Sunday, June 26, 2016

Cross currents

San Francisco pols led by Mayor Ed Lee make a quick exit when booed off the stage at the Trans March. Photo from Mission Local which has the full story.
Some disturbed character (self-hater, terrorist, nutcase, frustrated male, who knows?) massacres 49 queers in an Orlando dance bar -- I guess it might be a good year to show up for the community at the San Francisco Gay Pride parade.

But the parade is just a corporate extravaganza, an opportunity for Google, Facebook, Apple et al. to showcase "liberalism" while they continue to overwhelm the city in all its quirky diversity.

But the parade theme this year is "For Racial And Economic Justice" -- the committee did something right for once.

But in the name of security, police and FBI are surrounding the events with metal detectors and snipers on roofs.

And Black Lives Matter Bay Area, St. James Infirmary, and TGI Justice Project have pulled out of the festivities -- those cops kill poor people of color, after all.

But the Soul of Pride contingent organized by folks from Justice for Mario Woods is calling for all the anti-police violence campaigners from Justice for Alex Nieto, Justice for Amilcar Perez Lopez, Justice for Luis Gongora Pat, and Justice for Jessica Williams to come along to inject the stories of these murdered San Franciscans into the parade ...

What's an old dyke to do?

I have probably worked 15 Gay Pride parades in my time: selling books, collecting signatures on political petitions, distributing propaganda, shouting out for Chelsea Manning ...

I think I'll give the big annual festival a rest this year. The cross currents are too many.

2 comments:

Hattie said...

Indeed. And there is the risk of backlash

Civic Center said...

Doing the same, which is a little trickier when one lives next door to Civic Center. I'm going to a farewell concert at the Veterans Building given by a string quartet that is breaking up after 20 years instead. And yes, the police "presence" is ridiculous and doesn't make me feel safer for one second.