FAC Insights: Pride - Protest or Party? by MIRI
Today we launch FAC Insights, a forum for us to showcase and share long form pieces looking at various parts of the music industry and the society that shapes it. FAC Insights will allow contributors to take a deep dive into various aspects that impact them, their lives and the scenes they find themselves in. There are no real boundaries beyond that and pieces will take the form of videos, interviews, discussions, articles and more.
To kick things off, our first FAC Insights comes from BEAT Board member and artist, MIRI who writes about Pride, it’s origins and it’s purpose.
MIRI’s latest EP 'Soundbites' gained support from BB6 and BBC Introducing and Clash Magazine but alongside her career as an artists, MIRI also works with mental health awareness charities and is the curator of 'Diversity Platform' offering advice to young LGBTQ+ artists.
Pride: Protest or Party?
It’s Pride Month and being in lockdown has allowed me plenty of time for reflection.
For many of us Pride has become a party and a time for celebration. Larger Prides like Manchester and Brighton now ticket their events pulling in big music industry names like Kylie and Ariana Grande. I know a lot of people who won’t go to the mainstream Pride events, preferring to stick with community Prides where the grassroots ethos and protest for equality remains centre stage.
I wanted to hear what some of my friends felt about this. Should Pride be a protest, a party or both?
“I love the celebratory side of Pride, we have a lot to celebrate but I do agree that more needs to be added to the protest side of things as we still have a long way to go, there are still a lot of problems both within and outside the community itself. It will be the protesting that will allow every event to be an even bigger celebration than the year before and allow more people to feel included.” Sherika Sherard (Singer-Songwriter)
To explore more let’s go back to where Pride originated.
On Saturday June 28th in 1969 the LGBTQ+ community rioted following a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. Police raids were common. This was a time when being gay was classed as a mental health illness. As a queer woman I was shocked and angry to discover that The World Health Organization only removed 'homosexuality' from the list of mental disorders in 1992. Reading about the struggles and brutality that LGBTQ+ Americans continued to face in the 50’s and 60’s with an anti-LGBTQ+ legal system, fills me with gratitude to all the activists who fought for change. It was thanks to the Stonewall riots and additional protests and rioting over the next few nights that helped spark a movement. Within six months of the uprising two gay activist organisations were established in New York. A year after the uprising on June 28th 1970, the first gay pride marches took place in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. It's important to mention that the 2015 film Stonewall, about the Stonewall riots white washed this historical moment. The film used a cis white gay male character as the lead and the first to throw the brick, instead of paying homeage to the lesbians and trans women of colour including Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera and Storme DeLarverie who led the uprising.
My first Pride was London's Soho Pride in 2006. I remember feelings of contentment and joy. I had no thoughts or awareness at that time of the strength and bravery of those who had fought many years before in order for me to have that experience. My friend Ken Clarke remembers, "Attending Pride in the 80's was a risky but also an amazing experience. There was a risk in marching because we would get abuse from people on the street and they would laugh and point." The first ever UK Gay Pride Rally was held in London, July 1st 1972 (the nearest Saturday to the anniversary of the Stonewall riots). In 2005 the first UK Black Pride took place in Southend-on-Sea. UK Black Pride was founded by trade unionist Phyll Opoku Gyimah, aka Lady Phyll to address a lack of space for queer people of colour. The event is now Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ celebration for African, Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American and Caribbean heritage.
"Having the freedom to celebrate LGBTQ+/queer identities is a right that people have fought for for decades. In this vein, Pride having a celebratory feel to it is a protest in itself, because for so long so many of us have felt (and in some cases, still feel) that these identities are something to hide and be ashamed of. In many places this is still unfortunately the case, and even in the UK, particularly for trans people and people of colour, there is still not the level of acceptance that cis white members of the community have. It's for this reason that the origins of Pride cannot be forgotten. Pride parades should not be taken over by corporations, 'rainbowing' their logos as PR stunts. Pride should absolutely still be a protest, we still have so much to fight for." Chloe Hawes (Singer-Songwriter)
Trigger Warning:
I’m not always sure how to process the fact that we still live in a world that has chosen to criminalise and dehumanise the LGBTQ+ community when all we want to do is live our lives safely and authentically. In 2017 LGBTQ+ activist Sarah Hegazi was imprisoned and tortured for months in Egypt after flying a rainbow flag at a music concert. On 13th June 2020 Sarah Hegazi died by suicide in Canada where she had claimed asylum and was living with PTSD. Recent leaked information from the Financial Times brought to light the UK Governments potential changes to laws affecting trans people, making it harder for trans folk to transition and access public toilets and changing rooms. My heart sinks because I know that our LGBTQ+ community is not in safe hands. In the US the life expectancy of a black trans woman is 35. Journalist and activist Ashlee Marie Preston commissioned a cake on her birthday in 2018 to memorialise 77 black trans women who had been murdered under the age of 35. In 2017 Chechyna opened the first concentration camps for gay men since Hitler. This is sickening.
The more I research the more I see that marginalised communities partying in the street is a protest in itself. We need to keep showing up and be seen, owning our space that has continued to be denied to us for so long. Our protest is an act of self love. We need to keep speaking out and demonstrating for LGBTQ+ rights and equality in the UK and around the world. It’s illegal to be LGBTQ+ in 70 countries and you can receive the death penalty in 12. How can we still be here in 2020? The rights that we do have and that the activists before us fought so hard to achieve can easily be taken away. We have to make our voices heard. Pride is a perfect opportunity for us to do this. I see hate spread around so effortlessly at times. It’s vital that we all continue to fight against transphobia and racism, including within our own LGBTQ+ community. Love wins.
"You never completely have your rights, one person, until you all have your rights."
Marsha P. Johnson
Author: Miri Metz , MIRI