:capitalist-woke: month is over :deeper-sadness: .
Didn't the supreme court just make that illegal forever?
As opposed to the 90's when they wouldn't be caught dead supporting gays.
I fucking love corporate pride. The alternative is much fucking worse and much more fucking miserable.
Corporations have to be rejected from pride because they have an economic incentive for NOT being radical.
Companies want to appeal to the widest audience they possibly can and that means their support of pride economically incentivises groups of activists and others to appeal to the companies by reining in their more radical positions so they are palatable for the businesses to support. This hinders the ability of the movement to go further and is the reason we are seeing splits from pride into new things like "radical pride" occur.
I just can't buy into this 8-D chess where stopping corporations from flying pride colors for one month a year somehow improves the position of gay people in the world. Anything that normalizes queer culture is good when the alternative is not having that happen.
The conservatives will be very thankful they no longer have to have gayness shoved in their faces for a month every year! That much is for fucking certain.
It's not about the conservatives it's about capital coopting and deradicalising the ability of a social movement to affect any further change. Accepting corporate pride means kneecapping our ability to get further improvements.
Why not just get radical anyways and if the corporations stop supporting it, then just don't give a fuck about that?
Ultimately, I much prefer world where young gays can see a world that at least gives them token support, rather than demonization and hatred. Growing up in the South like that is horrible, and I want every advantage for the new generation we can possibly claw away.
Because normalisation of corporate pride means normalisation of money in pride. And normalisation of money in pride means normalisation of pandering to the sources of that money.
The end result of this chain of events is handing over organisation of pride to the people who make money instead of the people who are effective at progressing the goals of the movement.
Corporations are incompatible with radicalism because anything radical is almost always unpopular until after the radical movement has effected change. If you have corporations anywhere near the driving seat, or wielding the money that goes into these events, you water down the movement.
This becomes very obvious when you realise that corporations would not support kink at pride, and how much kink at pride is "debated" by liberals who seek to coopt, water down pride and make it into a family event that makes money and generates tourism for whatever city it takes place in.
I think I mostly agree with your point about it being better than the alternative but there is something so depressing about having my existence sold to me. It feels like it creates an acceptable way to be not straight and anyone who falls outside of that still has to deal with being an other despite the pride flag profile pics. Idk this is something that I haven't been able to fully work out for myself.
Edited typos
