Reclaiming Pride’s Radical History
How does the goal of liberation differ from the goal of equality?
Last year at New Orleans Pride I saw a float sponsored by Dow Chemical, a company known for manufacturing napalm and Agent Orange used by the US military in Vietnam. I thought I was a cynic who could be impressed by nothing, but — Dow Chemical? At Pride? Corporatism knows no shame, and I shouldn’t be surprised. Nevertheless, I expected more from Pride. I expected there to be some standard.
The corporatization of Pride is nothing new; nor is the backlash. Every year, we see calls to remember Pride’s origins as a riot, and to honor the trans women of color like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera who were at the center of NYC’s gay liberation movement (‘queer’ not yet having become the catch-all it now is.) But for all this awareness of Pride’s origins, we have yet to really reclaim the spirit of the gay liberation movement.
The first march in commemoration of the Stonewall riots was not called ‘Pride’; it was called ‘Christopher Street Liberation Day.’ Over the decades, ‘liberation’ has been dropped from the language of most LGBTQ+ events and organizations, generally to be replaced with vague calls for assimilation such as ‘visibility,’ ‘rights,’ and ‘equality,’ as well, of course, as ‘pride.’
Where ‘equality’ asks to be included, ‘liberation’ demands to be set free. This is an important difference, because when we ask for inclusion, we must ask ourselves what it is we are asking to be included in. In the case of Pride, ‘inclusion’ has meant being welcomed into mainstream consumer culture. This inclusion has come, as it always does, at the price of political potency.
The gay liberation movement that blossomed in the years following the Stonewall riots was informed by a deeply radical understanding of how the oppression of queer people is enacted by social and political institutions. The movement challenged, and sought to fundamentally transform, those constructs and institutions which it recognized as the sources of oppression: the gender binary; the nuclear family; racism; capitalism. This is a very different agenda from the modern gay rights movement, whose most notable victory came in the form of the right to enter into the institution of marriage. We are now ‘included’ in that from which we once sought to be free.
As the killing of George Floyd has once again brought us to the boiling point of social and political uprising, it feels particularly important that we work to recognize the radical history of Pride moving forward. For all the gains made in terms of social acceptance for so many marginalized groups since 1969, we are actually worse off in terms of more material metrics such as economic inequality and incarceration rates.
This is because institutions such as police and prisons are still fundamentally racist. No amount of social acceptance, political correctness, or identity politics has altered the brutal reality that police exist to protect the private property of the elite classes. The state has a monopoly on legalized violence, and no amount of inclusion for white gay men or celebrity drag personas will save Black people from that violence. Pride this year, and every year for the foreseeable future, must return to its origins. The ethos of liberation is needed now more than ever.
Queer liberation means liberation for all queer peoples, including Black people, Brown people, trans people, gender nonconforming people, non-binary people, women, people with disabilities, people struggling with addiction, and people struggling with mental health issues. So queer liberation must mean something more than mere ‘inclusion’ in a system that is itself structurally racist, cissexist, misogynistic, ableist, and classist.
We do not want a seat at the table; we want to set the table ablaze. We do not just want an end to mass incarceration; we want reparations for the lives and labor of Black people. We do not just want gay rights; we want queer liberation. This is not just about the legal right to exist; liberation is about the social and economic ability to live joyfully and unapologetically.
We seek collective liberation, because we know that no one is truly free until all are free. We will not stop at defunding the police, nor will we stop at punishing ‘bad’ cops by throwing them in prison. We will continue to work towards abolition, because we do not believe that justice can be achieved through the same carceral system from which we are fighting to be free. We must work towards a truly restorative justice, which necessitates that we believe in and fight for radical transformation on every level, from the individual, to the institutional, to the collective whole.
“You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.”
— Angela Davis
