Pinkwashing - Blog Posts
fuck the dc pride parade, they let israelies not only wave their flag of genocide and apartheid, but one of those devils was even marching with a sign that read "WHEN IS THE PRIDE PARADE IN GAZA AGAIN?"
fuck the dc pride parade, they let israelies not only wave their flag of genocide and apartheid, but one of those devils was even marching with a sign that read "WHEN IS THE PRIDE PARADE IN GAZA AGAIN?"
Perhaps a controversial take but if companies are going to sell Pride merch and market it as Pride merch, it should be pretty obvious that what they are selling is indeed Pride merch.
If I see one more shirt that’s advertised as Pride-themed that just has the company’s name in 🌈rainbow🌈 or one of the character’s color pallets replaced by a 🌈rainbow🌈 I am going to explode.
Pinkwashing Palestine
The pinkwashing of the genocide in Palestine is ridiculous. First of all gay rights is not an excuse for killing little kids, at all. Beyond that though, opinions on homosexuality are far from a monolith in the region. My Palestinian best friend and his very traditional, religious family are not homophobic in the slightest. My own white American family took decades longer to come around on gay rights than they did. Would it have been okay to bomb a large portion of the south in the 90s? Should my husband have been killed as a child for being born into a very standard (and very homophobic) sect of Christianity around then? Large swaths of Palestine are roughly where America was not so long ago. Laws are ambiguous (because occupation), some people are cool with gay people, some aren't, many don't really have an opinion. Some areas have a visible queer subculture, some don't. It varies, just like everywhere.
NONE OF THIS could justify the current violence (and PLENTY of queer Palestinians are being killed right now), but I think it's particularly absurd because Palestine really isn't that different than we were not so long ago, and most of us can agree the indiscriminate slaughter of Texans a few decades back would have been bad. Israeli propaganda would have you believe every Arab wants all gay people dead. This is ridiculous.
For more on gay rights in Palestine look at Al Qaws.
In light of this I have added this simple design to my shop (click here), I've seen a few people here expressing they want something like this for protests.
ANY AND ALL PROCEEDS from Palestine related sales through my Redbubble shop will go to my Palestinian best friend (same one mentioned above) to help him bring his girlfriend over to America. Any left over will be used to help his family/other loved ones affected by the war.
hey can we talk. can we stop it with the white savior pinkwashing queer paternalism that white libs always seems to hold when talking about queer people/gender-nonconforming people from countries where gay rights isn’t a legislated reality (i.e. often developing countries/countries where the majority ethnicity is non-white).
you haven’t been on weibo, you haven’t ever been to China. you haven’t walked the streets of chengdu which is the unofficial queer capital in the country, you don’t know what slangs and jokes we use to talk about queerness.
you read whatever your war crime aiding and abetting news sources spoonfeed you because you never went out of your way to befriend Chinese people in real life, you accept whatever reality is easiest for you to stomach—that Chinese people, well, “the government and the mainstream social media” at least, are ontologically evil and are intolerant to a fault; that Chinese people are so different than you (who are so liberal and tolerant and queer and punk) that these “special few Chinese people who are queer” need YOUR approval and YOUR protection and YOUR help.
I’ve spent a good portion of my life living in China, I have family there. I have queer friends there. My parents had colleagues and friends who are officially or unofficially out at work. I met my first butch-femme lesbian couple in China. I met my first trans man uncle in China. A large part of my middle school friend group turned out to be queer and have found people who they care about and who care and protect them in turn.
I only pity your willfully ignorant way of living. you see Chinese people as a sexless monolith, you see Chinese people in any position of power as a threat to your “democracy” aka violent imperialism disguised under a neoliberal facade. give me a break.
Queering the Map in Gaza and the West Bank
