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This mindset always frustrates me.
Of course it was performative, all public art is performative. This is no different than tv promoting the “traditional american family”, or statues “honoring the troops”, or memorials, or any other art promoting propagandized values.
But life imitates art. Even if the intent was insincere pandering, it still has an effect on how people perceive their society. We should want our propaganda to reflect our values. We should want statues of MLK and Harvey Milk instead of Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis. We should want rainbow streets and pride flags in public spaces. We should want their agenda to match our values. We should want the next generation growing up in a society that shows its support for marginalized people, instead of nationalism.
It took me a long time to get that, but I really feel it. Like, don’t get me wrong, putting up a rainbow crosswalk doesn’t mean much if the government that does it is v coding trans prisoners, but the statement “these people had to fight for their rights, and we’re glad to call them our neighbors” is still important.
And hell stuff like this adds to the vibes in the same way having a bunch of Chinese aesthetic in Chinatown does. Yeah, you should make the gayborhood feel like it. And while you’re at it hire black artists to help beautify the blacker parts of town. I actually used to live in a neighborhood with a ton of black art and it absolutely made it a nicer place to live, even as a white person.
They are just like rainbow capitalism. They don’t improve the rights of anyone but they are an indicator of the acceptance.
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
Communism was never achieved by the two countries you’re thinking of. They only claim to have achieved socialism.
Communism was achieved in Australia, 60,000 years ago. It was enabled by advanced psychological and sociological technology.
Yes comrade, and I’m sure that once the tankies get rid of capitalism, it will cause an LGBT utopia the likes of which has never been seen.
The comment is meant to be food for thought : blaming capitalism on social ills is unwise and idealistic about what will happen after the current economic system.
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.
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”.
Sometimes the point of a protest is to put yourself in a position to get knocked down.
Much of the civil rights movement was based on this premise, that when the police or regime paramilitaries come and engage in brutality, it makes sympathists of bystanders, activists of sympathists and militants of activists. This is COIN 101.
(In the case of counter insurgency, the model reminds the state not to let their police be brutal with the protesters, but putting down the resistance is through hearts and minds. But authoritarian states don’t usually listen to counter-insurgency experts, and in fact, enjoy seeing their troopers stomp on heads.)
To be fair, another part of the Civil Rights strategy was then to take police departments to court, and get their municipalities to pay for damages. That way, it hurt the institution, and the administrators would feel it and turn to discipline the police department.
But now we’re in an age of ubiquitous phone cameras and an internet where video can be directly streamed. And that amplifies the recruitment effect when police get brutal on video. In fact, I think this is why the various nations are trying to lock down the internet through age verification (de-anonymizing) and saturation with slop. Seeing people on the ground get hurt is visceral and develops support for social movements from across the world.
