We have people calling themselves liberals who haven't got a fucking clue about Liberty.

There was protest at the beginning of the Pride parade here in Minneapolis conducted by BOM and in support of Philando Castile's family. They staged a die-in.

It was weird because initially the parade organizers asked the police not to participate but then put that aside. Our police chief Janee Harteau is lesbian.

Some people are stupid. Some people are willfully ignorant. I am glad they got to express themselves.

Especially in light of the extremists who have taken power. There is no "middle ground" on race matters when it comes to discriminating against anyone for inherent traits.
I marched with my company contingent at S.F. yesterday. Our own motto was "inclusion". I did not perceive any detractors to this, but from the march itself, I didn't even notice the Westboro Baptist idiots corral, always there, always surrounded by law enforcement.
I'm doubly thrown however, if protesters of BLM were of LGBT persuasion. But, this coming from someone who thinks that the notion of "gay repubican" is an astounding contradiction in terms. Such creatures do exist, still.

It needs cameras, twitter mentions and people hearing their message.

They also need safety, support and people CAPABLE of hearing their message.

Do you feel that their existence is automatically an accusation pointed in your direction? It certainly appears that you do:

"No idea what the gay community of my city did to deserve this."

So. Where should BLM demonstrate? I was perplexed reading posts so angry that a BLM protest delayed the Pride parade for 30 minutes.

Delayed. For. 30. Minutes. Yet the writer obviously feels BETRAYED that BLM chose that venue for the protest.

If the Black Lives Matter folks are instantly met with hostility and anger from an audience that, on the surface, would seem to be natural allies - Well, perhaps what that means is the Pride Parade is precisely where a protest needed to take place.

Last edited Mon Jun 26, 2017, 02:43 PM - Edit history (2)

others. Their point is that they need to scream out where they can be heard because the message that there is systematic racism needs to be heard.

It is possible to BOTH respect that BLM has been able to make the issue of systemic racism something spoken outside college courses and to genuinely raise consciousness more than the protests that were not as aggressive AND for to respect the annoyance of the groups whose events were taken over. Your comment that the BLM message was more important and the point of the pride parade to begin with is not an opinion that EVERYONE would agree with.

I think that just as others have to respect what BLM has accomplished even as they used methods that some found uncomfortable, YOU need to realize that the very process of taking over someone else's event - whether the Social Security rally that had invited Bernie or the Pride parade - is that many drawn there for THAT event will respond with annoyance, or even anger, at the interruption. It is a natural consequence of how they operate.

This event belongs to poc as much as white gays and we need anti racism activism in our parade too.

This is not a white gay pride parade that black people interrupted. That's a BS narrative.

From photos, there were people of all races there - enjoying the parade. No one was excluding blacks.

However, by many accounts, BLM made the decision to block the parade in many cities for 30 minutes to honor a black woman killed by the police. I assume that had the event been a BLM rally to bring attention to her death and others, and any other group - say a group that wanted to get the message that we need to fight climate change - had come in and effectively took over -- for just 30 minutes - I assume YOU would not be posting that their message was important and climate change would affect everyone - including blacks and in fact, given environmental injustice, they might be more impact?

I get that for a black woman, racism is the biggest issue. I think you consider BLM the best advocate. What I was trying to explain to you is that many people, totally in your corner will resent the event they CHOSE to attend being used to convey a different message. The point is that GIVEN THE WAY BLM CHOOSES TO OPERATE some people, even some who agree on the issues, will resent what they see as BLM taking their event away from them.

Blm is not a separate issue from other issues like homophobia

You can only break things up like that when you don't live an intersectional life

The gay civil rights movement was really birthed in the Stonewall riots in New York city in 1969. The police were constantly and repeatedly raiding gay clubs and bars and putting the photographs of the people in them in the newspapers, effectively ruining their lives. In many ways, being gay was still illegal back then. You could lose your job you could lose your housing. Many of these gay men didn't live openly, and had tried to start "normal" lives with marriages and kids. So on top of the stress of having to have two lives, they then had one of those lives ruined just to go and spend time in a place friendly to one of those lives.

And who were the main movers of the Stonewall riot? It wasn't a pretty white boy named Danny as the movie (Stonewall 2015) would have you believe. It was largely black drag queens and trans women who were throwing shoes and bricks, and those were certainly some of the first bricks thrown. It was also homeless queer youth (kicked out of their conservative homes and forced to live on the streets). So, in some very real ways, black voices were the first in the North American queer civil rights movement.

Fast forward to today. Can you name any prominent gay people? Are they all or mostly white? Ellen, Anderson Cooper, Lance Bass, Rosie O'Donnell? POC feel a great deal of alienation from mainstream gay culture and the mainstream queen civil rights movement today, which is overwhelmingly white.

This is the very definition of intersecionality. Toronto Pride invited BLMTO to lead off the parade last year, and they also staged a sit-in for about half an hour to protest a few things, mostly dealing with at-risk communities, trans youth of colour, as well as the presence of the Toronto Police marching in uniform and armed in the parade (citing three very recent highly publicized killings of POC by Toronto Police in which only one officer was charged and none were convicted), which is entirely valid. Of the several founders of BLMTO, one is gay and one is trans, so they are part of both communities. Black people in Toronto do not feel safe around armed police (given that they are still being carded regularly at a vastly disproportionate rate to white citizens) and demanded that police not be allowed to march armed and in uniform in the Pride Parade next year.

So, in the context of history, it's perfectly logical. The Stonewall Riots weren't about gay marriage, they were about police violence. The police have an incredibly checkered past (and present) with the gay community. I'm a gay white man, but I have to be an ally to my queer POC friends. All of my black friends in Toronto have had negative encounters with police. They are arresting and mistreating trans youth of colour. Pride isn't just a parade for queers to show how "normal" we are to straight allies to make them feel comfortable, it is a political action in the face of a political structure that still wants to keep queer people and POC down.

We're pretty lucky in Canada, by and large. But please remember that in many states it is still legal to be fired or evicted for being gay or trans. BLMTO takes a long tradition of black activism in the queer community and directs it to things that are still going on. Why should the police get a nice big free PR boost by marching with big smiles in the Pride parade if they're not going to address systemic problems within the police services regarding how they treat queer people and POC the other 364 days a year?

Make it it's own op!

I will!

I did it over here:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029256287

I agree it should definitely be an OP!

You don't determine my moral values

Not to mention, I said nothing of your moral values. I have no idea what they are, nor do you have any concept of mine. My comments were not about you, they were about BLM.

And I don't

Without anyone considering either to reflect lack of commitment to liberal values.

BLM, fighting for 13% of the population, has found a way to become a national phenomonon. LGBTxyz at less than 1/2 that have made magnificent strides by different means. Success in itself makes me support actions I wouldn't otherwise.

As for the anger this event generated, LGTBTs include many conservatives who share a full range of their characteristics. The exact same holds for BLM. Some anger is an inevitable result of BLM's methods, but not one that should be the takeaway from this. As long as it works, I'll support it even as I very strongly deplore some of the attitudes some displayed.

When it no longer works... And I think BLM should start worrying about that, lest they and their methods just become a note in thick history books.

It's not just 13% of the population:

As much as the movement is to highlight injustices against African Americans, since African Americans are most impacted, for years liberals of all stripes have wanted to make criminal justice reform a national priority - and the lack of reform impacts poor whites as well but that doesn't get much traction because there's a determination to criminalize black communities to the hilt:

We're talking civil forfeiture abuse, militarization of police , drug decriminalization, the spread of mandatory minimum sentencing - these things affect poor people of all shades.

delivering a message from a friend of yours...

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/06/26/you-dont-have-to-hate-police-to-agree-with-blm-paradkar.html

no justice no pride~

because the responses on issues of race on DU has leveled my faith in Democrats to tackle them.

Not to mention the aggressively racist folks that show up when BLM enters the picture. A poster compared them to Dogs and is still on this site.

Please tell me why I should support your increased taxes for free tuition, when you can't even support reforms that ensure my child survives until college.


Fight the good fight, LPP.

Outrage or distain