Pride as a protest.

[askygoneonfire]

Gagh. Typical hangover-blues/Pride comedown today.

I've got so cocking much to do before I move out in 18 days and it all feels completely overwhelming. Most annoying I think is that my flatmate owns A LOT of stuff, in her packing up to move out (on the 23rd whilst I move on the 26th) she is filling the living room with packed boxes. Filling our living room with packed boxes without packing up anything that is already in the living room. This means there is a) no living space and b) nowhere for me to pack into. My room is of moderate size but my furniture takes up almost all of the room. I simply cannot imagine where I will put my boxes as I pack, much less how I am going to start doing the deep clean of the flat necessary to get our deposit back.

I also want to throw some sort of house-cooling party (if when you move in you have a house-warming then moving out must mean having a...) but right now I am so exhausted with social interaction I can't even begin to imagine doing that or even if I want to. Largely because Bex is going on holiday for a little over a week and returning a couple of days before I move so she won't be able to come to any shindig. And a party without your BFF is no party at all. Anyway, enough of that...

I was looking for Pride Parade photos on usual Brighton websites today and instead came across a review of ArtFor Pride with some photos which is here.

Here are a couple of my photos from the parade yesterday, the first is my immediate friends and acquaintances who I shared a champagne breakfast with before going down to the seafront where the parade began and the second is a group photo of everyone who was walking for THT yesterday.

 

I commented on someone else's journal the other day that I would comment on how I felt about the Pride is a protest movement/argument after I had been in the parade.

This year the 'Pride is a Protest' movement actually took part in the parade.  The perplexing thing for me was that their argument was that Pride has become too commercial and it should be more about protesting pertinent issues than celebrating the liberation we enjoy in Britain/Brighton; the logical way to demonstrate this point, as far as I'm concerned, is to actually pick whatever issue you think is most pressing and protest about it.  What they instead did was take part in the parade, protesting that everyone else in the parade should be protesting, and for some reason they carried coffins.  In effect they were shouting "we should have the right to protest about things that are important" in a setting where they had been permitted - nay encouraged - to say whatever they wanted.

ETA: This is their facebook event (I was immediately put off by the spelling mistakes but let's overlook that) and it half explains the significance of the coffins before gibbering about something else - I really feel their motivations are jumbled here.  Also - "Now there is also an exclusion of the Black Minority Ethnic community representation at Pride, the exclusion of Transgender, of intersex, of old people, of disabled people!" - doesn't really make any sense or offer any supporting evidence.  THT certainly had a range of ages, ethnicities and given that not all disabilities are physical/visible, most likely featured a couple of disabled people. I remain unclear on what they were saying and/or hoping to achieve.

I know one of the people who took part in this 'protest' and she did a similar thing in Manchester.  I talked to her about why she had decided to do this and expressed my feeling that every day is a fight for LGBT rights and full liberation and that Pride is instead about visibility, celebration and yes, raising issues in the parade you feel are appropriate.  She admitted that she'd never seen it that way/thought about it.  How can you protest against something you haven't fully considered/explored?

There were problems with the Parade as far as I am concerned.  There were, for example, 3 Ford's with a 'Ford Pride Brighton 2010' graphic on them ahead of us.  That's it.  No 'Ford workers LGBT Association', just 3 Fords, which were Proud.  I wonder if they sponsored the event in some way (apparently Pride costs £250,000 to put on each year although the revenue it generates is obviously far in excess of that) although even if that is true I don't see why they needed to be in the parade rather than just have the company name appear on the publicity.  There were various corporate type showings - like the Argus (local newspaper) having a jeep and 4 or so employees in rainbow outfits ahead of us - what exactly were they expressing? How is that furthering LGBT visibility or promoting awareness of an issue pertaining to LGBT lives?

On the whole though, it was a hugely positive experience for me and I really saw the parade in a new light by passing every single one of the spectators and experiencing that atmosphere and seeing the range of people who had turned out to watch and unite in a warm, accepting and celebratory mood.  Yes there are faults, and yes there are aspects which were disappointing because they seem to detract from the whole ethos behind the event but the positives far outweighed the negatives and I had a wonderful time.

Comments

[forthwritten]

Thank you for writing about Brighton Pride - it's really interesting to hear how Pride works in a different context. 'Pride is a Protest' is, to me, a bit too meta - while I agree that Pride is a political act and that it should be about queer visibility and rights,I'm not too sure about the "protesting that everyone else in the parade should be protesting" side of things. For me, the fact that I, that we, are there at all is a form of protest. although I would still like to have seen more evidence of other, less abstract LGBT campaigns in Nottingham.

The commercial aspects are a bit odd and dissonant - I suspect some kind of sponsorship deal but like you, I wonder if the presence of Proud Fords was really necessary and did anything for the campaign.