Pride and Erasure

So Cape Town Pride announced its 2016 Pride Festival happening from the 19th to the 28th of February 2016. This was the poster they released: HERE. It reads: “Cape Town Pride 2016″ with the following bits of information: “Gay”, “Proud”, “Colour Blind”, “19 – 28 February”. Now… I don’t know about you, but surely even the smallest exposure to gender and race justice over the last ten years should ring some severe warning bells for you. “Gay”, but no lesbian, but not bisexual, but no transgender, but no queer, but no intersex, but no asexual. I mean, it’s long been a criticism that the LGBTQIA+ should just be called the GGGGGGG, because this has become a cisman’s community. And “Colour Blind”, because well, screw the unique lived experiences of queer people of colour apparently. It’s true what Dark Matter’s Janani Balasubramanian and Alok Vaid-Menon say, “Rainbows are just refracted white light.”

Cape Town Pride isn’t new to this kind of criticism either. In 2014 Funeka Soldaat (working with Free Gender an NGO based in Khayelitsha) called for a boycott of Cape Town Pride 2014 due to exclusion of women and non-white people. In speaking to The Times Lives’ Nashira Davids, Soldaat said, “Cape Town Pride is run by white men and they are excluding women and the black community” and “The festival is seen as a place to go to drink and have fun. It has become meaningless.” Van As’ reactions to criticism have always tended to be underhanded and designing, making it out that criticism against Cape Town Pride is what is truly divisive, when in fact, it is rampant erasure of LBTQIA+ people that is the real problem. And one of the most crucial ways in which this happens is that every time a criticism is raised by women and people of colour it is dismissed or spoken over. Then when the same criticism comes along, again, and, again, it is said, “But nobody said anything before.” “Why haven’t *you* done anything.”

In 2015 similar criticisms were raised against Cape Town Pride where Funeka Soldaat launched Alternative Pride in criticism of Cape Town Pride’s erasure of women and people of colour, where Van As wrote, “there is no need for the words to even be used within our community. But we do believe in free speech and expression and if there are people who wish to divide the community by labeling [sic] their members as ‘Black Lesbians’ or other such un-inclusive, racial and gender-specific names we wish them all the best” (page 3, HERE) It was here where Van As started using his “Colour Blind” nonsense (as far as I can tell). It was in this same article, that Van As criticizes Alternative Pride for supporting the Rhodes Must Fall rallies. But it’s always curious to see a white cisgender man whitesplaining why it is that people of colour shouldn’t support the downfall of colonial systems and telling people of colour that these issues aren’t “pressing Gay issues”.

On Free Gender’s BLOG earlier this year Soldaat wrote:

…an inclusive Pride means “a space to engage regardless of class and race. Working class issues should be a central part in the agenda. The activities must cater to the needs of everyone and not just a [few]. Pride should recognise the huge inequalities and racism and that Pride is political. Celebrations, political conversations, education and awareness can happen. Pride must recognise that awareness needs to be raised around many issues including transgender, sex worker, disability, asylum seeker and refugee issues. This is the inclusive pride, not gala events and gaypitalism. The pink rand is not going back to the communities; we need accountability around the financial workings of Pride. We must dismantle the privilege and racism.”

(and HERE)

Free Gender has made the decision to continue to suspend its support for the upcoming Cape Town Pride 2015. Remembering that BLACK LGBTI LIVES MATTER!
The events currently tabled for the upcoming Cape Town Pride are exclusionary and do not represent the black lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex and transgender community. Free Gender with other persons in their personal capacities has attempted to negotiate with the current planners of Cape Town Pride for the creation of an inclusive space which recognizes and speaks to the struggles of ALL LGBTIQ persons in South Africa. However the current organizers have responded with blatant racism and bigotry.

…

Further, the work of the facilitator was undermined by few individuals, all white men, who believed that only they were capable of leading the Cape Town Pride process. This year’s programme was finalized by these individuals who made it clear to Free Gender that there was nothing wrong with their racism and that they endorsed a segregated Pride. We call on all LGBTI individuals to remember that the Constitutional imperatives of this country are based on the values of equality, dignity and respect of and celebration of diversity. This means that the LGBTI community as well is called upon to recognize and make visible the struggles of the black LGBTI community. It must be noted that the history of the LGBTI movement is grounded in the tireless work of LGBTI activists such as Simon Nkoli, Bev Ditsie, Phumi Mtetwa, Sheila Bassey, Zackie Achmat, Derrick Fine, and multiple others.

With criticisms again being levelled against Cape Town Pride with it’s erasure of LBTQIA+ peoples and people of colour again with it’s latest poster, Van As produced a survey where he asked “Are you offended by the word’Gay’?” and “Do you think Pride should be political?” Which misrepresents the issue and kind of misses the point doesn’t it? And I think it is trying to miss the point deliberately. For one thing, try making Pride inclusive. As I’ve said above, are we LGBTQIA+ or GGGGGGG? Try making Pride something that isn’t a cisgender white male bastion. I wonder if Van As did it deliberately. Whether he did this knowing how wrong it is to exclude LBTQIA+ peoples by merely printing “Gay” and nothing else. Whether he did this knowing that “Colour Blind” is a racist thing to say eradicating the lived experiences of people of colour and the nuanced ways in which they experience being queer.

But it’s a curious sickness among the cisgender white male gay movement that seeks so hard to assimilate with the very system that sought to destroy them in the first place. If Cape Town Pride causes harm it’s obviously the fault of women and other LBTQIA+ peoples and people of colour for not stopping Cape Town Pride from causing harm (because the capacity to Google these issues is ostensibly so incredibly difficult). But of course it’s easy for Cape Town Pride to distance themselves from the criticisms they’ve received. Why take any responsibility for categorically messed up behaviour when they can just ignore ongoing criticism? And then when criticism comes around again pretend that “nobody told us any better” in retrospect. And Van As’ language reflects this, year after year. We have to play by their rules. We have to fill in their forms. We have to run their mazes. We have to ignore their ignorance and wilful abuses in an ongoing struggle with being made invisible and silent. We have to chip in and help build their empire. Homonationalism at its core.

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