This is incredibly important to read from John Ibbotson from the Globe and Mail in regards to the reaction to #BlackLivesMatterTO and their actions during #PrideTO.
"We’ve come very far, very fast. Why? Because the gay rights movement was led by middle-class white men. And middle-class white men get what they want.
Even when they were forced to stay in the closet, homosexual men worked in the public service, on university faculties and in classrooms, on the bench, in the pulpit, in the boardroom and newsroom, in the arts.
As the sexual revolution swept the West, gay men in positions of influence acted to advance their interests by demanding respect for their sexuality." - Globe And Mail
Because All the (mostly white) men and women poo pooing BLMTO don't grasp the very real FACT that the LGBTQ movement as far as it's come, is leaving behind members of it's community...namely queer people of colour and transpersons.
Yes, just like how the women's suffrage movement left behind women of colour (mostly Black women and on purpose so as not to offend their White Southern, sisters), as gay as some white men are, in a patriarchal system of White Supremacy cis-gender White men are still at the top of the totem pole and can command privilege & demand rights that "others" can't. This is nothing new. At Stonewall, it was the queer transpersons who were getting harassed the most...because they stood out. Both for "cross dressing" and for being Black / Latino...so they were targeted the most.
Since anti-Blackness is the foundational fulcrum of White Supremacy, you see "brand friendly", good looking, White, healthy, wealthy gay men advancing the movement and themselves, while the other side tips further into the depths of erasure. All while "you go girl'ing" and "slaying" and "voguing" into the mainstream fold...whilst leaving behind the contributors of those cultural colloquialisms like discarded and used up costumes.
That's why hundreds of thousands of White people can boo the direct action of Trans & Lesbian people of colour and see them as outsiders ruining "their" parade...as opposed to aggrieved members of their community voicing very real concerns in the tradition of their forefathers & muva's who did the same at Stonewall and in Toronto after the bathhouse raids.
That's the ugly truth of #BlackLivesMatter's message. You've left us behind, you're trying to leave others behind and we'll be damned if it happens.
Among their demands, the group asked Pride to: increase funding and support for Black Queer Youth events and Blockorama, the Pride showcase for black performers; reinstate the South Asian stage; hire more black deaf and ASL interpreters; hire more black trans women, indigenous people, and others from vulnerable communities; and remove police floats from future parades.
Due to the nuance of the Black experience in Canada, #BlackLivesMatterTO has made intersectionality a pillar of their approach to the struggle for Black liberation...and unlike the photo-op brand of Diversity™ that Canadians embrace...this is the real thing. It's NOT all good if it's NOT all good...for everyone.
“It’s literally all of us, or none of us, and that’s the stance we want to take,” they said. “What we’re doing is bringing to light often people who are left out or identities who are marginalized who often don’t get to centre stage.” - Janaya Khan, BLMTO co-founder, Xtra Magazine, April 2016