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Reject The Boston Pride Theme

On Sunday, May 14th a group of concerned queer people gathered at the Community Church in Boston to discuss possible actions to counteract the theme chosen for the Boston Pride celebrations this year. We have decided to create a coalition called the Ask. Tell. Act. Coalition. We have chosen our own theme for pride, and we Will be encouraging everyone who finds the Boston Pride theme offensive to use our messages when designing their floats, signs, and other materials for Pride. We will be launching a web site, publishing a letter, and speaking to like-minded organizations to ensure visibility on Pride Day. Stay tuned for updates and more information! We are also asking everyone who will be marching in the parade who opposes the theme to wear pink in a showing of solidarity.



OUR THEME:



Ask: Why celebrate militarism?! (Beneath this heading we will discuss why the militaristic aspect of the theme is repulsive.)
Tell the truth about injustice! (Beneath this heading we will discuss why the language the Boston Pride Committee has chosen about "serving" is offensive.)
Act to transform our community, country, and the world! (Here we will encourage people to speak up and act up.)




The Gross Boston Pride Committee Theme: (Careful not to throw-up in your mouth. The more your read it and think about it - the more offensive it is!)

Ask. Tell.

Proud to Serve Our Community, Our Country, Our World.
The LGBT community is an integral part of society at every level of organization: community, country, and the world. We are your doctors, lawyers, teachers, leaders, engineers, custodians, bankers, and bakers. We are proud of our service and we are happy to share our lives with you. Just ask, and we'll tell! Please consider this theme when building your float and organizing your parade contingent -- an award will be given to the group that adapts this theme best in the parade!



We Encourage You to THINK ABOUT IT!

Is Pride a show for straight people to ask us questions? Can all of us be proud of our jobs/ways of making money? Can all of us safely proclaim our pride in what we do? Should we be celebrating our service to the dominate culture or celebrating our queer identities? Should the fight against don't ask don't tell be our community's next priority considering the epidemic of homelessness among our youth and violence against trans/gender-variant people?



JOIN US at our next meeting on Sunday, May 20th at 5pm at Community Church in Copley Square.

6 comments:

Tom Lang said...

Mark,

Have you thought about pooling resources, participants and ideas for one large turnout for pride.

IE join as one group and march, maybe combine this with Brian Rainey's ideas too?

Showing unity with pink is fine but it doesn't pack a wallop like "actually" unifying as one big float or group.

Mark D. Snyder said...

We have not decided on our "action" yet. This is just the foundation for a visible resistance of the theme.

At our next meeting we will discuss if we want to create a marching contingent, do a demonstration on the sidelines, etc.

:) Happy Pride

everydaygeek said...

Pink?!?
Why is it always pink? *Sigh* I don't even own any pink...

Mark D. Snyder said...

Pink has a lot of history in our community. Here are some reasons why we use Pink/Hot Pink:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink#Pink_in_gender_and_sexuality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag

Anonymous said...

YOu people need something better to do with your time. You're just as sick as those Article 8 people. Haven't you figured it out that the enemy is just waiting for the already fragile community to finally fracture so that they can get their claws into it and ruin it even more. Wake up and smell the coffee you morons. You're the problem not people who volunteer their time and sit in a room year round to put this stuff on.

If you really cared about the community then you'd get involved with something and not just sit in front of your computer and spew your hate for people ACTUALLY trying to make a difference.

And you only chose pink because so many other people will be wearing it. You're trying to skew your numbers you idiot.

Mark D. Snyder said...

We chose Hot Pink for historical and important reasons, and because it is bright.

We are uniting our community around principles of unity and social justice, and will continue doing so.

There is never a bad time to speak out against racism, war, and occupation.