Émile Lewis: Air Will Be Bud: If even *one* queer kid in a hostile community feels less alone by seeing a rainbow flag at Target or a cookie-cutter ‘love is love’ sign, that’s more important and consequential than every argument against ‘corporate Pride’ combined.

If even *one* queer kid in a hostile community feels less alone by seeing a rainbow flag at Target or a cookie-cutter ‘love is love’ sign, that’s more important and consequential than every argument against ‘corporate Pride’ combined.

Sorry, antisocial nerds, but even a single solitary human experience is more relevant than the entire corpus of ‘theory’ ever written

Let it be understood that if I get a lot of new followers because of this post, my inevitable descent into Poster’s Madness is going to be very, very funny to watch so get your front-row seats now

Queer liberation theory has always been really interesting to me. Not my circus, not my monkeys, sure, but there's a similar spectrum of assimilation-vs.-liberation arguments in Native culture, and my attitude there is "You cannot do a single thing when you cut off your own hands."

Like, even if you're like me and strongly believe that you have your own culture and traditions that do make you meaningfully different than others and which should be preserved and celebrated, you have to play ball with based on the simple fact there are 8,000 of my tribe and 300 million settlers.

There's a certain noble legend to the idea of being an exile from society with unassailable moral rightness who refuses to contaminate themselves with the culture and government that has long wronged them and it's worth as much in real terms as a puff of wind.

I, personally, would like some say in regards to my fate at the hands of the US's colonial institutions instead of purely being a helpless victim, but that's just me.

I think the reality is that most people lie somewhere in between. Much of human history is people wanting to just live their life with as little hassle as possible, which appeals to both sides of this.

Assimilation means you enjoy the relative luxury of the majority; liberation means maintaining the strength of your community. I'm of the opinion that, in the platonic ideal of the cosmopolitan multicultural US, these are not mutually exclusive.

As ever, I think Gayle Rubin was more or less on the money (forty years ago, now!)

Agreed but that's also how we get things like telling people they can't marry outside the tribe or else their kids won't be Native among other issues, especially revolving around blood quantum

I don't think that's how we get Blood Quantum, because it isn't traditional to us, AT ALL, it came directly from the eugenics movement and their affect on Indian Law.

I mean my grandmother/Kaku was about as much of a hardcore traditional Comanche as there could be. After I was born she stopped wearing European style clothing and only wore traditional dresses, one thing she never did was buy into BQ.

I'm also kinda condensing BQ with a lot of the stuff that people will do for the sake of Tradition that we never did in the past and some of the big issues that keep popping up internally

The line is the difference between connecting to your culture and cosplay for that ol' proverbial white gaze.

My queer kid is really moved by it.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.

A seemingly minor but important thing trans supporters can do is wear the trans flag pin daily, and put a sticker on the car. You don't need to be trans to show the flag. Sometimes it feels like I'm my only ally in the world. Invisible support is as good as no support at all. Please show it.

I get the annoyance about corporatizarion, but as a straight cis person who remembers when it was shocking to admit queer people exist, I have literally choked up at Target having a presence in our local pride parade because of how normalized and noncontroversial acceptance has become.

You make an important point. I gather that Target is chickening out on its Pride merchandise, while Walmart is holding fast. Not what I would have predicted.

Amen! Happy Pride month to all my brothers and sisters!!

And I continue to buy at least 1 pride item from hot topic and one from someone on Etsy.

Also the people that get hired at my local hot topic are always the most queer friendly people and have been since the early 2000’s when I first walked in there. Mall Goth is part of my bisexual pride.

Yeah, rainbow capitalism is bad, sure, but then so is all capitalism, so we might as well let them stick rainbows on it and help us (intentionally or otherwise) with raising awareness and affirmation once a year.

If someone does something good for the wrong reasons, the net result is still something good got done.

I’m not gonna argue that. But I’ve worked at places where leadership said all the right things, “celebrated pride” and then honored monsters like this guy who oppose our LGBTG loved ones every chance they get.

is that “corporate Pride” or do you mean “rainbow capitalism”? honest question, as i see those as two different (albeit related) things.

Corporate pandering is cringe but it’s better than being attacked! www.theonion.com/new-subway-p...

New Subway Promotion To Honor Subtember 11www.theonion.com MILFORD, CT—Citing a wide range of deals customers will “never forget,” fast food chain Subway announced an exciting new promotion this week to honor and commemorate Subtember 11. “With a number of te...

The argument against corporate pride is less that they should stop doing it and more where are they the other eleven months of the year? Why should that kid have to wait until June to feel less alone.

That sounds like an argument for more corporate pride, not against corporate pride.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Target.

My attitide towards corporate pride is there is no reason to be mad about it and it definitely and overall and companies deserve no bonus points or trust for participating what so ever. Not rejecting pride is just baseline decency