In my mind, LGBTQ Pride is generally called that because Shame was, at least in contemporary history, a huge driver in suppressing LGBTQ existence and freedoms. If it was called LGBTQ No-More-Shame, it would remain antithetical but might not be as catchy. I’m sure other groups will employ the same argument, but it is difficult to overstate how powerful shame and social stigma specifically suppressed LGBTQ expression, and still attempts to in some ways.
To be fair, the right would immediatly counter with “white dignity” or “straight dignity” and accuse everyone holding up LGBTQ±dignity or black dignity of denigrating white dignity and complain about an atmosphere where “whites aren’t allowed to feel the dignity of their race anymore”.
There legitimately are powerful people who are systemically oppressing non-whites/non-straights.
There is a significant amount of people that lack empathy and have never experienced personally this type of systemic oppression, and thus don’t believe it’s real. This is particularly evident on the right where empathy is in short supply. See also: my abortion is the only moral abortion, the government shouldn’t be supporting these freeloaders (but make sure my HUD/food stamps/social security show up on time!), Obamacare needs to be abolished (but don’t drop me from my insurance I need my meds!), etc.
Back to point number one, even the blue team has been unfortunately ignorant about the level of systemic oppression and often serves as a validating factor. It’s one of the small things that I think have been positive about the social media era, these stories are getting to far more people than they used to. When I was in school in the 2000’s, if you asked basically anyone in my predominantly white school (including me, tbh) they probably would have said racism is basically a solved problem and is only a tiny little fraction of the actual experience for POC/LGBTQ++, etc. People with empathy pick up on this faster, but if you say ACAB in a room full of blue team, you’re probably still going to get a lot of pushback…
Speaking of ACAB, a big part of the problem is that people just do not fucking get nuance. Most of even the staunchest ACAB supporters don’t believe that everyone who is a cop or will become a cop is a bastard/bad person, the point is that the institution of policing in this country is systemically racist, systemically corrupt, and systemically insulated from consequences in a way that is unjust and bad for society. Or, shorter, we have heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment, and know that when you give people this type of power you can expect bad things. Thus, there isn’t a way to be a moral cop because the system removes the ability to stay moral, which is also why a lot of those that we would call “good” cops are forced out of the field. Anyway, pretty fucking hard to fit that on a bumper sticker, so we end up with things like ACAB/BLM/Pride, etc.
Yeah, but at least then you can retort with saying “that’s not a very dignified thing to say” while sipping tea with your erect pinkie finger.
Also, I would just open up the gaytes on Pride month, henceforth known as Dignity Month. Let the straights celebrate their missionary position all month long!
Idk the stereotype that gays are indignant polyamorous debaucherists still persists to this day. Even though the straights are still equally as debaucherous. Put differently, people have a different perception of guys who have a lot of Tinder hookups as opposed to guys that have a lot of Grindr hookups. Gay men are much more likely to be slut-shamed than straight men.
I don’t actually think Dignity is a better choice than Pride, I just didn’t feel like being argumentative to someone who I think was receptive to my initial argument. I agree with you 100%.
In my mind, LGBTQ Pride is generally called that because Shame was, at least in contemporary history, a huge driver in suppressing LGBTQ existence and freedoms. If it was called LGBTQ No-More-Shame, it would remain antithetical but might not be as catchy. I’m sure other groups will employ the same argument, but it is difficult to overstate how powerful shame and social stigma specifically suppressed LGBTQ expression, and still attempts to in some ways.
There are other better choices than No-More-Shame.
LGBTQ Honor / Dignity / Glory (on second thought, this one may conjure images of bathroom stalls, so maybe not this one)
Dignity is pretty solid.
To be fair, the right would immediatly counter with “white dignity” or “straight dignity” and accuse everyone holding up LGBTQ±dignity or black dignity of denigrating white dignity and complain about an atmosphere where “whites aren’t allowed to feel the dignity of their race anymore”.
Because that’s just how they work.
I think there are a few major problems here:
There legitimately are powerful people who are systemically oppressing non-whites/non-straights.
There is a significant amount of people that lack empathy and have never experienced personally this type of systemic oppression, and thus don’t believe it’s real. This is particularly evident on the right where empathy is in short supply. See also: my abortion is the only moral abortion, the government shouldn’t be supporting these freeloaders (but make sure my HUD/food stamps/social security show up on time!), Obamacare needs to be abolished (but don’t drop me from my insurance I need my meds!), etc.
Back to point number one, even the blue team has been unfortunately ignorant about the level of systemic oppression and often serves as a validating factor. It’s one of the small things that I think have been positive about the social media era, these stories are getting to far more people than they used to. When I was in school in the 2000’s, if you asked basically anyone in my predominantly white school (including me, tbh) they probably would have said racism is basically a solved problem and is only a tiny little fraction of the actual experience for POC/LGBTQ++, etc. People with empathy pick up on this faster, but if you say ACAB in a room full of blue team, you’re probably still going to get a lot of pushback…
Speaking of ACAB, a big part of the problem is that people just do not fucking get nuance. Most of even the staunchest ACAB supporters don’t believe that everyone who is a cop or will become a cop is a bastard/bad person, the point is that the institution of policing in this country is systemically racist, systemically corrupt, and systemically insulated from consequences in a way that is unjust and bad for society. Or, shorter, we have heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment, and know that when you give people this type of power you can expect bad things. Thus, there isn’t a way to be a moral cop because the system removes the ability to stay moral, which is also why a lot of those that we would call “good” cops are forced out of the field. Anyway, pretty fucking hard to fit that on a bumper sticker, so we end up with things like ACAB/BLM/Pride, etc.
Extremely well said!
Yeah, but at least then you can retort with saying “that’s not a very dignified thing to say” while sipping tea with your erect pinkie finger.
Also, I would just open up the gaytes on Pride month, henceforth known as Dignity Month. Let the straights celebrate their missionary position all month long!
Idk the stereotype that gays are indignant polyamorous debaucherists still persists to this day. Even though the straights are still equally as debaucherous. Put differently, people have a different perception of guys who have a lot of Tinder hookups as opposed to guys that have a lot of Grindr hookups. Gay men are much more likely to be slut-shamed than straight men.
I don’t actually think Dignity is a better choice than Pride, I just didn’t feel like being argumentative to someone who I think was receptive to my initial argument. I agree with you 100%.