Pride Month opened with the homophobic murder of Jonathan Joss, the indigenous actor best known as the voice of John Redcorn on King of the Hill. We are reminded that the State and its apparatuses do not protect our community from violence.
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Pride began not with an appeal to morality or respectability. Pride began in 1969 when radical queers and allies fought back against State repression outside of Stonewall Inn.
The Queer community is built on a foundation of violent resistance, and not just our own. The Black community’s militant resistance during the 1960’s pressured the government into passing the Civil Rights Acts.
This uprising laid the foundation for the Queer community to agitate for laws against hate crimes and to have sexuality become a protected class under civil rights laws (amended recently, 2009 and 2020 respectively).
These concessions from power came only under duress, and Queer communities continue to regularly face both state and non-state violence. In the end, the State is not a tool that can be wielded. It does not exist apart from its purpose to protect those with power from those without.
The best protectors of our lives, our freedom, and our dignity are ourselves. We must liberate our safety from the hands of the state and wield our power in defense of ourselves.
The Queer struggle is Black struggle. The Queer struggle is Immigrant struggle. The Queer struggle is the struggle of Labor. Our struggle is intersectional because our people exist intersectionally with race and class and nationality.
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