Serious Pride Month & rainbow capitalism

[antemortem]

"This Pride Month, I'm embracing 'rainbow capitalism'" — via The Washington Post

My young friend says she has no use for Pride gatherings today. "It's overrun with straight people with their kids, and it's basically just a joke," she told me.
I understand what she's saying. But my younger friend was fortunate enough to come out and immediately find community. After some difficulty, her parents have grown to accept their daughter and her partner. While fantastic for her, this is also the weakness of her argument. She doesn't know what she doesn't know.

Besides, does she not see the wave of anti-LGBTQ sentiment and lawmaking washing over the country? Right now, we should be welcoming the support of however many straight people and companies want to give it — and however they want to give it. I understand that there are some in the queer community who believe the rainbow-ification of the movement has declawed it. But it's not a zero-sum game. For every rainbow keychain, someone is out there fighting the good fight.

In my youth, I could not have imagined a store selling merchandise celebrating what I had been led to believe was the biggest shame of my life. I wonder how a 13-year-old me would have reacted had I seen how positively normal it is to be gay — so normal that a department store is selling T-shirts about it. I wonder if those of us who marched in that parade would have held our heads up higher simply in the knowledge that we were not, as the hecklers said, sick and depraved.

I know queer people who are more "woke" will disagree. But if you never see yourself represented, you are most likely to believe what others say about you. Representation matters even if it comes in the form of a rainbow shirt on a dog. Somewhere that dog shirt is helping someone.

So, although I won't buy rainbow merchandise, I'm glad it's there assaulting my eyes in Target. Yes, it's capitalism at work, and it's soulless. But it's there. I remember what it was like to feel totally alone. Some other kid might see it and realize they aren't alone. And realize they are among others, many others. And that, somewhere, they can find acceptance.

This is a purely opinion-based piece from columnist Brian Broome. It's important in conversations like this to understand how the authorial voice identifies (Broome is Black and identifies within the article as a gay man) because the intersection of identity informs experience and personal stake in a topic.

A Black gay man has a particular perspective in this; a subjugated queer voice of color is nuanced inofitself. Add to this the fact that Broome has more privileges than someone of trans/female experience since he more than likely passes as male/masculine, and the conversation's dynamics shift dramatically.

To suggest that "For every rainbow keychain, someone is out there fighting the good fight" is anything other than an exaggerated metric to appeal to the readers' pathos would be misguided. The number of organizations that contribute to the proliferation of Pride-related merchandising might be outnumbered by the number of people purchasing said merchandise, but visibility does not always equate to success. Representation on television or on Pride floats does not always mean that said representation is doing groundbreaking work to communicate safe messaging to queer communities, dismantle anti-transgender legislation, and so on.

Thoughts on rainbow capitalism, especially after the last couple of years of meditation on/development of the subject?

 

[Nah]

Kinda sad that people ever bought into rainbow capitalism, still do, and even bother trying to defend it. I mean, I'm really not surprised in the slightest, I have no illusions about this world and am one of the most cynical and depressing people here, I'm aware that much of the world and the US in particular is very....slow at best to even begin to entertain the idea that capitalism is nothing more than a blight on this world, but still.

Corporations have always only existed for one reason and one reason only: to make as much profit as possible. Literally everything they do is to that end, even if it might not seem like it. Many put out the rainbow merchandise and color their social media accounts rainbow when June rolls around, but behind the scenes donate anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of dollars to anti-LGBTQ politicians and organizations (1 , 2) . And it's a lot of big names too: Amazon, Walmart, Target, AT&T, Verizon, Toyota, General Motors, to name a few. If they genuinely gave a shit they wouldn't do so, and would use the influence they have to help enact meaningful change, but they don't. Corporations aren't our friends, never were our friends, never will be our friends.

Articles like these are particularly unfortunate since the author being a part of the group causes some people to give it more credence than it deserves, people don't realize that even people within a group can be wrong on some things about the issues their own group(s) face. "Oh well if one of them says it, why should I the outsider argue with them?". The author also falls into a trap that I think a lot of people do, which is not being able to differentiate between real change and the illusion of it. That just because more people are being open about their sexuality and/or gender identity, that pride parades and rainbow merch are a thing now when they weren't decades ago, that progress has truly been made. It rather obviously hasn't, given the continued discrimination of LGBTQ people, the recent calls to commit violence/genocide against us (1 , 2), multiple states passing homophobic and transphobic legislation, etc.

There's a kernel of truth in the article (which is another reason why some are apt to buy into it) in that, yes, you need as many allies as possible and that representation is a necessary piece of the puzzle, but they are also merely just that--a piece of the puzzle.

also I'll leave here this tweet/image I found the other day:

 

[Corrin]

I'm not sure.
On one hand, big corporations just do this for money. But on the other, homophobes do get scared and riled when they see all of this during pride month. I think it's helpful to a degree, but we can't forget that a good chunk of corporations don't give a shit. Buy merch from lgbt artists, support local charities.

 

[Fairy]

Buy your rainbow merch from independent LGBTQ+ creators. Be mindful of your purchases, where your money is going, and make educated decisions. There's no shame in flaunting whatever rainbow/pride stuff you have! But if it can be helped than support your local shops and places you know are pro-LGBTQ+. :)