not given me mine.”
No Pride in Genocide
Top sponsors for this year's Cincinnati Pride have deep connections with the state of Israel. When Israel was recognized by the UN as a state in 1947, Zionist militias took up arms to expel over 80% of the population and killed over 15,000 Palestinians in what became known as the Nakba. Presently, the IOF has martyred over 38,000 Palestinian civilians—a number believed to be much closer to 250,000 considering all those unidentified and missing under the rubble. Weeks ago, Israeli and US ground forces entered Nuseirat refugee camp disguised as aid workers and massacred over 200 Palestinian refugees to retrieve 4 Israeli hostages. The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for Israeli PM Netanyahu’s arrest for multiple offenses, including war crimes against children.
Cincy Pride sponsors Starbucks, US Bank, Nestlé and L’Oreal have been subjected to consumer boycotts due to their connections with Israel. Procter & Gamble, Gilead Sciences and Thermo-Fisher Scientific closely collaborate with Israeli universities and companies, directly benefiting from and contributing to apartheid Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine (see Cincinnati Socialists’ “Exposing the Genocide-Enabling Sponsors of Pride”).
The US bourgeoisie and its imperialist regime orchestrating the Palestinian genocide is the same force that preserves heteronormativity and benefits from the subjugation of queer people. The struggles for Palestinian liberation and queer liberation are intertwined. We demand that Cincy Pride reject all sponsors with financial ties to the state of Israel!
Queer Liberation, Not Rainbow Capitalism
Rainbow Capitalism is the practice of commodification of queer identities. The only thing capitalists see when they appeal to our communities is potential profit. All of the merchandise, pageantry and flair that comes with pride is ultimately a means to extract value from our community. Our struggle for justice will never be at the forefront of the discussion as the capitalists view us as just another payday in a long line of potential markets. The commodification of our identities does not end with a simple extraction of profit; it is far more insidious than that. We also become cogs in an Islamophobic propaganda machine that uses our identities to justify imperialism, colonialism and genocide abroad. The state of Israel is often coined as “the only safe place for LGBTQ people in the Middle East,” as Zionists and western-chauvinists attempt to depict Muslims and Arabs as a backward people. This pinkwashing is nothing more than a cheap trick to fool us into supporting the Zionist genocide of the Palestinians. Are we really willing to turn our backs on the Palestinian people—queer or otherwise—just because the state perpetrating it lets us have a pride parade? To win our liberation we must denounce these atrocities, we must stand with the Palestinians and we must organize to dismantle the systems of colonialism, imperialism and capitalism. None of us are free until all of us are free!
What’s Next?
What does Pride look like past the confines of corporate sponsored and police regulated festivities? We envision the Pride of the future to reflect its history as a movement of resistance and resilience within the queer community. We reject the pinkwashed funding of our protest and celebration by exploitative corporations in the name of capitalist gain, under the eye of a government who continues to enact physical and legislative violence against our people.
We choose to fight for a Pride by us and for us, in which the community can come together in defiance through mutual aid, resource distribution, and engage in resistance through sharing art, ideas, and joyful celebration.
Corporate Pride is a relatively new phenomenon, and one which can be refused. We do not have to accept the representation of our identities, our abundant communities, or our rich and resistant history, by harmful corporate and government entities. We can and will say NO to the orchestration of our celebrations by those who fight to suppress the marginalized on a local and global scale, then feign support when financial opportunity arises. The Pride of the future will represent queer joy and struggle, honor our past and present, and fight for the liberation of all oppressed and exploited communities.