Too White, Deaf And Silent

'The City Of Cape Town stands behind the LGBTQIA+ Community' or some such boomed the huge notice on the stage behind everyone who came out to support 'being gay' in Cape Town, if we are to believe the imagery around the official proceedings at the concert to mark the end of the Cape Town Pride March. I wasn't at the march, because a group of us, under the auspices of Cape Town Community Pride, were hosting a dozen Queer Youth from Klapmuts and Stellenbosch at The 2 Eves on Kloof St, exploring the meaning and potential of an inclusive, purpose-driven Pride March and its attendant events and activities. Full disclosure, the aforementioned initiative was birthed at the last #Coming, a space for Queer Hegemony, where the problematic nature of Pride CT's approach, execution and ethic as manifest in recent memory, came up for discussion, resulting in a commitment to start a process aimed at honouring the original motivation for the existence of such an event - raising awareness around the need for it, and that the mood of such spills over onto a concern about the daily restraints and constraints inflicted on Queer existence. Cape Town Pride has variously been accused of 'being too white', 'being too deaf', and 'being too silent' - it is hard to argue against these, given Pride's tone-deaf disconnect in past experience, and indications are that they are endeavoring to change that as borne out by the really inspired idea of Pride Lunchtime Conversations with Dorian Pablo Basson, but there are red flags enough going up to charge the sky crimson - does CT Pride now turn to addressing key issues for the community as adjacent to key issues for the organization? Does that reflect the reality for so many Queer Youth, desperate for a sense of belonging, affirming and edifying? I'd like to venture not. I'd like to add that the pointer 'too white' needs to be dealt with in relation to this. Not as an emotional, heart-felt plea for acceptance, but a demand for the inalienable rights of Queer human beings as enshrined in the Constitution without extra requirements for behavioural adjustment and societal approval. Worse though, this disconnect informs on the reality of Queer people not blessed with the material and spatial benefits that seems a requirement for the worry-free enjoyment of CTPride. On those who come for the first time to be 'openly' themselves in solidarity with others like them now to understand that The City is their partner in this. On those who regularly find themselves confronted with the non-marketing campaign, non-public sell, non-best governed face of The City. The same City who, election before this one, took two performers from a Drag Show to the opening of Parliament to illustrate their concern for the plight of the LGBTQIA+ Community (two white ones, nogal). In the same city where this year's CT Pride after-party in Long St resembled just another party in Long St (a personal low was the MC shouting 'Who wants to see some drag performances? We have some drag performances! Are you ready to see some drag performers? Some drag performers next' - Jayde Kay murdered the crowd, and for a moment there things got quite gay, but really, the street after-party wasn't, though many would disagree with me, I'm sure) And definitely the same city where the late Roxy, Coco, Brumilda and all their circle were coerced onto trucks and forced into the nightmare that was Strandfontein Horror-Camp, by that city, still unapologetic about the inhumanity that was enabled there. It mocks the pain of Queer people - this smart branding - and their struggles. It buys the attention of Queer people with a falsehood. It reduces our critical issues to endorsed sideshows. And Cape Town Pride, for however the City came to make its catch-phrase claim about standing by Queer people right in their marginalized faces, should speedily start considering when it was they started selling out the Queer community, and if there is recourse for this kind of dissonance. SP