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Pinkwashing and Pride · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
0:06
Speaker 2: I'm welcome to Stuff I never told you a production
0:08
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio, and today we are thrilled to once again
0:21
Speaker 2: be joined by friend of the show contributor Amazing Personal
0:25
Speaker 2: Around Joey.
0:26
Speaker 1: Welcome, Joey. Hello. Yes, we always.
0:30
Speaker 2: Love having you, and we've been talking about some future
0:35
Speaker 2: projects that we'll.
0:36
Speaker 1: Be working on together.
0:39
Speaker 2: Yes, today you were bringing a topic that is timely
0:44
Speaker 2: important and I specifically have a lot of thoughts about
0:47
Speaker 2: so I'm very eager to get in to it.
0:50
Speaker 1: So it's Pride Month, the happy Pride months.
0:53
Speaker 3: Everybody here, Yes, And with that, I figured you know this.
0:59
Speaker 3: I'm sure a lot of peopleeople are feeling. This has
1:01
Speaker 3: been a little bit of a weird Pride seasons for
1:05
Speaker 3: a lot of reasons, and so today I kind of
1:08
Speaker 3: want to talk about one of the big issues that
1:10
Speaker 3: is at the root of like some of this weirdness,
1:12
Speaker 3: which is of course should be straight boyfriends of bisexual
1:15
Speaker 3: women come to Pride.
1:16
Speaker 1: Never mind, but I'm sorry, I.
1:21
Speaker 3: Need to get one thing out of the way really quick.
1:23
Speaker 3: That whole argument online is driving me insane. It is
1:27
Speaker 3: not a real issue, you guys. I have yet to
1:29
Speaker 3: see somebody argue, for no, we should not have any
1:32
Speaker 3: straight people at Pride. I think people are making a
1:34
Speaker 3: big deal out of something that is not an issue anyways.
1:39
Speaker 4: I didn't know this is a thing.
1:40
Speaker 1: This has been a thing. This has been a thing
1:41
Speaker 1: on TikTok and the internet.
1:44
Speaker 3: As I would say, people who's I'm not going to
1:50
Speaker 3: get into this, but you know, I think some people
1:52
Speaker 3: whose view of the queer community and queer issues is
1:54
Speaker 3: limited very much to online spaces and.
1:59
Speaker 1: It's OK, people are dying. I think we can focus
2:01
Speaker 1: on other things. And that ping said translation today.
2:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that leads us to what I'm actually going
2:12
Speaker 3: to talk about today, which is pinkwashing, which is a
2:16
Speaker 3: word that you may or may not have heard before.
2:20
Speaker 3: If you haven't, this is from dictionary dot com quote.
2:24
Speaker 3: Pinkwashing is a critical term used to refer to the
2:27
Speaker 3: practice of attempting to benefit from purported support for LGBTQ
2:32
Speaker 3: plus rights, often as a way to profit or to
2:35
Speaker 3: distract from a separate agenda.
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Speaker 1: And so there's two main ways that we really see this.
2:41
Speaker 3: One is corporate pinkwashing and the other is political pinkwashing.
2:45
Speaker 3: So corporate prinkwashing, you know, corporations using Pride Month or
2:51
Speaker 3: other sort of surface level marketing tactics to try to
2:55
Speaker 3: cater to the LGBTQ plus community while also doing harm
2:57
Speaker 3: to those communities, whether through their economic and political interests
3:02
Speaker 3: or by just selling harmful products. And then for political
3:07
Speaker 3: pink washing, certain political parties, governing bodies, or individuals will
3:11
Speaker 3: use supposed support I'm saying, supposed support for the LGBTQ
3:15
Speaker 3: plus community to draw attention away from other less savory
3:20
Speaker 3: aspects of their regime.
3:24
Speaker 1: I also want a note I did just learn this. Apparently.
3:26
Speaker 3: Pink washing also has been used by like as a
3:29
Speaker 3: term has been used by some breast cancer awareness activists
3:31
Speaker 3: to describe companies that will like use the pink ribbon
3:34
Speaker 3: symbol or like.
3:36
Speaker 1: Be like we're going to donate some.
3:38
Speaker 3: Money to breast cancer research or whatever, like kind of
3:40
Speaker 3: advertise that they are like supporting, you know, survivors while
3:45
Speaker 3: also making products that have harmful chemicals that.
3:49
Speaker 1: You know can cause cancer and a lot of other issues.
3:52
Speaker 3: So that is not what we're talking about right now,
3:55
Speaker 3: but that is also something that is bad, and I
3:57
Speaker 3: think it ties into the bigger kind of issue. Of course,
4:00
Speaker 3: aberrations using social justice narratives to make a profit rather
4:04
Speaker 3: than to actually help those communities. So this originally was
4:07
Speaker 3: just going to be about political pink washing, but I
4:09
Speaker 3: do think, especially given the moment that we're at right now,
4:12
Speaker 3: it is also important to talk about corporate pink washing
4:15
Speaker 3: and also how this ties into political pink washing. So
4:18
Speaker 3: I'm gonna start by talking a little bit of out
4:19
Speaker 3: corporate pink washing. So from a twenty twenty two inequality
4:24
Speaker 3: dot org article on the topic, they said, quote, akin
4:28
Speaker 3: to the massive Christmas ification, that is a hard word
4:32
Speaker 3: to say. Stores undergo each December first, or I guess
4:36
Speaker 3: closer to like November first at this point, Yeah, October
4:43
Speaker 3: June first brings a wave of rainbows, pride flags of
4:46
Speaker 3: varying shades, and of course the phrase love is love
4:49
Speaker 3: in every font, color, and style. Imaginable corporations and organizations
4:54
Speaker 3: of all stripes, from Advisor to bud Light attempts to
4:58
Speaker 3: express allyship by covering their low.
5:00
Speaker 1: Goes in rainbows.
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Speaker 3: Even the US Marines shared an image of rainbow bullets
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Speaker 3: dropped to a camouflaghed helmet.
5:06
Speaker 1: I hate that so much. They're rainbow bulet Okay, I was,
5:10
Speaker 1: but I think the moment.
5:11
Speaker 3: That like, I like turned me off to the idea
5:14
Speaker 3: of like mainstream pride parades for me personally, wasn't twenty nineteen,
5:19
Speaker 3: so before the pandemic, I was at the Chicago Pride
5:22
Speaker 3: Parade and there was an FBI float, Like what, it
5:27
Speaker 3: was so weird, Like, I just it was so Also
5:30
Speaker 3: you could hear like silence around like everybody.
5:33
Speaker 1: Robbie was like what, Yeah, it was so.
5:36
Speaker 3: Weird, But I mean, okay, so so But that kind
5:38
Speaker 3: of anecdoting side, I think I'm sure a lot of
5:40
Speaker 3: people that have gone to Pride parades in recent years
5:43
Speaker 3: have noticed it's gotten very corporate. So yeah, another phrase
5:47
Speaker 3: that's used to describe this phenomenon is rainbow capitalism.
5:51
Speaker 1: So I'm going to kind of use this interchangeably.
5:53
Speaker 3: And then I also want to point out this article
5:55
Speaker 3: was written in twenty twenty two, which is relevant because
6:00
Speaker 3: we'd a weird spot, like I said, when it comes
6:02
Speaker 3: to corporate pinkwashing, because this kind of all kind of
6:05
Speaker 3: came to a head last year in June twenty twenty three.
6:08
Speaker 3: One of the companies that this quote mentioned was bud Light,
6:11
Speaker 3: which was one of the companies kind of at the
6:13
Speaker 3: center of everything that happened last year. I'm sure if
6:15
Speaker 3: you've been on the internet, if you've been paying attention
6:17
Speaker 3: to the news at all of the past year, you
6:18
Speaker 3: kind of know the rundown of what happened. But there
6:21
Speaker 3: was this kind of huge right wing backlash to companies
6:24
Speaker 3: like Target and Starbucks and all these companies are marketing
6:27
Speaker 3: things for pride. Bud Light was on the companies where
6:31
Speaker 3: there was like this huge backlash because they partnered with
6:33
Speaker 3: Dylan Malvany. They did not handle the backlash well. They
6:38
Speaker 3: kind of just dropped her without really reaching out to
6:40
Speaker 3: her anything. And like there were all these weird videos
6:43
Speaker 3: of conservatives like destroying bud like cans and all of that.
6:47
Speaker 1: So I think that's interesting to point out again, like
6:50
Speaker 1: I think this is.
6:50
Speaker 3: Sort of a weird thing to be talking about now
6:52
Speaker 3: because we're like one year out from this sort of
6:54
Speaker 3: pivot that.
6:55
Speaker 1: We've made where.
6:58
Speaker 3: We've kind of seen the ways that pinkwashing isn't a
7:01
Speaker 3: very reliable measure of progress. So let's kind of start
7:05
Speaker 3: by talking about, regardless of the backlash and everything that's
7:08
Speaker 3: happened in the past year, why this particular marketing tactic
7:11
Speaker 3: is bad. So again, from inequality dot Org quote to
7:15
Speaker 3: an LGBTQ plus community that has a national poverty rate
7:18
Speaker 3: of twenty two percent compared to sixteen percent of SIS
7:21
Speaker 3: straight people. Rainbow capitalism is a slap in the face
7:24
Speaker 3: away for corporations to reap the benefits of queer allyship
7:27
Speaker 3: without spearheading initiatives or promoting tangible policies that will have
7:32
Speaker 3: a positive impact on the community.
7:35
Speaker 1: Compared to the.
7:35
Speaker 3: National poverty rate of twelve percent in twenty fifteen, Transgender
7:39
Speaker 3: Americans had a national poverty rate of more than double
7:42
Speaker 3: at twenty nine percent in twenty fifteen. And then they
7:46
Speaker 3: also point out that transcender people of color suff for
7:48
Speaker 3: even worse poverty rates, with forty three percent of Latino,
7:51
Speaker 3: forty one percent of Native American, and forty percent of
7:54
Speaker 3: multiracial and thirty eight percent of black transgender people living
7:57
Speaker 3: in poverty. This was only exacerbated during the Panamic. So
8:02
Speaker 3: they then point out quote. Defenders of pink washing argue
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Speaker 3: that it creates mainstream visibility for LGBTQ plus community.
8:09
Speaker 1: Mainstream visibility of the quote.
8:11
Speaker 3: Defenders of pink washing argue that it creates mainstream visibility
8:14
Speaker 3: of the LGBTQ plus community, which is particularly important for
8:17
Speaker 3: clastid people in more conservative areas. But considering these disparities,
8:21
Speaker 3: we cannot allow corporations to become complacent with superficial allyship
8:25
Speaker 3: that ultimately only benefits them. And they propose as a
8:28
Speaker 3: solution to this issue. Quote, advocates argue the practice of
8:34
Speaker 3: free distribution, redirecting wealth from those who don't need it
8:39
Speaker 3: to those who do, and empowering organizations that support and
8:41
Speaker 3: uplift the LGBTQ plus community directly. Additionally, and I feel
8:46
Speaker 3: like this kind of is the real like nail the
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Speaker 3: coffin issue. Additionally, according to the article quote, numerous major
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Speaker 3: firms that have purportedly celebrated pride, including Home devote At
8:56
Speaker 3: and T have donated roughly one million or more at
8:59
Speaker 3: each two to LGBTQ plus politicians. So yeah, like you
9:06
Speaker 3: want our money, but then you're going to support politicians
9:09
Speaker 3: that are trying to eliminate us. So that doesn't really
9:13
Speaker 3: seem like allyship to me. So something that I thought
9:16
Speaker 3: was interesting too that this article pointed out. And again
9:18
Speaker 3: this was written in twenty twenty two, so before everything
9:20
Speaker 3: that went down last year, and kind of this rise
9:22
Speaker 3: of a lot of backlash. One cause that a lot
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Speaker 3: of these companies do support, or a lot of companies
9:28
Speaker 3: they said at the time, over twenty different organizations do
9:32
Speaker 3: support is the Trevor Project, which does really great work.
9:35
Speaker 3: It is a suicide prevention hotline, but they point out
9:39
Speaker 3: the fact that quote their status is a queer centered
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Speaker 3: mental health organization renders them exactly the kind of organization
9:46
Speaker 3: that businesses are happy to champion. Corporations love to showcase
9:49
Speaker 3: that they are quote saving LGBTQ plus lives and the abstract,
9:53
Speaker 3: but never translate that support into mutual aid and survival
9:55
Speaker 3: efforts for LGBTQ plus communities, which are far more mistorative
9:59
Speaker 3: and transp normative for real queer folks. So again, I
10:03
Speaker 3: think this is another issue that we see. And this
10:05
Speaker 3: is interesting because the Trevor Project was one of the
10:07
Speaker 3: groups that has been targeted in the past year. It
10:10
Speaker 3: has faced a lot of backlash from right wing forces
10:13
Speaker 3: that are like trying to frame it as something it
10:16
Speaker 3: is not.
10:16
Speaker 1: And again, I love the Trevor Project. I've done some
10:18
Speaker 1: great work.
10:19
Speaker 3: But I think the point here is that sometimes it
10:22
Speaker 3: is easier for these companies to support these sort of
10:25
Speaker 3: very nice appearing like uncontroversial things such as like yeah,
10:31
Speaker 3: suicide prevention, saving lives, but when it comes to things
10:34
Speaker 3: there are more more material more like you know, making
10:38
Speaker 3: sure that wealth is distributed in a way that is equal,
10:42
Speaker 3: making sure people have housing and access to food and
10:44
Speaker 3: all that. That is something that people are silent about,
10:46
Speaker 3: that these corporations are silent about, and going to this
10:52
Speaker 3: idea of sort of finding ways to quote support the
10:56
Speaker 3: LGBTQ post community that feel very uh like respectable and
11:02
Speaker 3: like nice upfront. This kind of brought me back to
11:06
Speaker 3: something that I talked about in the last episode I
11:08
Speaker 3: did with you guys that was about Bottoms and how
11:11
Speaker 3: the director whose name I kept pronouncing wrong in the
11:14
Speaker 3: episode I'm so sorry, the director talked about how it
11:17
Speaker 3: was really hard to secure product placement for the movie
11:19
Speaker 3: because of the sort of unrespectable tone that it takes,
11:25
Speaker 3: and like, obviously, not providing product placement for a movie
11:30
Speaker 3: is not as high stakes as like using the BLSABT
11:33
Speaker 3: community as a marketing tactic and then not you know,
11:36
Speaker 3: actually supporting that community or giving back in any concrete way,
11:40
Speaker 3: or supporting homophobic politicians or whatever, like that's not as
11:44
Speaker 3: big of a deal in.
11:44
Speaker 1: The grand scheme of things.
11:45
Speaker 3: But I think like the fact that even something as
11:48
Speaker 3: small as like a movie, where it's like literally just
11:50
Speaker 3: an advertising opportunity, like companies were turning that down shows
11:54
Speaker 3: like the extent to how far they're really willing to
11:57
Speaker 3: extend their.
11:58
Speaker 1: Like outl ship.
11:59
Speaker 3: Again, these past few years, we've seen some serious backlash
12:02
Speaker 3: against the LGBTQ plus community, particularly against trans folks, and
12:06
Speaker 3: this is manifested in a series of bills across the
12:09
Speaker 3: country attacking things like genderfirming care, drag artists, the ability
12:13
Speaker 3: to like talk about LGBTQ plus issues in schools, and
12:17
Speaker 3: even attempting to criminalize the existence of like visibly gender
12:21
Speaker 3: non conforming folks from public life. I found this article
12:24
Speaker 3: from The Advocate the tide the rise of medical mistrust
12:28
Speaker 3: around COVID to this rise of anti trans backlash, which
12:32
Speaker 3: I think is kind of an interesting way of viewing it.
12:36
Speaker 3: But yeah, this manifested again and a lot of far bright,
12:39
Speaker 3: spearheaded boycotts of companies that appeared to associate themselves with
12:42
Speaker 3: the LGBTQ plus community this past year. According to a
12:46
Speaker 3: Dazed article from late June twenty twenty three, quote Last week,
12:52
Speaker 3: it was reported that Starbucks, a brand that has typically
12:54
Speaker 3: marketed itself as liberal and progressive, is instituting a nationwide
12:58
Speaker 3: ban on pride, the immerging, and dice in its stores,
13:01
Speaker 3: citing concerns about right wing backlash. In comparison to years past,
13:05
Speaker 3: fewer companies have changed their logo to the rainbow flag.
13:08
Speaker 3: We're influencers, are booking less work and pride events across
13:11
Speaker 3: the US are struggling to secure sponsorship. There have been
13:14
Speaker 3: notably less annoying viral videos. No private equity firms assuring
13:18
Speaker 3: the US that beastligh the house down every day simply
13:22
Speaker 3: by being our authentic selves. No fast food chains publishing
13:26
Speaker 3: branded videos teaching us how to bottom.
13:30
Speaker 1: That was a weird one. Did you do you guys
13:32
Speaker 1: remember that?
13:33
Speaker 3: Did you?
13:33
Speaker 1: I can't remember if it was grubbub.
13:34
Speaker 3: It was one of those delivery services that they did
13:36
Speaker 3: like a bottom friendly like the bottoms.
13:39
Speaker 2: That was Burger did the two el bunds, and then
13:44
Speaker 2: I believe it was drub hub bottom friendly Men to bottoms, Yeah,
13:49
Speaker 2: the bottom friendly menu. My favorite is Skittles with their
13:53
Speaker 2: all white skittles because they're like our rainbows can encompass
13:59
Speaker 2: and like.
14:01
Speaker 1: The rainbow as your tag. Lie. Yeah, so this kind.
14:06
Speaker 3: Of backlash last year was contrasted with something we saw
14:09
Speaker 3: through the twenty tens from the Days article again quote
14:13
Speaker 3: after gay marriage began to enjoy broad popular support, LGBTQ
14:18
Speaker 3: plus marketing was a safe bet, but the train has
14:21
Speaker 3: shifted now that pride is viewed by a small but
14:24
Speaker 3: vocal minority as synonymous with grooming, child abuse and satanism.
14:29
Speaker 3: And again this articles pointed to the two kind of
14:31
Speaker 3: big moments last year. In addition to this whole thing
14:34
Speaker 3: with Starbucks, was the whole thing with bud Light dropping
14:36
Speaker 3: Dila mulvaney and then Target pulling their Pride merchandise from
14:43
Speaker 3: a number of stores.
14:44
Speaker 1: I do want to say we haven't.
14:46
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know this, Joey, but Samantha
14:49
Speaker 2: and I had to go on a book tour, a
14:51
Speaker 2: book radio toway.
14:52
Speaker 1: You did, really, I didn't hear about that at all.
14:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this would be last year. It was awful
15:01
Speaker 2: because we're anxious people. But anyway, it mostly went fine.
15:06
Speaker 2: But there was a person who asked us about Dylan mulvaney,
15:11
Speaker 2: a guy obviously, and it was like Oklahoma parading as
15:15
Speaker 2: a woman. It offends me. I'm sure it offends you.
15:19
Speaker 2: And Samantha's amazing and stepped in and was like no,
15:23
Speaker 2: And I was over here scrambling because I'm like and
15:27
Speaker 2: we had talked about her, like I knew, Like once
15:30
Speaker 2: Samantha started talking, I was like, oh, but that was
15:34
Speaker 2: his point, Like that was flash.
15:36
Speaker 4: He didn't care anything about the book.
15:38
Speaker 1: He gave note about the book or what it was.
15:41
Speaker 4: And obviously I was having a whole chapter about trans
15:44
Speaker 4: people and the antiology BTQYA movement and what's dangerous about
15:49
Speaker 4: it and the one thing he was like, you know
15:51
Speaker 4: and miss gendering heart the entire time. And I think
15:53
Speaker 4: that's where I pissed off the post because I started
15:55
Speaker 4: with I started my comments I with first of all,
15:58
Speaker 4: it was by gender here and she's that she, so
16:00
Speaker 4: that's what we're gonna refer her. Secondly, like I went
16:04
Speaker 4: into pissy any move when like kids misbehave, and so
16:09
Speaker 4: I have to go with you like, one, you don't
16:12
Speaker 4: do this wasn't two, this is what the other than three?
16:15
Speaker 1: Why would you like?
16:16
Speaker 4: I just I blacked out to a little bit because
16:18
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, you're gonna curse him?
16:20
Speaker 1: Out and it's it's like, what do you do in
16:22
Speaker 1: that situation? That's insane? And you know interest on that point.
16:26
Speaker 3: We're gonna get to this when we talk more about
16:27
Speaker 3: like the political pink washing. But it's funny how, you know,
16:31
Speaker 3: certain people that maybe do not care about women's rights
16:35
Speaker 3: or about feminism or anything anything so concerned when trans
16:40
Speaker 3: people are involved, or people that you know, maybe don't
16:44
Speaker 3: care about LGBTQ plus rights in the US suddenly seem
16:46
Speaker 3: very concerned about queer people when those queer people live
16:50
Speaker 3: in you know, non white Christian communities. But yeah, god,
16:58
Speaker 3: that's insane.
17:00
Speaker 4: No, he definitely had that moment, and it was quite
17:03
Speaker 4: funny because at the end of the interview he didn't
17:06
Speaker 4: know what to do except for saying, well, do you
17:08
Speaker 4: see you hear these passionate women here, passionate authors here
17:11
Speaker 4: of stuff. Mom never told you should definitely uh check
17:14
Speaker 4: out their book, and we ended.
17:19
Speaker 1: Passion Okay, I'll go with that. I know that was
17:21
Speaker 1: a really condescending term.
17:23
Speaker 3: I got to.
17:25
Speaker 1: I will never forget that one.
17:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of my favorite tik talkers right now, there
17:29
Speaker 3: was a TikTok of somebody that was like talking to
17:32
Speaker 3: men the same way that like I talked to my
17:34
Speaker 3: like preschoolers who somebody was like a preschool teacher, and
17:36
Speaker 3: they were.
17:36
Speaker 1: Like, no, no, no, no, no, we use our inside for
17:39
Speaker 1: we use our words. Let's use our words like in
17:42
Speaker 1: a very like calming foot.
17:43
Speaker 3: And I was like that, that's so funny. And I
17:46
Speaker 3: was like, I honestly like, what else are you supposed.
17:47
Speaker 1: To do in that situation?
17:52
Speaker 3: So yeah, again, this whole situation with Target and Starbucks
17:57
Speaker 3: and bud Light and every other company that has to
18:00
Speaker 3: bait and switch with their support for the LGBTQ plus
18:03
Speaker 3: community this last year and continue to be silent this year,
18:06
Speaker 3: which again this year, Target has pulled their Pride merge
18:10
Speaker 3: from a number of stores. They're only selling it online
18:13
Speaker 3: and quote in select stores. They're sighting it's a safety issue,
18:18
Speaker 3: but yeah, they're also have been Like I it was
18:21
Speaker 3: interesting when I was writing this because I remember one
18:23
Speaker 3: of the things is every you know, every Pride month,
18:27
Speaker 3: all of these corporations go on and they changed their
18:29
Speaker 3: logo to a little rainbow with their logo and you
18:32
Speaker 3: get like Lockheed Martin but gay for the.
18:36
Speaker 1: Month of June. I am.
18:39
Speaker 3: I get to see a company do that this year.
18:42
Speaker 3: I'm I don't know if there's any out there. I
18:43
Speaker 3: have not seen any on just.
18:46
Speaker 1: I've seen duly.
18:48
Speaker 4: According to according to the Mini Babulls on TikTok, they're
18:52
Speaker 4: saying they lost two million followers because they did that,
18:57
Speaker 4: and at one point they were unverified from TikTok. And
18:59
Speaker 4: I don't know why.
19:00
Speaker 1: I have other issues, but.
19:05
Speaker 4: I haven't heard this necessarily from them, but from like
19:08
Speaker 4: people who follow Due Lingos, like why did they lose
19:10
Speaker 4: so many people?
19:11
Speaker 3: Weird?
19:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, I haven't.
19:12
Speaker 3: I haven't been paying attention as much. I will say
19:14
Speaker 3: with Due Lingo, I love their tik talk.
19:16
Speaker 1: It's fun. I think we shouldn't.
19:19
Speaker 3: We also should not ignore the fact that they are
19:21
Speaker 3: a corporation and they have done some weird They made
19:24
Speaker 3: a like I remember back when, like they ember heard
19:26
Speaker 3: Johnny Depp trial was they had like a weird joke
19:28
Speaker 3: they made about that that I was like, Oh, okay,
19:31
Speaker 3: du A Lingo, dou A Lingo is doing this, Like, okay,
19:36
Speaker 3: that's weird anyway, cut.
19:39
Speaker 4: It out from what I understand in the social media
19:41
Speaker 4: coordinator a queer I think so community person like she talks.
19:46
Speaker 4: I've seen her account because she blew up with like
19:48
Speaker 4: all of her like sas bag about.
19:50
Speaker 3: Doing that dueling, which again kidnapping parents.
19:55
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you know, I have your parents in your
19:58
Speaker 4: basement in my basement until you They.
20:00
Speaker 1: Really like lash on the whole leg harassing.
20:04
Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm very confused about this tactic, but people
20:07
Speaker 4: seem to really enjoy.
20:08
Speaker 3: It, so you do you right, It's interesting, It's okay,
20:15
Speaker 3: And again, like I think it is funny. I think
20:17
Speaker 3: it is important to remember, uh, corporations or corporations and
20:20
Speaker 3: marketing is marketing. But yeah, who knows that person that's
20:22
Speaker 3: running their account because like they're doing a job anyways,
20:26
Speaker 3: So yeah, kind of But going back to this whole thing,
20:31
Speaker 3: I think what this really shows corporations are not motivated
20:35
Speaker 3: by morals.
20:36
Speaker 1: They're motivated by the market.
20:38
Speaker 3: If we are relying on our marketability or our ability
20:42
Speaker 3: to make money for capitalist entities, to earn our acceptance
20:46
Speaker 3: or even just like base level tolerance safety all of that,
20:52
Speaker 3: like we're screwed if that's what we're relying on. There's
20:55
Speaker 3: all these going to be situations like this where companies,
20:58
Speaker 3: our companies are going to cave to they don't care
21:01
Speaker 3: about you. They care about making money. If they think
21:03
Speaker 3: that you're no longer profitable, they're not going to keep
21:05
Speaker 3: supporting you. This is what we're seeing right now, and
21:09
Speaker 3: I do think again, just to complicate this a little
21:11
Speaker 3: bit and contradict myself, I do I do understand. I
21:14
Speaker 3: do understand the argument that, like, hey, if you're a
21:18
Speaker 3: kid living out in the country and like a small
21:22
Speaker 3: town somewhere where like you don't have access to a
21:26
Speaker 3: larger queer community. Maybe you're living in like a pretty
21:29
Speaker 3: homophobic area or with homophobic parents or something, and like
21:33
Speaker 3: you see a pride flag at Starbucks or like a
21:36
Speaker 3: pride like section at Target, that can be important.
21:40
Speaker 1: But I think.
21:43
Speaker 3: As important that as that is, and it is important
21:44
Speaker 3: that that less normalized. We're seeing the main stores that
21:48
Speaker 3: Target and Starbucks and all these bigger corporations are pulling
21:52
Speaker 3: their pride merge from. Are these stores that are in
21:55
Speaker 3: more conservative areas and more right wing areas. The one
22:00
Speaker 3: kind of benefit of it is like the first thing
22:02
Speaker 3: to sort of crumble, you know. So I just I
22:06
Speaker 3: do not think this is an effective way to seek liberation.
22:11
Speaker 3: I don't know what the exact answer is. We do
22:14
Speaker 3: still live in like a capitalist healthscape, you know, society.
22:18
Speaker 3: But yeah, this is it's just not it's not a
22:22
Speaker 3: good situation. Corporations are first and foremost motivated by profit.
22:26
Speaker 3: They do not care about your existence. They only care
22:28
Speaker 3: if you're giving the money. Yeah.
22:30
Speaker 4: Right, And again just as a reminder, this is bare minimum.
22:34
Speaker 4: We talk about like anybody giving an effort, and when
22:37
Speaker 4: we get like, oh, it's a big corporation. They're taking
22:39
Speaker 4: a stand, they put a rainbow on something to make money.
22:43
Speaker 4: That is the bare minimum, right, Like in this level
22:46
Speaker 4: of like we want to give compliments and shout outs
22:49
Speaker 4: to people who actually do heroic things versus self serving,
22:53
Speaker 4: minimal things that should have already been that s. This
22:55
Speaker 4: shouldn't be a surprise, It shouldn't be new, It shouldn't
22:58
Speaker 4: be one time a year. It should so that you
23:00
Speaker 4: can get on a float. Like there's just it's just
23:02
Speaker 4: an odd like level of like, yeah, but why are
23:05
Speaker 4: we rewarding them again?
23:06
Speaker 1: Exactly?
23:17
Speaker 3: So now pivoting a little bit to talking about political pinkquashing.
23:24
Speaker 1: So pinkquashing is a.
23:26
Speaker 3: Tactic that's used by a variety of political parties and
23:29
Speaker 3: individuals and governments. Kind of going to my hometown and
23:33
Speaker 3: my low I don't lit there anymore, but i'm my
23:36
Speaker 3: former local situation. I would argue the whole campaign of
23:40
Speaker 3: former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot was probably like a pretty
23:43
Speaker 3: classic example of pinkwashing.
23:46
Speaker 1: That was when she was campaigning and when she was elected,
23:48
Speaker 1: it was.
23:48
Speaker 3: Like a big deal that she was our first like
23:50
Speaker 3: openly lesbian mayor, and that was great, except she did
23:57
Speaker 3: a bunch of ad stuff then too that hurt a
23:59
Speaker 3: lot of queer people and a lot of like you know,
24:01
Speaker 3: queer people of color, like queer people that were like.
24:03
Speaker 1: In impoverished areas. So yay.
24:08
Speaker 3: Anyways, I use that example to say, like, this is
24:11
Speaker 3: something that occurs in a lot of different places, in
24:13
Speaker 3: a lot of different forms, but it's most commonly used
24:16
Speaker 3: when we're talking about Israel. I want to upfront, I
24:19
Speaker 3: just want to make it clear the Israeli government is
24:21
Speaker 3: currently enacting in genocide. Like I'm going into it with
24:24
Speaker 3: that as like the baseline knowledge of what's happening right now,
24:27
Speaker 3: Like I'm not going to spend some time trying to
24:30
Speaker 3: argue the fact that that is happening. The most recent
24:33
Speaker 3: deathold I could find was from about a month ago
24:34
Speaker 3: and it was thirty four nine hundred Pausan means and
24:37
Speaker 3: occupied territories that have been killed. That number is undoubtedly low.
24:44
Speaker 3: So yeah, again, a number of genocide scholars, many of
24:47
Speaker 3: whom are Jewish. That should not matter, but many of
24:49
Speaker 3: whom are Jewish, have been calling this a genocide. I'm
24:52
Speaker 3: going with the base assumption that everybody listening knows this
24:54
Speaker 3: is a genocide. So about a month ago here in
24:58
Speaker 3: New York, where I live now, Act Up held a
25:01
Speaker 3: protest outside of the GLAD Media Awards, criticizing its silence
25:04
Speaker 3: regarding Gaza, as well as the organization's partnership with the
25:07
Speaker 3: Anti Defamation League or ADL, an organization which purports to
25:12
Speaker 3: track hate crimes in the US. But those numbers are
25:16
Speaker 3: very skewed because they like to include things like peaceful
25:19
Speaker 3: student protesters, and for a while they laid the whole
25:24
Speaker 3: Black Lives Matter is a hate organization, a lot of
25:26
Speaker 3: weird stuff that's not necessarily.
25:29
Speaker 1: Violent or hateful.
25:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, they have a very skewed definition of what constitutes
25:35
Speaker 3: an anti Semitic hate crime.
25:37
Speaker 1: So at this protest, drag.
25:39
Speaker 3: Artist Chikakita and ded Opulence also staged a protest inside
25:45
Speaker 3: the awards ceremony and were escorted out by Glad I'm
25:49
Speaker 3: blinking on her name, but there was a pretty big
25:51
Speaker 3: drag queen who I know has been on like Rupaul'
25:53
Speaker 3: drag race and stuff, who had won a big award
25:55
Speaker 3: at this event, and she like later came out and
25:57
Speaker 3: was like, I had no idea like this protest was happening.
26:00
Speaker 3: If I had, I definitely would have would not have
26:02
Speaker 3: gone to this, and like I'd support the protesters all that,
26:05
Speaker 3: so like.
26:05
Speaker 1: We love it.
26:06
Speaker 3: I think this was a really pivotal moment, this protest
26:09
Speaker 3: for the conversation around like what we're expecting from queer
26:12
Speaker 3: actives organizations and what solidarity means, and like why it's important.
26:16
Speaker 3: It was a pretty big protest. Act UP is an
26:19
Speaker 3: incredibly important organization. I would argue they have done some of,
26:23
Speaker 3: if not the most important work to save queer lives.
26:28
Speaker 3: If you don't know, act UP was kind of the
26:30
Speaker 3: biggest organization to come out of organizing during the AIDS crisis,
26:33
Speaker 3: and they staged a lot of really effective protests and
26:37
Speaker 3: die ins and stuff to get attention on the AIDS
26:41
Speaker 3: crisis and medical research towards the AIDS crisis, and you
26:44
Speaker 3: know they they're very cool and very.
26:47
Speaker 1: Important and have done some really important work.
26:50
Speaker 3: An article from them that covered the event stated in
26:54
Speaker 3: a statement included in act up's original press release, Nor,
26:58
Speaker 3: a queer Palestinian Syrian artist writer, said that quote, it
27:01
Speaker 3: goes without question to me that there's no such thing
27:04
Speaker 3: as queer liberation without the liberation of Palestine. We fight
27:07
Speaker 3: for Palestine in honor of our queer history and ancestors,
27:10
Speaker 3: for those queer Palestinian siblings of ours living in Palestine,
27:14
Speaker 3: and for all those generations to come. Nor said this
27:18
Speaker 3: violent unjust oppression, apartheid, bombs, weapons, mass destruction, disabling, and
27:22
Speaker 3: displacement of indigenous humans does.
27:24
Speaker 1: Not discriminate, un quote.
27:28
Speaker 3: And so I want to start by talking about this
27:30
Speaker 3: moment because I think this really shows the shift in
27:33
Speaker 3: the effectiveness of political pinkwashing, much like how a year
27:38
Speaker 3: ago we kind of saw the shift in the effectiveness
27:40
Speaker 3: of corporate pinkwashing, and I think that's a good thing.
27:43
Speaker 3: So when talking about pinkwashing, there is this really fantastic
27:48
Speaker 3: article that I will link in the show notes by playwright,
27:51
Speaker 3: activist writer Sarah Schulman that was in the New York Times.
27:54
Speaker 3: It was from twenty eleven, there was an opinions piece
27:58
Speaker 3: about pinkwashing, and this piece from twenty eleven is credited
28:02
Speaker 3: with being one of the things that brought the term
28:05
Speaker 3: pinkwashing into the mainstream when talking about Israel. So she
28:08
Speaker 3: was not the first person to coin this term, but again,
28:11
Speaker 3: like she's credited with kind of bringing it into being
28:14
Speaker 3: one of the people that brought into the American in mainstream.
28:16
Speaker 3: So in her article, Shulman says that pinkwashing is quote
28:20
Speaker 3: a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinian
28:25
Speaker 3: human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli
28:29
Speaker 3: gay life unquote. She then goes on to quote, guys,
28:33
Speaker 3: I did not pay attention to Hebrew school. I'm so
28:36
Speaker 3: sorry for how I'm about to say all these names
28:38
Speaker 3: a yell. Gross I got that one who's a professor
28:42
Speaker 3: of law at Tel Aviv University who says, quote, gay
28:45
Speaker 3: rights have essentially become a public relations tool, even though
28:48
Speaker 3: quote conservative and especially religious politicians remain fiercely homophobic.
28:54
Speaker 1: If you live in the US, that might sound familiar.
28:57
Speaker 3: So she points out that this is not something unique
29:00
Speaker 3: to Israel and that it is quote the co opting
29:02
Speaker 3: of white gay people by anti immigrant and anti Muslim
29:05
Speaker 3: political forces is present in Western Europe as well. Again,
29:09
Speaker 3: I would argue to some extent that I was also
29:11
Speaker 3: kind of made its way into American discourse.
29:16
Speaker 1: She writes that quote.
29:17
Speaker 3: The Guardian reported last year so in twenty ten that
29:22
Speaker 3: the racist English Defense League had one hundred and fifteen
29:25
Speaker 3: members in its gay wing. The Durban Lebanese and Gay
29:29
Speaker 3: Federation has issued statements citing Muslim immigrants as enemies of
29:32
Speaker 3: gay people. She talks about how Muslim immigrants are oftentimes
29:36
Speaker 3: depicted as being quote homophobic fanatics, while they also quote
29:40
Speaker 3: opportunistically ignored the existence of Muslim gays and their allies
29:44
Speaker 3: within their communities and quote render invisible the role that
29:47
Speaker 3: fundamentalists Christians, the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Jews play
29:52
Speaker 3: and perpetuating fear and even hatred of gays. Going back
29:55
Speaker 3: to that manual we're talking about, I mean, it's the
29:57
Speaker 3: same thing where it's these super right wing homophobic I'm
30:03
Speaker 3: gonna use my religion to just find my homophobia people
30:05
Speaker 3: are all of a sudden like concerned about homophobian Islam. Anyways,
30:12
Speaker 3: and again if this sounds familiar, If that statement sounds
30:14
Speaker 3: reallier and you live in the US, that is because
30:16
Speaker 3: on May tenth this year, the FBI released a statement
30:20
Speaker 3: warning of quote, foreign terrorist organizations or supporters may seek
30:25
Speaker 3: to exploit increased gatherings associated with the upcoming June twenty
30:30
Speaker 3: four Pride Month, which.
30:31
Speaker 1: Again, given what I was just talking about.
30:33
Speaker 3: And the increase of attacks on LGBTQ plus people, including
30:37
Speaker 3: children that have gotten violent in a lot of cases,
30:42
Speaker 3: most of these attacks being done by white Christian Americans,
30:46
Speaker 3: this seems like a weird statement to be releasing, just
30:50
Speaker 3: my opinion, and really quick, before we talk about Israel,
30:53
Speaker 3: I want to talk a little bit about this uncomfortable
30:57
Speaker 3: history that we do have to unpack. I think especial
31:00
Speaker 3: as like white gay people, about how this kind of
31:04
Speaker 3: line of thought of like using white gay people for
31:10
Speaker 3: anti immigrant rhetoric or anti Muslim rhetoric or whatever racist
31:14
Speaker 3: rhetoric has been used kind of in the past, because
31:16
Speaker 3: this isn't necessarily a new thing. It's ultimately rooted in
31:19
Speaker 3: this idea that like you can be gay and still
31:23
Speaker 3: be inclaritably racist and misogynistic, and you know, have all
31:28
Speaker 3: these very right wing xenophobic neocolonialists ideas like being gay
31:35
Speaker 3: does not necessarily extempt you from feeling that way or
31:40
Speaker 3: from acting that way, and we can't necessarily measure the
31:45
Speaker 3: overall state of progress and like acceptance within a society
31:49
Speaker 3: just based on whether or not LGBTQ plus people are
31:53
Speaker 3: accepted within that society. The same way like you could
31:56
Speaker 3: have a country that you know women have full equal
31:59
Speaker 3: rights under the law, and that country can still be
32:02
Speaker 3: incredibly racist or incredibly homophobic, or incredibly misogynistic, for militaristic
32:06
Speaker 3: or whatever, or be doing these awful things. I think
32:10
Speaker 3: like the way that this narrative about queer history has
32:13
Speaker 3: kind of been crafted in the past, it's really relied
32:16
Speaker 3: on this idea that gay acceptance, like acceptance of gay people,
32:19
Speaker 3: acceptance of queer people, equals like a war progressive society
32:23
Speaker 3: or like a more progressive community, and that's all good
32:26
Speaker 3: and everything's great. That's not necessarily the case, and I
32:29
Speaker 3: think falling into that kind of mentality can make it
32:33
Speaker 3: easy to like ignore actual real life racism or bad
32:40
Speaker 3: military campaigns and stuff like that that is happening under
32:44
Speaker 3: that guys. If anybody's interested on this topic, I do
32:47
Speaker 3: want to shout out the podcast Bad Days.
32:50
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with them. They also have a book that
32:52
Speaker 1: came out.
32:52
Speaker 3: The book really goes more into this idea I think
32:54
Speaker 3: of like the theory behind how we talk about queer history.
32:57
Speaker 3: But that is a show that really focuses on deconstructing
32:59
Speaker 3: these narratives about queer history and looking at some of
33:02
Speaker 3: the like less savory aspects of queer history and some
33:05
Speaker 3: of there's a lot of interesting episodes or like chapters
33:08
Speaker 3: of the book that are about like queer fascists or
33:12
Speaker 3: like you know, I think is a notable historical example
33:15
Speaker 3: is like the early Nazi Party had a lot of
33:17
Speaker 3: gay men that were involved. There was this masculinist gay
33:20
Speaker 3: movement that was happening around the same time that like
33:23
Speaker 3: the Nazi Party was being formed in Germany, and like.
33:26
Speaker 1: Early on, there was a lot of overlap.
33:29
Speaker 3: You can't necessarily assume that because somebody is gay, or
33:32
Speaker 3: because somebody is queer, and because it is something that
33:35
Speaker 3: they are, you know, it's not a like self hating thing,
33:37
Speaker 3: like they're open about it whatever that necessarily mean. You
33:39
Speaker 3: can't say that necessarily makes them a progressive person. They
33:42
Speaker 3: also just did an episode this was I'm braving about
33:44
Speaker 3: the show. It's a really good show, but they did
33:48
Speaker 3: an episode like theirs. Last episode I think they did
33:50
Speaker 3: was about this British woman who was most likely a
33:53
Speaker 3: lesbian at least, dressed very butch and like appeared very butch,
33:56
Speaker 3: and appeared to like have open, like out in the open,
33:59
Speaker 3: not like open in the we'ordating other people's sense, but
34:02
Speaker 3: like out in the open relationships with women. It appeared
34:04
Speaker 3: to be who also was the founder of the British
34:07
Speaker 3: Fascist Party. So again, gay people can suck too. I'm
34:12
Speaker 3: holding myself back to making a joke there. So I
34:27
Speaker 3: think it's really important to study this history. And it
34:30
Speaker 3: brings up another term that this is a little bit
34:32
Speaker 3: more complicated, because this really is just more of like
34:34
Speaker 3: an academic term, but it ties into pinkwashing, and that
34:36
Speaker 3: is homo nationalism, which was coined by Jasper Poir in
34:40
Speaker 3: her book Terrorist Assemblages, Homo Nationalism and Queer Times, which
34:45
Speaker 3: seemed dake a really interesting, fascinating book that I really
34:47
Speaker 3: want to read, but Jay Store would not let me
34:50
Speaker 3: read it because it said I didn't have access through
34:53
Speaker 3: my account. So this is Jay Store's fault that I
34:57
Speaker 3: don't have more quotes than her anyways. But this is
35:00
Speaker 3: also something that Sarah Schulman kind of expanded upon in
35:04
Speaker 3: her work and in her book that she wrote called Israel, Palestine,
35:07
Speaker 3: and the Queer International. She said, through marriage, parenthood, and family,
35:13
Speaker 3: lgb's and some teas become accepted and re aligned with
35:16
Speaker 3: patriotic or nationalist ideologies to their country. Instead of being
35:19
Speaker 3: feared as the threat to family and nation that they
35:21
Speaker 3: were once seen to be. This new integration under the
35:24
Speaker 3: most normative of terms is held up as a symbol
35:27
Speaker 3: of that country's commitment to progress and modernity. They construct
35:30
Speaker 3: the other as Muslims of Arab, South Asian, Turkish or
35:34
Speaker 3: African origin as quote homophobic and fanatically heterosexual. And going
35:41
Speaker 3: back to Israel and how this kind of manifest and Israel.
35:46
Speaker 3: So in that article, in that otbed that she wrote
35:51
Speaker 3: for The New York Times, Shulmann talks about the quote
35:53
Speaker 3: Brand Israel campaign which the Israeli government spearheaded in two
35:57
Speaker 3: thousand and five, aided by American marketing executives, which quote
36:01
Speaker 3: sought to depict Israel as relevant and modern. She then
36:05
Speaker 3: goes to talk about how in twenty ten quote the
36:08
Speaker 3: Israel news site, Wynett reported that the Tel Aviv Tourism
36:11
Speaker 3: Board had begun a campaign of around ninety million dollars
36:15
Speaker 3: to brand the city as an international gay vacation destination.
36:20
Speaker 3: Which as a queer Jewish American, this is not surprising.
36:23
Speaker 1: To be in the slightest. I don't have time.
36:26
Speaker 3: To get too much into the weird culture around Birthright,
36:29
Speaker 3: but if you don't know, Birthright is this organization that
36:33
Speaker 3: basically pays for you to have a free trip to
36:35
Speaker 3: Israel if you're Jewish. I think now originally was like
36:39
Speaker 3: you had to have one Jewish parent. I think that
36:41
Speaker 3: was like one Jewish grandparent. I'm not a one hundred
36:43
Speaker 3: percent sure, but if you have Jewish ancestry and it's
36:48
Speaker 3: run by a big right wing group, it's this big
36:50
Speaker 3: propaganda thing. Like it's very obviously a big propaganda thing,
36:56
Speaker 3: but it's also something like in a weird, awful, dystopian way,
36:59
Speaker 3: this is something that was just like normalized growing up,
37:01
Speaker 3: Like I was like, Okay, you got a free trip
37:02
Speaker 3: to Israel from birth Right. You're gonna do that when
37:05
Speaker 3: you are a young adult, and it's gonna be so fun.
37:08
Speaker 3: If anybody who's ever seen the Broad City episode where
37:10
Speaker 3: they're making fun of birth Right, The whole episode is
37:14
Speaker 3: making fun of the fact they're on like the plane
37:16
Speaker 3: going to Israel, and it's making fun of the fact
37:18
Speaker 3: that like a big part of the trip is they're
37:20
Speaker 3: trying to get people to move to Israel and make
37:24
Speaker 3: more Israeli babies and so like the whole bit of
37:26
Speaker 3: the episode is that the guy who's running it is
37:28
Speaker 3: like trying to get them all to hook up.
37:31
Speaker 1: Which is it like that far off did you take
37:38
Speaker 1: this trip? I did not, So I want to get
37:40
Speaker 1: to that I did not go on birth Right.
37:41
Speaker 3: I had the realization that it was weird and I
37:43
Speaker 3: didn't want to do it before before I was of
37:45
Speaker 3: age to do it. However, growing up, like in growing
37:49
Speaker 3: up Jewish and in Jewish communities, like it's something you
37:51
Speaker 3: hear about and it is something like you know how
37:54
Speaker 3: there's the marketing of it, and then there's sort of
37:56
Speaker 3: the like inter personal marketing and a big thing like
38:00
Speaker 3: I like you always hear from like your older cousins
38:04
Speaker 3: or like older friends that.
38:05
Speaker 1: Went on it, but are like a big thing is
38:06
Speaker 1: they kind of let you.
38:07
Speaker 5: Go like clubbing and you get to meet all these
38:11
Speaker 5: like hot Idf soldiers and it's like very much appealing
38:15
Speaker 5: to that aspect of it anywhere.
38:18
Speaker 4: Appealing to the youths as any would say. Oh, I
38:23
Speaker 4: will say, I I know about Birthright. I did not
38:26
Speaker 4: know as an organization. I really it was an actual tradition. No,
38:30
Speaker 4: that has been like I know nothing, And I was like,
38:34
Speaker 4: oh no, that was that sounds cool. But that's how
38:35
Speaker 4: little like as outside of this culture as I am,
38:38
Speaker 4: I knew of it, and so I did not understand. Yeah,
38:43
Speaker 4: politically it linked interesting.
38:45
Speaker 1: It gets complicated because it's like it's obviously like it's.
38:48
Speaker 3: Kind of pulling from so in Islam, like a lot
38:51
Speaker 3: of people will do the Hajj and that's part of
38:53
Speaker 3: their religion. This is where it's complicated, and like I
38:56
Speaker 3: don't really have time to go into this. Like there
38:58
Speaker 3: is a lot of spiritual kind of attap like in
39:00
Speaker 3: what is now Israel, Like there is a lot of
39:03
Speaker 3: like spiritual places and stuff like that. I think, like
39:06
Speaker 3: there is that history. There's no like history of people
39:10
Speaker 3: going to Israel, like when they reach certain age to
39:12
Speaker 3: like to see it and like like that is definitely
39:14
Speaker 3: something this was started in nineteen ninety nine, like it
39:16
Speaker 3: is a fairly new organization.
39:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow, I didn't need this all my life.
39:21
Speaker 4: That's an interesting.
39:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, when I grew up like this was so normalized,
39:25
Speaker 3: Like this was like everybody when I was always like, oh, well,
39:28
Speaker 3: it's a free trip. Even people that I knew that
39:29
Speaker 3: were like not super Zionists were sort of like, yeah,
39:31
Speaker 3: well it's a free trip, so you're gonna go. Right.
39:34
Speaker 4: That's that's how I understood it essentially. But maybe because
39:37
Speaker 4: I didn't learn about until I was in college in
39:39
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety nine, I would have been in college in
39:40
Speaker 4: the next year. Yes, I'm old, however, but like that,
39:44
Speaker 4: to me, it just made sense. And maybe that's why
39:45
Speaker 4: I know knew of it is because it was so
39:47
Speaker 4: new ish to that level. I don't know, but I'm like, oh,
39:51
Speaker 4: I just assumed that I always said things existed.
39:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of things about Zionism you get
39:57
Speaker 3: to learn are not actually is rooted in my histories
40:00
Speaker 3: you think they are. But anyways, so I bring up
40:03
Speaker 3: this and this sexuality kind of like on the DL
40:07
Speaker 3: my cousin told me marketing around birth right. I'm not
40:12
Speaker 3: gonna say marketing, but I think like kind of you know,
40:14
Speaker 3: culture round birth Right. I bring this up because they
40:19
Speaker 3: do some trips that are specifically based around certain identities,
40:21
Speaker 3: And in twenty thirteen they started doing Pride Birthright trips
40:25
Speaker 3: for LGBTQ plus people, which I first heard about in
40:29
Speaker 3: kind of the same context I was talking about, where
40:31
Speaker 3: like I had a friend, and a friend is a
40:34
Speaker 3: strong word. Anyways, I knew somebody in high school that
40:37
Speaker 3: was talking to me about birth Right and they were
40:39
Speaker 3: really excited about and they're all.
40:40
Speaker 1: Going out about like, oh my god, I're gonna like go.
40:42
Speaker 3: Clubbing and hook up with like hot idea of soldiers
40:44
Speaker 3: and all that, and I.
40:44
Speaker 1: Was kind of like, I don't know. I was at
40:46
Speaker 1: the phase of my.
40:46
Speaker 3: Life where I was like I don't know what I am.
40:50
Speaker 3: I know I like girls, but like I don't really
40:52
Speaker 3: And I was sort of like I don't know if
40:53
Speaker 3: that's for me. And she was like no, no, no, no, no,
40:55
Speaker 3: there's a gay one.
40:56
Speaker 1: You can go on. There's a gay one. So that's
41:01
Speaker 1: very open. Yeah.
41:02
Speaker 3: Again, like I'm saying this whole kind of line of
41:05
Speaker 3: thinking that like there has been this big marketing push
41:07
Speaker 3: to portray Israel and Tel Aviv specifically is like this
41:10
Speaker 3: very gay friendly place.
41:13
Speaker 1: That's not surprising to me. That is kind of the
41:15
Speaker 1: narrative that I grew up in.
41:16
Speaker 3: And this tactic of framing Israel as being super gay friendly. Again,
41:22
Speaker 3: it's contrasted with the image of Palesenians as being ultra
41:26
Speaker 3: conservative and super homophobic and misogynistic. So going back to
41:30
Speaker 3: this framework of homo nationalism, which you know, we're also
41:34
Speaker 3: seeing happen in Europe with these conservative groups pointing to
41:37
Speaker 3: predominantly Muslim immigrants and being like, see, they hate gay people,
41:40
Speaker 3: we must be racist to them. A similar thing is
41:44
Speaker 3: similar thing happened in America post Side eleven, you know,
41:46
Speaker 3: which is interesting because that was like maybe one of
41:48
Speaker 3: the most conservative moments in American history. But you know,
41:53
Speaker 3: a lot of politicians that didn't seem to care much
41:56
Speaker 3: about women having rights in the US all of a
41:59
Speaker 3: sudden seemed very concerned about women under the Taliban. But yeah,
42:02
Speaker 3: so this is kind of a similar situation what's happening
42:04
Speaker 3: in Israel. YouTuber and activist Matt Bernstein made a really
42:09
Speaker 3: fantastic video about pinquashing in November twenty twenty three, which
42:13
Speaker 3: all link in the show notes.
42:14
Speaker 1: Again, definitely recommend watching it.
42:15
Speaker 3: He does like a really fantastic interview with a queer
42:18
Speaker 3: pals on Theian Activist. But there's one thing in the
42:20
Speaker 3: video he said that stuck out to me, and it's
42:23
Speaker 3: that over the last month, I've had so many people
42:27
Speaker 3: from my personal life, people who I grew up with,
42:29
Speaker 3: people who have never once reached out to me to
42:31
Speaker 3: express concern about the state of queer rights and the
42:33
Speaker 3: free fall trans rights in this country over the last
42:35
Speaker 3: two years, have been reaching out to me to remind
42:37
Speaker 3: me that, hey, you know, you would be murdered if
42:40
Speaker 3: you went to Gaza as a gay person.
42:42
Speaker 1: And it's just.
42:43
Speaker 3: Weird because I live in the US, and here in
42:45
Speaker 3: the US there's over five hundred anti LGBTQ plus bills
42:48
Speaker 3: which have been introduced in legislature since the start of
42:51
Speaker 3: this year. You have trans people in Florida who are
42:53
Speaker 3: starting Kickstarter campaigns they can flee their home state because
42:56
Speaker 3: it's not safe to be trans there anymore. The Republican
42:59
Speaker 3: Party has made the hatred for queer people and the
43:01
Speaker 3: complation of queer people with pedophalia. I have no desire
43:04
Speaker 3: to compare the state of queer rights here versus those
43:06
Speaker 3: in Palestine or frankly anywhere else. This is not the
43:08
Speaker 3: oppression Olympics. And I, for one am extremely aware of
43:11
Speaker 3: my privilege living in a place like New York as
43:13
Speaker 3: a queer person. But it does make me wonder, right, like,
43:17
Speaker 3: are these people are reaching out to me to remind
43:18
Speaker 3: me that I would for sure be murdered if I
43:20
Speaker 3: went to Gaza as a gay person. Are they really
43:23
Speaker 3: concerned about the hypothetical safety of me if I were
43:25
Speaker 3: to take a trip to Gaza. Are they really concerned
43:28
Speaker 3: more importantly about the safety of actual queer Palestinians that
43:30
Speaker 3: do live in Gaza?
43:32
Speaker 1: Or is this.
43:32
Speaker 3: Homophobia being wielded as a tool as a crutch in
43:36
Speaker 3: their argument for why I should feel okay with the
43:38
Speaker 3: ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from a land they once called home.
43:44
Speaker 3: And this video was made in this past November when
43:47
Speaker 3: photo went viral of a IDF soldier holding a Pride
43:51
Speaker 3: flag in Gaza, and the caption was something like.
43:53
Speaker 1: First Pride Parade in Gaza, which.
43:57
Speaker 3: Zionist media personalities love to be like use it as
44:00
Speaker 3: kind of a gotcha moment where they were like, see,
44:03
Speaker 3: like they don't like we like gay people, they don't.
44:06
Speaker 3: But like you know, a lot of other queer folks
44:08
Speaker 3: on the internet were quick to point out, You're standing
44:11
Speaker 3: in a bunch of rubble of this place you just bombed,
44:15
Speaker 3: Like they're not gonna have a pride parade because you
44:17
Speaker 3: just bombed them.
44:18
Speaker 1: Like what. It is such a weird line of thinking.
44:22
Speaker 3: So, going back to Shulman's piece in The New York Times,
44:27
Speaker 3: she says, quote, pinkwashing not only manipulates the hard one
44:30
Speaker 3: gains of Israel's gay community, but it also ignores the
44:33
Speaker 3: existence of Palestinian gay rights organizations. She then talks about
44:36
Speaker 3: three Palestunion LGBTQ plus organizations US what al Quas and
44:42
Speaker 3: Palsenion Queers for Boycott Divestments didictions Again, I'm so sorry
44:45
Speaker 3: if I said any of those wrong.
44:46
Speaker 1: I'm sure I did.
44:48
Speaker 6: So.
44:48
Speaker 1: In an article about pinkwashing, the Al.
44:50
Speaker 3: Qua's website says, quote, the open inclusion of gay officers
44:54
Speaker 3: in the Israeli occupation army is used as proof of
44:57
Speaker 3: liberal forward minds, But for Palestine, the sexuality of the
45:01
Speaker 3: soldier at a checkpoint makes a little difference. They all
45:03
Speaker 3: field the same guns, where the same boots and maintain
45:06
Speaker 3: the same colonial regime, which yeah, I think really gets
45:10
Speaker 3: to the point. It's fine, Like, it's great if you
45:13
Speaker 3: let gay people serve in your military, But if what they're.
45:17
Speaker 1: Doing is upholding a violent.
45:20
Speaker 3: Occupation, that's not exactly liberatory politics in my book at least.
45:28
Speaker 3: So this article states that quote, Israeli cedral colonialism works
45:32
Speaker 3: by breaking apart and eliminating Palestinian communities, whether through a
45:36
Speaker 3: military violence of occupation and siege, the legal regimes of apartheid,
45:39
Speaker 3: or the denial of refugees right to return. Yet it
45:42
Speaker 3: also divides Palestinians internally and psychologically in the personal realms
45:46
Speaker 3: of self perception and collective identification. The article goes on
45:51
Speaker 3: to say that only portraying queer Palestinians is just like
45:53
Speaker 3: helpless victim with no agency. By doing this, israel Quote
45:58
Speaker 3: suggests that Palestinian society from pathological homophobia and that noe
46:02
Speaker 3: assenting voices could ever survive for.
46:04
Speaker 1: Long within it.
46:06
Speaker 3: But quote, the fantasy of Israeli humanitarianism falls apart as
46:09
Speaker 3: soon as the colonial situation is taken into account. There's
46:12
Speaker 3: no pink door in the apartheid wall, and so let's
46:18
Speaker 3: use that to pivot to how Israel actually treats it's
46:21
Speaker 3: lgbt Q plus citizens and how it treats LGBTQ plus Palestinians,
46:26
Speaker 3: these sort of hopeless victims.
46:28
Speaker 1: It suddenly seems interested in saving.
46:30
Speaker 3: Disclaimer up top, much like what Matt Bernstein said in
46:33
Speaker 3: his video, I am not interested in playing a profession Olympics.
46:38
Speaker 3: I don't think it's productive to have conversations about LGBTQ
46:40
Speaker 3: plus rights or the rights of any marginalized groups that matter,
46:44
Speaker 3: and have it revolved around like, well, this is the
46:46
Speaker 3: worst situation you can be in.
46:47
Speaker 1: So if you're in anything better, or you can't complain
46:49
Speaker 1: or you can't.
46:50
Speaker 3: Whatever like that, that is a way to heed progress
46:53
Speaker 3: like that is a tactic literally to stop us from
46:57
Speaker 3: reaching the potential that we can reach. When I talk
47:00
Speaker 3: about queer liberation, it's with the future focus. It is
47:02
Speaker 3: how can we improve the society that we are living in.
47:05
Speaker 3: So I'm not going to do this as like a
47:08
Speaker 3: I don't know. I'm acknowledging that, yes, there are certain
47:10
Speaker 3: communities that you can grow up in. It is much
47:12
Speaker 3: much much more difficult and unsafe to be queer. But
47:16
Speaker 3: that doesn't mean we should ignore real valid homophobia and
47:19
Speaker 3: transphobia and slightly safer places so like, and again, if
47:24
Speaker 3: you're from the US, you should probably understand this, Like,
47:28
Speaker 3: just because a country has some rights for gay people,
47:31
Speaker 3: where gay people are allowed in the military or in
47:34
Speaker 3: the US, we're allowed to get married and Israel that's
47:36
Speaker 3: not the case, but you know, you're allowed to exist
47:38
Speaker 3: in public whatever. That doesn't necessarily mean that the politicians
47:42
Speaker 3: in power are not violently homophobic, and it doesn't mean
47:44
Speaker 3: that the culture as a whole is not homophobic. And
47:46
Speaker 3: then also having these enclaves like in Tel Aviv or
47:50
Speaker 3: like in New York doesn't necessarily mean that there are
47:51
Speaker 3: not parts of the country that are also still deeply
47:54
Speaker 3: deeply homophobic. And much like when we talk about these
47:57
Speaker 3: American corporations that are using cry to appear progressive while
48:00
Speaker 3: giving money to anti LGBTQ plus politicians, the Israeli government
48:03
Speaker 3: loves this kind of to market Israel as a gay
48:06
Speaker 3: safe haven. Will also like saying some of the most
48:11
Speaker 3: violently homohobic.
48:13
Speaker 1: And transphobic things.
48:14
Speaker 3: So in twenty twenty two, Israeli Prime Minister Ntnyahuo signed
48:18
Speaker 3: a deal with the Noam Party. Again, I was really
48:24
Speaker 3: bad at Hebrew School, which is a far right, anti
48:27
Speaker 3: LGBTQ plus Islamophobic group, which would make Avi MOA's deputy minister,
48:34
Speaker 3: and he would run Jewish Identity Authority, which is really weird.
48:39
Speaker 3: And I do not have time to unpack that that
48:40
Speaker 3: this is a man who would not consider me Jewish
48:42
Speaker 3: because my mom is not Jewish, and it has made
48:44
Speaker 3: efforts to try to limit immigration from certain groups that
48:49
Speaker 3: he doesn't deem Jewish enough for Israel. According to the
48:52
Speaker 3: BBC quote, mister Moads has described lgbt people as a
48:57
Speaker 3: threat to the family and has said he wants to
48:59
Speaker 3: cancel Gabe Pride parades. His party ran a poster campaign
49:02
Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen with the words quote Israel chooses to
49:05
Speaker 3: be normal. He has also said a woman's greatest contribution
49:09
Speaker 3: is in marriage and raising a family. The current Finance
49:13
Speaker 3: Minister of Israel and the National Security Minister are also
49:18
Speaker 3: kind of the same mindset. The two of them were
49:20
Speaker 3: responsible for organizing an anti LGBTQ plus protest in Jerusalem
49:25
Speaker 3: during the Jerusalem Pride Parade in two thousand and six
49:28
Speaker 3: that was called the Beast Parade, which should give some
49:32
Speaker 3: hints into how weird and vile some of the propaganda
49:35
Speaker 3: around it was. Again, they shouldn't be surprising. Israel has
49:40
Speaker 3: a bar Rak government right now. They do not care
49:45
Speaker 3: about queer Palstinians, and they do not care about their
49:48
Speaker 3: own queer population.
49:49
Speaker 1: They don't care about Queersorelis either.
49:51
Speaker 3: So it feels, I would say, hypocritical to be screaming
49:55
Speaker 3: about gay people should support Israel because if you went
49:58
Speaker 3: to Gaza you would be k killed. Palestinians are homophobic,
50:02
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera, when Israel is also run by
50:04
Speaker 3: a bunch of homophobes right now, And going back to
50:08
Speaker 3: how the Israeli military actually treats queer Palestinians again, these
50:13
Speaker 3: like hopeless victims. In twenty fourteen, a group of whistleblowers
50:20
Speaker 3: that were Israeli intelligence veterans revealed that their unit would
50:25
Speaker 3: intentionally seek out LGBTQ plus Palestinians to use their sexuality
50:31
Speaker 3: as blackmail so that they become spy.
50:33
Speaker 1: So and it seems like.
50:36
Speaker 3: This has been a practice that is continued, like this
50:38
Speaker 3: is something that comes up a lot I think during
50:40
Speaker 3: conversations behind quashing and Israel's pinkwashing, like blackmailing people with
50:46
Speaker 3: their sexuality so that they spy for you. That's not
50:50
Speaker 3: necessarily being pro LGBTQ, at least in my book.
50:57
Speaker 1: I don't know.
51:08
Speaker 3: And so Okay, if there's one sort of positive note
51:12
Speaker 3: that I do want to leave on, it is that
51:13
Speaker 3: I think the good news is and I opened with
51:16
Speaker 3: that story talking about the act UP protests with the
51:19
Speaker 3: GLAD Awards, I think the conversation is changing and we're
51:23
Speaker 3: seeing that pinkwashing is not working the same way it
51:26
Speaker 3: used to. And even though certain mainstream institutions like the
51:31
Speaker 3: Human Rights Campaign and GLAD are still silent on the
51:34
Speaker 3: ongoing genocide and working with groups that are actively supporting
51:38
Speaker 3: this genocide, a lot of prominent individual activists as well
51:43
Speaker 3: as more grassroots ground up organizations like act UP had
51:47
Speaker 3: been very vocally supportive of Palestine and supportive of a
51:50
Speaker 3: ceasefire and have fought back against these pink washing efforts.
51:56
Speaker 1: There was again, there was that purchase in.
51:58
Speaker 3: New York an article from them wrote about how LGBTQ
52:03
Speaker 3: plus groups have also organized protests that have Black Pride
52:06
Speaker 3: parades in Boston, DC, and Philadelphia. So far, according to them,
52:11
Speaker 3: quote in New York City, Queen's Pride has significantly fewer
52:14
Speaker 3: groups merching due to boycotts and solidarity with Palestadians, as
52:18
Speaker 3: local outlet Hellgate reported. As Hellgate reported, the Pride parade sponsor,
52:22
Speaker 3: Long Island based nonprofit lgbt Network Quote rallied LGBTQ.
52:27
Speaker 1: Support groups and support of Israel.
52:29
Speaker 3: The outlet also noted lgbt Network president David Kilmannick had
52:34
Speaker 3: chastised LGBTQ organizations for not supporting Israel in a New
52:39
Speaker 3: York Daily News op ed. And this is what I
52:42
Speaker 3: heard about again. Like I live in New York, I've
52:44
Speaker 3: seen a lot of stuff going on about people calling
52:46
Speaker 3: for a boycott of Queen's Pride. In my life, I
52:49
Speaker 3: go to a lot more like local, smaller Pride events,
52:52
Speaker 3: and there have already been some instances of groups pulling
52:54
Speaker 3: out of certain venues that have hosted, like Eurovision doing
52:59
Speaker 3: part despite calls for a boycott, and like other things
53:02
Speaker 3: where they have kind of either not been open to
53:06
Speaker 3: talking to activists or just like have completely ignored them
53:09
Speaker 3: or whatever.
53:10
Speaker 1: So I think like at least from.
53:11
Speaker 3: A community B level, things are changing and that gives
53:15
Speaker 3: me hope.
53:16
Speaker 1: And I think this just goes to show like how much.
53:20
Speaker 3: Social media has like changed the game, you know, and
53:23
Speaker 3: just how far pinguashing can actually go. I think it's
53:26
Speaker 3: very similar to what's happening to a lot of like
53:28
Speaker 3: my young Jewish American peers that are starting to question
53:31
Speaker 3: Zionism and question like the actions of the Israeli government.
53:35
Speaker 3: There's some images that you see in some things that
53:38
Speaker 3: you just you can't justify, and if you find a
53:41
Speaker 3: way to justify it, like we've been seeing some of
53:44
Speaker 3: the worst images, like I, at least for me, I've
53:46
Speaker 3: been seeing some of the worst images I've ever seen
53:48
Speaker 3: in my life, like over the past couple months or
53:51
Speaker 3: past like ten months at this point, I think, and
53:53
Speaker 3: that's hard to ignore.
53:54
Speaker 1: That is hard to.
53:55
Speaker 3: Just ask people to ignore and justify. And frankly, at
53:58
Speaker 3: this point, if you are still trying to ignore and
54:00
Speaker 3: justify it, I am concerned for you and your moral
54:04
Speaker 3: well being. But yeah, ultimately my takeaway here is the
54:09
Speaker 3: center of this is that one group's safety does not
54:11
Speaker 3: require the subjugation and annihilation of another group. And if
54:16
Speaker 3: anyone tells you otherwise, they're probably trying to get you
54:19
Speaker 3: to turn a blind eye to some really awful things.
54:21
Speaker 2: So don't trust them. I mean, yep, that comes up
54:25
Speaker 2: a lot. And this show is when people like to
54:31
Speaker 2: use groups as tokens for things they really don't cure.
54:37
Speaker 3: So true, And this isn't even getting into the whole
54:39
Speaker 3: like bigger conversation about how.
54:43
Speaker 1: The military, like the US military and like the cops have.
54:46
Speaker 3: Really tried to use pride or being like, look at
54:52
Speaker 3: all of our gay officers and soldiers to be like,
54:55
Speaker 3: also ignore all the messed up stuff we're doing.
54:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I.
55:01
Speaker 2: Will say, Joey, I've told this story a couple of times,
55:05
Speaker 2: but it was so revealing to me. My mom's church
55:09
Speaker 2: is going through a lot of stuff, but a lot
55:13
Speaker 2: of it is based on trans writes. Mmm, and it's
55:17
Speaker 2: actually a pretty liberal church. But they're like going through
55:21
Speaker 2: this stuff and my mom was like, well, this gay
55:23
Speaker 2: guy was against it.
55:25
Speaker 1: I was like.
55:25
Speaker 2: That that does not mean that he just because he's
55:30
Speaker 2: gay does not mean that he is right or that
55:36
Speaker 2: he is not have does not have many biases.
55:40
Speaker 3: Right right, Look, we're I mean, we're at a point
55:47
Speaker 3: being queer is like a weird identity to have because
55:50
Speaker 3: it is something that I think, unlike a lot of
55:52
Speaker 3: sort of marginalized identities. Anybody can be queer, like you
55:56
Speaker 3: can come from any economic background, any like racial, ethnic
55:59
Speaker 3: back round. Like everybody has their own set of biases
56:02
Speaker 3: that they go in with, and being queer sometimes leads
56:05
Speaker 3: people to re examine those structures and re examine their
56:08
Speaker 3: role in them. And sometimes again going back to that podcast,
56:12
Speaker 3: Bad Gays wholly recommend people listening to it. Sometimes people
56:18
Speaker 3: just hold on to that power and that status that
56:20
Speaker 3: they have and want to also be you know, accepted
56:23
Speaker 3: as this is all homo nationalism.
56:25
Speaker 1: This is where it comes from, this idea of like.
56:26
Speaker 3: Well, I'm a normal white gay that wants to get
56:31
Speaker 3: married and have kids in my suburban white picket fence
56:36
Speaker 3: household with our two point five kids and our dog.
56:38
Speaker 3: And I also don't like the immigrants that are coming
56:43
Speaker 3: in and all of this awful this strand.
56:45
Speaker 1: Like, great, you're still a bigot. Then you're just a gay, right.
56:57
Speaker 4: And it's the same way when we see immigration issues
56:59
Speaker 4: in like anti immigrant people who as anti immigrants, but
57:04
Speaker 4: they're literally immigrants themselves. We have a lot of like
57:09
Speaker 4: Latin community, especially men like Machismo men who really launched
57:12
Speaker 4: on the Trump and that was a whole conversation I
57:15
Speaker 4: still do, and they're like, you know, my parents did
57:17
Speaker 4: it right until they get arrested and then deported because
57:20
Speaker 4: of a mistake or whatnot. Like I've seen that so
57:23
Speaker 4: many times. Florida and itself really had like one of
57:27
Speaker 4: those around and find outs with many of those Latino
57:31
Speaker 4: voters being like, that's right, we love the Santas and
57:34
Speaker 4: Trump because they're standing up for what's good. And then
57:37
Speaker 4: they're like, oh, we can't get jobs. Oh they're trying
57:39
Speaker 4: to kick us out of here. Oh they're just pulling
57:42
Speaker 4: us over just because we're brown, even though I want
57:44
Speaker 4: to tell them I voted for your people.
57:46
Speaker 1: Trump.
57:47
Speaker 4: And I see that also with the Asian community. I've
57:49
Speaker 4: seen many Asian men come on and being like, yeah,
57:52
Speaker 4: we're definitely pro Republican because b blah blah blah, we
57:56
Speaker 4: did this right, all these things. I'm like, no, you're
57:58
Speaker 4: taking on the model minority myth and making it really
58:02
Speaker 4: harder for most non people people of color in general.
58:06
Speaker 4: And I'm meaning that as in, like not the black community,
58:08
Speaker 4: but for those who are of us, all of us
58:10
Speaker 4: who are in the brown and tan community.
58:13
Speaker 1: But like you kind of.
58:15
Speaker 4: Sit there like what are you thinking this is not
58:17
Speaker 4: this is not necessarily beneficial for you, but you really
58:20
Speaker 4: want to stand on the socialized aim that this is
58:24
Speaker 4: the hierarchy. So at least if you can be allies
58:27
Speaker 4: with them, and you could be like ushered in with them,
58:29
Speaker 4: that you'll be safe in actuality.
58:30
Speaker 1: That's not the truth, but.
58:32
Speaker 4: We have a lot of bad players that feed into
58:34
Speaker 4: that and try to use that as leverage as well.
58:37
Speaker 4: They kind of stand on there and be like, this
58:39
Speaker 4: is gonna give me some notoriety. This controversy in itself
58:42
Speaker 4: is gonna give it. Like Candice Owens is like probably
58:44
Speaker 4: a big giant.
58:46
Speaker 1: Example of that.
58:47
Speaker 4: I'm not I don't know her name. I'm not I
58:49
Speaker 4: don't even know like who she is, but miss McConnell's wife,
58:52
Speaker 4: who is an Asian woman, and everybody wants to point
58:54
Speaker 4: that out about oh see, he's not racist, and I'm like,
58:56
Speaker 4: uh uh uh uh. She's a token who is absolutely
59:00
Speaker 4: being used and has been used to play this game,
59:02
Speaker 4: and she's doing this for her benefit. Nobody else is like,
59:05
Speaker 4: and she's like, no matter, I don't even know who
59:08
Speaker 4: she is. I've never heard her spoke, but she's okay
59:10
Speaker 4: with being touted as that, so we know that, like
59:14
Speaker 4: that's kind of that level of like this is for her,
59:16
Speaker 4: that they're fine as long as it's that one, like
59:19
Speaker 4: she gets what she wants, she doesn't care about anybody else.
59:22
Speaker 4: And that's that token level of like people really want
59:25
Speaker 4: to be that player so that at least they're okay
59:28
Speaker 4: for now.
59:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, I uh, the the guys of social acceptance, and
59:35
Speaker 3: you know, ay, there's money in it. Like, you know,
59:39
Speaker 3: I could drop everything and become a right wing reactionary
59:44
Speaker 3: X queer and make a ton of money right now,
59:46
Speaker 3: except I'm not a complete.
59:48
Speaker 4: Right we have morals and understanding of those.
59:52
Speaker 3: But also, yeah, like I think a lot of these people,
59:55
Speaker 3: and a lot of these gay people that are suddenly
59:59
Speaker 3: becoming very vocally transphobic, they're falling for this idea that well,
1:00:06
Speaker 3: if we just act normal enough, we'll be accepted.
1:00:08
Speaker 1: We'll you know.
1:00:09
Speaker 3: So it's social acceptances. People want social acceptance. People want
1:00:11
Speaker 3: acceptance into these systems of power that already exists. But
1:00:15
Speaker 3: that's never that's not a stable way to a like
1:00:18
Speaker 3: that's not from a selfish level, it's not a stable
1:00:20
Speaker 3: way to stay like, you know, respected and safe and
1:00:26
Speaker 3: all of this stuff.
1:00:27
Speaker 1: Like they're always going to turn on you.
1:00:28
Speaker 3: There are a million historical examples off like honestly off
1:00:32
Speaker 3: the top.
1:00:32
Speaker 1: Of my head.
1:00:33
Speaker 3: Now, Roy Cone really interesting case study, and I think
1:00:38
Speaker 3: like how complete awful human being did so much damage
1:00:44
Speaker 3: to the queer community, did so much damage to like
1:00:47
Speaker 3: this country, and then ultimately like diet of AIDS and
1:00:51
Speaker 3: all of his Republican besties didn't do to help them, Like,
1:00:56
Speaker 3: they're not going to save you Jewish people that are
1:00:59
Speaker 3: seeing these white supremacists co opt you know, Zionism. This
1:01:03
Speaker 3: should be a side, right, This isn't gonna save us, right,
1:01:06
Speaker 3: solidarity is and solidarity with other marginalized people is the
1:01:09
Speaker 3: only thing that is going to save us. And I
1:01:13
Speaker 3: think like, yeah, this is where a lot of these
1:01:14
Speaker 3: groups like Queers for Palestine and like, this is what
1:01:17
Speaker 3: it's rooted in. It's root in this idea that I
1:01:19
Speaker 3: can recognize other people's oppression that mirrors mine, and I
1:01:22
Speaker 3: can recognize that, you know, at the end of the day,
1:01:28
Speaker 3: oppression is oppression. But what's the quote like that what
1:01:32
Speaker 3: none of us are free until like all of us
1:01:33
Speaker 3: are free?
1:01:34
Speaker 1: But it's misused all the time. But right, but.
1:01:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's the reality like people should not be
1:01:41
Speaker 3: being murdered like this, that should not be right, right,
1:01:45
Speaker 3: And I think that's that whole level, Like when we
1:01:47
Speaker 3: saw just that one dude, I can't remember that he
1:01:50
Speaker 3: was on the uh on the add of protests and
1:01:53
Speaker 3: antagonizing people and going after people and turned out like
1:01:56
Speaker 3: but he was like anti you.
1:01:58
Speaker 4: Know, uh, he wasn't either, but he was at an
1:02:02
Speaker 4: anti Zionist protests I think in Colombia or something. And
1:02:06
Speaker 4: then it turned out he was really anti Semitic as well,
1:02:09
Speaker 4: Like you looked at his stuff and everything was about
1:02:11
Speaker 4: how like all these anti Semitic comments. So he wasn't
1:02:14
Speaker 4: there protests for the Jewish community. He was there because
1:02:18
Speaker 4: he loved antagonizing one side or the other. He loved it,
1:02:21
Speaker 4: like he loved seeing the downfall, and so he would
1:02:24
Speaker 4: rather support who seemed to hold up the supremacy more
1:02:28
Speaker 4: than the other. So it's just such an odd narrative
1:02:31
Speaker 4: when you start digging deeper into why people are all
1:02:36
Speaker 4: of a sudden looking like the good guys. And I
1:02:38
Speaker 4: say this very loosely because I'm not that's not I
1:02:41
Speaker 4: don't see him as a good guy at all, And
1:02:42
Speaker 4: I'm all with their protesters.
1:02:44
Speaker 1: So but you know what I.
1:02:45
Speaker 4: Mean that that narrative, right, that narrative of like, yeah,
1:02:48
Speaker 4: I'm for this cause and then you're like, but you're not.
1:02:51
Speaker 4: You're absolutely anti semitic and you are gross and he's
1:02:55
Speaker 4: racism and all those things. But it's like you find
1:02:57
Speaker 4: those and you're like, what the hell is happening? And
1:02:59
Speaker 4: people are gobbling him up and seeing him as a
1:03:01
Speaker 4: hero exactly.
1:03:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's like linking it back to the corporate
1:03:08
Speaker 2: pink washing stuff.
1:03:09
Speaker 3: It's like Lockheed Martin loves past, like.
1:03:16
Speaker 1: The eye flow. The eye which historically like did the.
1:03:20
Speaker 4: Last ride are right? They spied on people? Has still
1:03:23
Speaker 4: lists till this day. It was impossible.
1:03:26
Speaker 3: Well you know, I mean, I guess they were like
1:03:28
Speaker 3: Jangar Hooper, like keeping the traditional eye. But again another
1:03:32
Speaker 3: awful queer person who did a lot of damage to
1:03:36
Speaker 3: the queer community as a whole. And and you know
1:03:39
Speaker 3: the ability of people to live free and justin normal lives. Anyway,
1:03:45
Speaker 3: I gotta honestly this, I just remembered this and Annie,
1:03:50
Speaker 3: this is for you. This is my time on Sminthya.
1:03:52
Speaker 3: I gotta bring this back to Star Wars. Remember when
1:03:55
Speaker 3: they decided that Tarkan was gonna be gay, Like they
1:03:58
Speaker 3: just decided to make him gay one time.
1:04:00
Speaker 1: This is literally that.
1:04:01
Speaker 3: Yeah. I remember seeing a bunch of memes that people
1:04:03
Speaker 3: were like diversity when the guy who like blew up
1:04:06
Speaker 3: alder On.
1:04:09
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's gay, here's one of your own.
1:04:16
Speaker 6: But he's evils, maybe like unintentionally one of the funniest
1:04:20
Speaker 6: like like reflections of the state of like queer liberation
1:04:26
Speaker 6: right now where it is that weird like hyper focus
1:04:28
Speaker 6: on like military endeavors and it's like, see, we have rights.
1:04:32
Speaker 1: You guys can go kill people. Another cut, you can
1:04:36
Speaker 1: go blow up alder On.
1:04:41
Speaker 3: So anyways, he had a whole military doctrinemn I don't know.
1:04:48
Speaker 3: I'm still on the Oscar Isaac fin Po trainin Poe
1:04:52
Speaker 3: uh fight for liberation.
1:04:58
Speaker 1: Yes, they'll be talking. Well, don't be target. We can
1:05:01
Speaker 1: agree on that. He's terrible.
1:05:03
Speaker 3: Even Darth Vader, the lesbian couple from and Or, they
1:05:08
Speaker 3: were cool.
1:05:09
Speaker 1: They were cool. We finally got some cool. Yes, yes, yes,
1:05:16
Speaker 1: that's amazing.
1:05:19
Speaker 2: Happy bride, Oh my gosh, it's always a delight to
1:05:25
Speaker 2: have you, Joey, thank you so much for coming on.
1:05:28
Speaker 2: Of course, very of course, very excited to have you
1:05:32
Speaker 2: on again.
1:05:33
Speaker 4: I'd be pride, y'all, happy pride, happy pride, the two
1:05:37
Speaker 4: of you, just us, Thanks, thanks.
1:05:40
Speaker 1: Just the two of you. Nobody listening. No, this is specific,
1:05:44
Speaker 1: and this is actually I will say it.
1:05:46
Speaker 3: So I have June his pride month, and then July
1:05:48
Speaker 3: is my birthday month, which means that every day is
1:05:50
Speaker 3: my birthday in July. So two months in a row
1:05:54
Speaker 3: that are all about me. I love the summer.
1:06:00
Speaker 1: Is it your favorite season?
1:06:01
Speaker 3: It is my favorite season. I'm a big I'm a
1:06:04
Speaker 3: sun baby. I am like super super pale, which is
1:06:06
Speaker 3: really funny. But I will like I love to spend
1:06:09
Speaker 3: as much time out in the sun.
1:06:10
Speaker 1: As I can.
1:06:11
Speaker 2: That's funny because we keep trying to get you to
1:06:12
Speaker 2: come to Atlanta and you're like.
1:06:15
Speaker 1: To change your lives. It's fair, No, it's fair. It
1:06:20
Speaker 1: is completely fair. We're saying like high nineties and that
1:06:24
Speaker 1: I was I was that. I'm a northern I'm a
1:06:27
Speaker 1: Northern nerve.
1:06:27
Speaker 3: When I say hot, I mean like mid eighties, mid
1:06:29
Speaker 3: eighties wind.
1:06:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, Chicago's pretty hot in the summer. Oh yeah does it?
1:06:36
Speaker 3: Yeah?
1:06:36
Speaker 1: I know, like that wind factor.
1:06:38
Speaker 5: I am not.
1:06:38
Speaker 3: Ready, but the winter is like, don't go to Chicago
1:06:41
Speaker 3: in the winter, don't don't.
1:06:42
Speaker 1: Go to Ininlanta in the summer.
1:06:43
Speaker 3: Are doing.
1:06:45
Speaker 1: It's true? That's true.
1:06:48
Speaker 2: Wow, one day, one day, one day, Joey, Well, we'll
1:06:50
Speaker 2: work it out.
1:06:51
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, where can the goodlisseners? Fine to?
1:06:55
Speaker 3: You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at not
1:07:00
Speaker 3: prat that's p A t t n O T p
1:07:03
Speaker 3: r A t t.
1:07:05
Speaker 1: Also, if, since it is Pride Month, if you're.
1:07:07
Speaker 3: Interested in more cool queer storytelling and queer history told
1:07:13
Speaker 3: by the people that lived it, you should check out
1:07:15
Speaker 3: but We Loved, which is a new podcast from the
1:07:17
Speaker 3: Outspoken Network that.
1:07:19
Speaker 1: I am working on. So nice.
1:07:22
Speaker 2: You should do that anyways. Yeah, yeah, oh that's awesome.
1:07:28
Speaker 2: We'd love to hear more about that. Yeah, well, uh, listeners,
1:07:33
Speaker 2: go check out Joey on all of those platforms if
1:07:36
Speaker 2: you haven't already. If you would like to contact us,
1:07:39
Speaker 2: you can or emails Stephanie mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
1:07:42
Speaker 2: You can find us on Twitter at most of a podcast,
1:07:44
Speaker 2: or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff Never told you.
1:07:47
Speaker 2: We're on YouTube. We have a t polk store, We
1:07:49
Speaker 2: have a book you can get wherever you get your books.
1:07:51
Speaker 2: Thanks as always too our super producer Christine, our executive producer,
1:07:55
Speaker 2: Maya and Urk and Trip Joey Oh, thank you and
1:08:00
Speaker 2: thanks to you for listening.
1:08:01
Speaker 1: Steffan Never Told You is Prediction by Her Radio.
1:08:03
Speaker 2: For more podcasts or my heart Radio, you can check
1:08:04
Speaker 2: out the heart Radio app, Apple podcast or if you
1:08:06
Speaker 2: listen to your favorite shows