Tag Archives: racist

100’s Of Leading LGBTQ Activists Sign An Open Letter To Reject ‘Blackface’ Performance At UK Prides

Leading LGBT activists have signed a letter urging pride events to stop booking blackface acts.

It comes after Durham Pride was criticised for booking a woman who darkened her skin to impersonate Beyoncé.

Durham dropped the act from its lineup and apologised for the booking after several groups threatened to boycott the event.

A letter signed by LGBT activists including Jack Monroe, Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, Ruth Hunt and Peter Tatchell expressed concern that similar artists are being promoted at other events.

Blackface is a form of racism that dehumanises Black people turning them into objects that can be “performed”. It is a modern form of minstrelsy and has no place at Pride.”

It said the upcoming Pride season was about “celebrating diversity” and the ongoing issue “continues to be an embarrassing stain” on the LGBT community.

As we are coming into Pride season, a time of year where we should be celebrating our diversity, this ongoing issue continues to be an embarrassing stain on the LGBTQIA+ community.”

The letter also offers recommendations for how pride organisations in the UK can commit to ending racist performances, including a suggestion that they diversify their lineups.

In the last year we have seen homophobia and racism rise dramatically, these struggles are connected, they often stem from the same hatred of difference.

The repercussions of this have been particularly felt by BAME LGBTQs. We must come together as a community and stand up to racism as well as homophobia so that every LGBTQIA+ person in the UK feels welcome at their local Pride to celebrate their love and lives.”

Stonewall also posted in a new blog to their website;

LGBT POC (people of colour) continue daily, within the wider LGBT community, to be fetishized, excluded or subjected to stereotyping. For that reason, we should double down on our efforts to make sure all Black, Asian and other ethnic minority LGBT people feel included at events like Pride.”

The charity added:

We must all learn better how to recognise our privileges and be allies to LGBT people who are marginalised or experience discrimination based on other factors. We must champion their specific rights to equality and inclusion.”

Stonewall called for ethnic diversity within the teams who put together Pride events, so they have “the necessary experiences and knowledge to ensure you get it right”.

Let us be very clear for those who don’t know or understand: blackface is always unacceptable and is a degrading and hurtful form of racism, regardless of the performer’s intent. It will always be insensitive and should never be treated as a part of a performance. The act itself dehumanises and humiliates the ethnicities that it imitates, often as negative stereotypes. It has no place in society, let alone at Pride events, where LGBT people and allies should feel free to be their authentic selves.”

South African Activists Call Cape Town Pride ‘Racist’, Say It Should Become More Inclusive

The topic of racism in South Africa is not a new one. From 1948 until 1994, South Africa went through an awful period of racial segregation called apartheid. Although most people in South Africa were black or of other ethnic minorities, their rights were taken away from them and Afrikaner minority rule (Afrikaners are a white ethnic group) was enforced.

It’s unsurprising then, that there are ongoing complaints by South Africa’s LGBT community that the annual Cape Town Pride celebration is not just exclusionary but is inherently racist too.

While it’s unclear as to how Cape Town Pride has been racist, activists have raised issue with the fact that Cape Town Pride is mostly focused on white, gay men and fails to address the issues of queer women in townships, such as the fact that that they are often threatened with rape or have verbal abuse thrown at them.

A group of like minded activists who agree that Cape Town Pride needs to change have set up Alternative Inclusive Pride which takes place at the same time as Cape Town Pride. What’s key is that despite the timing of the AIP, the organisers aren’t calling for a boycott and instead hold seminars, parties and continue to ask for Cape Town Pride to involve the wider LGBT community in its planning.

Funeka Soldaat, a member of Alternative Inclusive Pride as well as being the chairperson of Free Gender, a lobbying group explains that “Protesting at the event was the last resort for us, we’ve been engaging with the organisers for a while, but they chose not to listen”.

However, despite the insistence that Cape Town Pride needs to change, Cape Town Pride director, Matthew van As has retaliated saying that actually, Alternative Inclusive Pride’s protest is racist.

“I don’t agree with the method they used. I find it slightly racist because Pride doesn’t see colour or gender, anyone is welcome to get involved and you can choose not to join in.

They were given until the 20 December to add any new events to our calendar, but we didn’t get anything. About two weeks before Pride, we were contacted to say there was unhappiness about the calendar. It was too late for us to change things a week before a festival.”

Matthew van As

van As also notes that his organisation has held Khumbulani Pride in Gugulethu where they have talked about homophobia in the townships.

It’s unlikely that the situation will be resolved soon but we’ll keep you posted once we know more.