‘Badge of Pride’

Badge of Pride is the 2009 documentary by Toronto TV writer/producer/director Min Sook Lee, who definitely is not the other “Sook Lee” you might be thinking of. It features two gay cops and two lesbian cops. Nobody has really great experiences to recount; at the very best, one gay male is treated with benign indifference, except when he isn’t. Continue reading “‘Badge of Pride’” →

Black Lives Matter’s demands

As seen in a badly typeset and equally badly copy-edited printout and listed in a press release. Those versions are different, but both unequivocally call for “Removal of police floats in the Pride marches/parades.”

BLM demands (press-release version)

  1. Commit to BQY[’s] (Black Queer Youth[’s]) continued space (including stage/tents), funding, and logistical support.
  2. Self-determination for all community spaces, allowing community full control over hiring, content, and structure of their stages.
  3. Full and adequate funding for community stages, including logistical, technical, and personnel support.
  4. Double funding for Blockorama (to $13,000 + ASL interpretation & headliner funding).
  5. Reinstate and make a commitment to increase community stages/spaces (including the reinstatement of the South Asian stage).
  6. Removal of police floats in the Pride marches/parades.
  7. A public town hall, organized in conjunction with groups from marginalized communities, including, but not limited to, Black Lives Matter Toronto, Blackness Yes, and BQY to be held six months from today. Pride Toronto will present an update and action plan on the aforementioned demands.

BLM demands (handout version)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/joeclark/28188384216/

  1. Commit to BQY[’s] (Black Queer Youth[’s]) continued space (including stage/tents), funding, and logistical support.
  2. Self-determination for all community spaces, allowing community full control over hiring, content, and structure of their stages.
  3. Full and adequate funding for community stages, including logistical, technical, and personnel support.
  4. Increase funding for Blockorama (to $10,000 plus ASL interpretation and headliner funding).
  5. Removal of police floats in the Pride marches/parades.
  6. Reinstate and make a commitment to increase community stages/spaces (including the reinstatement of the South Asian stage).
  7. A public town hall, organized in conjunction with groups from marginalized communities, including, but not limited to, Black Lives Matter Toronto, Blackness Yes, and BQY, to be held six months from today. Pride Toronto will present an update and action plan on the aforementioned demands.

Notes

Six months from the Pride-parade date puts that town hall on Friday, February 3. I’m sure everyone will be alert and ready to talk about Gay Pride on that day right after New Year’s and in the dead of winter.

Note that it’s illegal under the Ontario Human Rights Code to request to a service provider to provide staff who meet a certain racial classification. (Very precisely, it would be illegal for the service provider to comply with that request.) Some exceptions that exist under the Code do not apply here. So BLM’s demand for more black interpreters is not gonna happen.

You can’t venture an informed comment about Black Lives Matter’s demands of Pride Toronto unless and until you learn about the Community Advisory Panel (CAP) and the Dispute Resolution Process (DRP). You won’t hear anything about those in the usual places that queers, transgenders, and LGBTs get their news – namely Twitter, Tumblr, and, last and very much least, the mainstream media.

The work of the CAP, and how the DRP applies when anyone wants a group banned from Pride parades or marches, have been completely forgotten. Pride Toronto itself is most guilty here, not least because it hides the Dispute Resolution Process and also because the DRP itself has proven to be a farce.

So learn a few things, why don’t you, before you freelance an opinion about Black Lives Matter’s demand to force cops out of the Pride parade?

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