Los Angeles Pride organizers were planning on collaborating with Black Lives Matter to hold a "solidarity protest march" at the end of June, but the plans were abandoned after it was revealed Pride was seeking partnership with the LA Police Department.
LA Pride is planned and operated by the Christopher Street West organization, that reached out to All Black Lives Matter to create a crossover event. Though Pride events were previously cancelled due to concerns related to the global pandemic, the new collaborative march was greeted enthusiastically by the city's LGBTQ community.
Unfortunately, on June 4 news broke online that the Pride organizers were seeking a "strong and unified partnership" with the LAPD, which directly conflicts with the mission of the Black Lives Matter protests.
The issue of police at Pride, even without the collaboration with BLM has been getting more and more pushback and scrutiny in the last few years.
I've been informed @LAPride is, in fact, working with police for their so-called "Black solidarity" march. Attached is a screenshot of an event producer's letter to the LAPD underscoring "a strong and unified partnership with law enforcement." Homos, this is not it. pic.twitter.com/7YkndfDUrV
— Fran Tirado (@fransquishco) June 5, 2020
Two things: 1. It is my policy to always call people in before I call them out. I had already emailed LA Pride asking these questions, and they replied avoiding the truth. When I found out the truth retroactively, that's why I brought this to light.
— Fran Tirado (@fransquishco) June 5, 2020
2. As angry as we are at LA Pride, non-black queers should conscript themselves in this narrative and find solutions for our failures. We should build something like @queermarch in its stead, with black organizers, so we don't co-opt the movement.
— Fran Tirado (@fransquishco) June 5, 2020
Activists online urged Pride to collaborate more actively with Black activists to ensure the movement belonged to them.
If #LAPride wants to show
✌🏾solidarity✌🏾 w/Black folk—and Black folks want that—they can come to where Black folks live. Don't invite Black folks into anti Black spaces. Y'all had a well known and loved serial killer of Black men in #WeHo for years. #SouthLA #Inglewood #Compton
— Jasmyne Cannick (@Jasmyne) June 5, 2020
Before #LAPride attenpts to do anything in the name of, for or with Black folks—they have DECADES of racism towards Black people to publicly apologize for.
Dec👏🏾ades👏🏾!
— Jasmyne Cannick (@Jasmyne) June 5, 2020
The next day, LA Pride organizer Jeff Consoletti withdrew from his role in the protest via Instagram, saying his plans to "stand with the Black Lives Matter movement was not carefully thought through."
He wrote:
"I apologize and now see that these actions demonstrated the type of privileged, passive, and systemic issues that permeate society today."
Consoletti also admitted his team had not worked "with enough key leaders and activists in the Black community that have been fighting on the frontlines" during their planning of the collaborative event.
🚨 If LA PRIDE coordinates AT ALL with the LAPD I will STOP BEING GAY you have been warned 🚨
— Maggie Mae FIRE CHIEF MOORE (@MaggieMaeFish) June 5, 2020
Christopher Street also issued a statement via Instagram, apologizing for any past missteps and promising better behavior moving forward.
While Pride has made corporate sponsorship an important part of its model in recent years, many have hoped that the pandemic might offer a silver lining: a return to the movement's grassroots origins.
New York's Reclaim Pride Coalition, for instance, is hoping to pick up the torch where Christopher Street West dropped it, and is planning a 2020 Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality.
Twitter also hoped the collaboration would improve.
🚨PSA FOR ANYONE IN LA🚨
the “la pride blm march" is IN NO WAY affiliated w/ Black Lives Matter or Black Leadership LA. Instead, they started this idea without either of those groups knowledge. ALSO, in a (now deleted) post, it showed the police have already been invited by them
— jay (@dearapriI) June 5, 2020
How about we stop trying to force some sort of unity with police and they actually do the damn work to repair the damage they have done. I don't need to see a march, a parade or any other nonsense, I want to see some changes in the system, the training and who they hire
— Daimon Hellstrom (@ManximusPrime) June 5, 2020
don't forget 2018 pride where POLICE SHOWED UP IN RIOT GEAR because they poorly planned the event. do not attend this.
— dusty (@dustafford) June 5, 2020
Time will tell whether the LA Pride/Black Lives Matter march comes to fruition as protests continue across the country.
