Corporate Pride is the pointy tip of the spear in the fight for acceptance. We need to ease up a little and let our capitalist overlords help us before they decide not to bother.
Yes. My SCA brother has been saying this for years. When President Obama shows support, you say, "Thank you, Mr. President," not "Took you long enough for such a weak statement." If someone is on your side for issue A, you work with them on issue A, even if you fight them tooth and nail and then some on the rest of the alphabet.
You make some very good points. A lot of the anger in the community is over corporations, like Target and Bud Light, yanking their support at the first screams of conservatives. So, we hate that we need them, but we do need them, so how do we keep them? Target was willing to ignore how much profit and goodwill they've had from LGBTQIA+ consumers for a vocal minority of hate mongers. How can we make their allyship stick?
This whole thing was a brilliant read as usual, but you were really on fire with the language! This was especially glorious: "Pride month just sits there like a giant happy rainbow hippopotamus shaking its groove-thing, blowing smoke in their faces, and proving them wrong."
To be fair, Target stood up until their employees were quite literally targeted and they had to choose. While allies through thick and thin would be nice, the backlash if they'd let employees die for the cause (I mean, never mind the actual dying) really isn't what they are in this for. We don't force people out of the closet 8f they are in danger, so it seems like forcing people into danger who have no choice but to go to work would also be wrong.
Now, if we lived in a country where that kind of threat was less credible... but that's kind of the point, isn't it?
Honestly I’ve been happy with seeing corporate pride for exactly the reasons you talked about. The sheer happiness it brings me to see rainbows everywhere does not hurt either. As long as I live in a corporate hellscape I definitely prefer for the corporations to be supportive of me.
I needed this! In Boise, our Pride coordinators were a bit optimistic about first Pride back during the pandemic. The regular June schehdule was shifted to September amid a new wave of COVID infections, and now the timing has stuck. We celebrate Pride out of phase with everyone else, and I was starting to feel a bit of distress at the anti-corporate Pride rhetoric that crops up in my circles every year. Especially in a state like Idaho, it feels like a massive corporate rainbow celebration of visibility is important in a way that feels dramatically urgent to me right now.
A thought I, a cis-het middle-class white dude frantically fighting back against encroaching middle age, had: corporate Pride activities also work for employees. Job-1 made a big deal of that, and sure, maybe it started out as performative rainbow-washing, but what actually happened is that a lot of LGBTQ+ employees took the ball and ran with it, leading to my so-square-it’s-practically-cubic self getting to have all sorts of fascinating conversations with my colleagues. I wasn’t a bigot before, mind, but it’s always good to have a reality check or ten. Vice versa, I hope that talking to people like me (see above, with kids, mortgage, etc) reassured them that we’re not all Moral Majority monsters, just sometimes a bit exhausted by life for the more active aspects of ally-ship, and very much welcoming of tips on how to do better on that front.
You're going to have to help me out here: millions of people migrate to other countries for a better life - including America. But there isn't a great deal of emigration from the States to, say, Europe, despite all the concerning issues which, as a native English speaker, I get to read and hear about incessantly via social channels. Why is that? Why don't folks up-sticks and move to places which don't have such polarising, life-weary issues?
You are an absolute treasure. Having a good, if loud, conversation with our kid the LGBTQ+ anarchist about not disdaining *everything* we old timey queer folks have bled for, and learning a lot about The Youngs in the “yes buts.”
Also, I hate that the banks are there, but I see people working in their cubicles in drab cities alive with joy that their employer bought them t-shirts and paid for a coach. More joy.
Yes. My SCA brother has been saying this for years. When President Obama shows support, you say, "Thank you, Mr. President," not "Took you long enough for such a weak statement." If someone is on your side for issue A, you work with them on issue A, even if you fight them tooth and nail and then some on the rest of the alphabet.
You make some very good points. A lot of the anger in the community is over corporations, like Target and Bud Light, yanking their support at the first screams of conservatives. So, we hate that we need them, but we do need them, so how do we keep them? Target was willing to ignore how much profit and goodwill they've had from LGBTQIA+ consumers for a vocal minority of hate mongers. How can we make their allyship stick?
This whole thing was a brilliant read as usual, but you were really on fire with the language! This was especially glorious: "Pride month just sits there like a giant happy rainbow hippopotamus shaking its groove-thing, blowing smoke in their faces, and proving them wrong."
To be fair, Target stood up until their employees were quite literally targeted and they had to choose. While allies through thick and thin would be nice, the backlash if they'd let employees die for the cause (I mean, never mind the actual dying) really isn't what they are in this for. We don't force people out of the closet 8f they are in danger, so it seems like forcing people into danger who have no choice but to go to work would also be wrong.
Now, if we lived in a country where that kind of threat was less credible... but that's kind of the point, isn't it?
Excellent, thank you! Frankly, we can’t afford to wrap ourselves in shrouds of purity, or we’ll be buried in them.
Chef's kiss. 12/10, no notes.
Thank you!
Honestly I’ve been happy with seeing corporate pride for exactly the reasons you talked about. The sheer happiness it brings me to see rainbows everywhere does not hurt either. As long as I live in a corporate hellscape I definitely prefer for the corporations to be supportive of me.
Beautifully put, Cat. We'd be stupid to refuse any allies we can get, no matter how mercenary they might be.
Learn the truth about pride:
https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/UMTGMgfsiKb
I needed this! In Boise, our Pride coordinators were a bit optimistic about first Pride back during the pandemic. The regular June schehdule was shifted to September amid a new wave of COVID infections, and now the timing has stuck. We celebrate Pride out of phase with everyone else, and I was starting to feel a bit of distress at the anti-corporate Pride rhetoric that crops up in my circles every year. Especially in a state like Idaho, it feels like a massive corporate rainbow celebration of visibility is important in a way that feels dramatically urgent to me right now.
A thought I, a cis-het middle-class white dude frantically fighting back against encroaching middle age, had: corporate Pride activities also work for employees. Job-1 made a big deal of that, and sure, maybe it started out as performative rainbow-washing, but what actually happened is that a lot of LGBTQ+ employees took the ball and ran with it, leading to my so-square-it’s-practically-cubic self getting to have all sorts of fascinating conversations with my colleagues. I wasn’t a bigot before, mind, but it’s always good to have a reality check or ten. Vice versa, I hope that talking to people like me (see above, with kids, mortgage, etc) reassured them that we’re not all Moral Majority monsters, just sometimes a bit exhausted by life for the more active aspects of ally-ship, and very much welcoming of tips on how to do better on that front.
You're going to have to help me out here: millions of people migrate to other countries for a better life - including America. But there isn't a great deal of emigration from the States to, say, Europe, despite all the concerning issues which, as a native English speaker, I get to read and hear about incessantly via social channels. Why is that? Why don't folks up-sticks and move to places which don't have such polarising, life-weary issues?
You are an absolute treasure. Having a good, if loud, conversation with our kid the LGBTQ+ anarchist about not disdaining *everything* we old timey queer folks have bled for, and learning a lot about The Youngs in the “yes buts.”
I was ready to buy a case of Bud Light . . . and then they caved
This, thank you.
Also, I hate that the banks are there, but I see people working in their cubicles in drab cities alive with joy that their employer bought them t-shirts and paid for a coach. More joy.