"Pinkwashing" is a term activists have coined for when countries engaged in terrible human rights violations promote themselves as "gay friendly" to improve their public image. Israel is the country most famous for this strategy, having initiated it as part of a rebranding campaign has been engaged in for the last decade.
We all need to learn how to read state rhetoric that promises to promote our interests - uses our images and our struggles' terminology - in order to preserve and expand the violence of racist, colonial regimes. Pinkwashing is one overt version of this politics that we can identify and resist in our work to build real transformation rather than celebrating when governments simply change the window-dressing in order to shut us up and keep justifying and expanding harm.
In 2012, activists in the Pacific Northwestern region of the US responded to an Israeli Consulate-funded pinkwashing tour featuring Israeli gay and lesbian activists that was coming to the region. Local queer Palestine solidarity activists exposed the "Rainbow Generations" tour as pro-Israel propaganda and got some of the events, including the tour's centerpiece event hosted by the City of Seattle's LGBT Commission, cancelled. A significant backlash ensued involving the Seattle City Council and Seattle's leading LGBT and HIV organizations.
Through the inspiring story of these activists' victory, Pinkwashing Exposed explores how pinkwashing works and what local activists are doing to fight back.
Here's a Truthout interview with the director, Dean Spade...
The documentary will be available to watch free online - check in here.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment