pandering was always pandering,
But pandering is a great canary
This is how I find out that my city has/had a pridewalk?!
For me the LGBTQ colours displayed by the city are meaningful. It feels safer gay kissing in a square painted with rainbows, sitting on pink benches. It made it easier to ease into my own self. It’s like a big sign saying “IT’S OK”.
My city put a rainbow-themed art installation in the most heavily trafficked park in the city back in 2019. It was supposed to be there for one year, as a temporary memorial to the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. It’s been there for 7 years now, and half the city would lose their minds if someone tried to take it down now.
They have us fighting over crosswalks while our house burns down.
They did this to Houston, but they did an extremely half-assed job. It was one thin layer of additional asphalt covering over the whole intersection. But you can still see the pride crosswalk peeking out from underneath at the edges.
I’m still very upset.
Especially now that the sidewalks have been defaced with hate messages, which were then blacked out with spray paint. Is there a way to get the spray paint off the concrete and go back to chalk?
Both can be true. The installation can be a bit naff, but the choice to remove it is an act of deliberate hatred.
They are just like rainbow capitalism. They don’t improve the rights of anyone but they are an indicator of the acceptance.
Exactly. People are all “TaRgEt jUsT waNtS yOuR mOnEy.”
Well, yeah, but also it just shows an overall acceptance. It makes people more at ease in general. It lets non queer people also feel more open to showing support. It’s about the overall mindset of society.
Right? Easy to overstate the value of it as we see now, but it sure was nice being a demographic worth pandering to, especially when that meant that the homophobes weren’t worth appeasing.
It was a good feeling but always had the aftertaste of instantly disappearing when the political wind changes. We will sadly never truly be free under capitalism
Historically speaking, under communism… Oh no. Oh no
Depends on what time you look at. In the starting years of the USSR and DDR gay, trans and womens rights were very good in comparison to western states at the time. It started getting worse when the economic problems accumulated due to war and outside pressure.
Sure. My point isn’t communism bad, it’s that the idea isn’t capitalism “causing” LGBT oppression and communism is sunshine and rainbow flags.
Like when atheists bitch about how “imagine no religion” would make everything great, and neglect to explain how they would get there. Like when the atheist Khamer rouge killed 50,000+ religious people in the name of atheism.
Folks, turns out it’s authoritarianism that causes oppression of civil liberties, not economic systems.
Oppressive threats to their livelihood makes people unsympathetic and some people hateful and jealous.
Threatened by some colors - truly pathetic
TBF I’d feel rather threatened if they start doing swastika sidewalks, and that’s just some lines in the shape of an Indian peace symbol.
