A year-long cat fight has ended in the resignation of Boston Pride’s board of directors.
Boston Pride is — or was — the city’s leading lavender lobby. But the directors quit and disbanded the outfit last week because they made one big mistake: They didn’t mention Black Lives Matter in a public statement last summer about “racist” police.
And so Boston must sally forth into the future without the group that did so much to promote the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name.
The Statement
Trouble has been brewing for some time, reported WBUR, Boston’s NPR affiliate.
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“The announcement comes after years of growing tension with other Boston-based LGBTQ+ community leaders and organizations,” the station reported:
In 2015, Black Lives Matter protestors interrupted the Boston Pride parade to demand more inclusivity and representation in the Pride organization. And last year, 80% of Boston Pride’s volunteer workforce resigned after a statement put out by Boston Pride’s board received backlash. The board came under fire for removing key parts of the statement, which was originally written by the volunteer workforce. Former volunteers alleged that the board removed “Black Lives Matter,” without consent from its Black Pride committee members. Workers also cited allegations of racism and transphobia as reasons they resigned.
Removing BLM from the statement meant sure trouble. George Floyd had died of a drug overdose while police restrained him on May 25.
Pride4ThePeople.org, a splinter group formed after the hissy fit, spewed steam like a burst pipe in a San Francisco bathhouse. The headmistress of that group said it wants to focus on “racism, white privilege, [and] transphobia.”
Boston Pride’s statement neglected “racism and white-centeredness,” the outfit protested. Thus did an angry kaleidoscope of butterflies flutter into Bean Town for a “Trans Resistance March and Vigil.” “Thousands” gathered on the 50th anniversary of Boston Pride to bring it “back to its roots and to protest police violence against the trans and gender nonconforming community.”
If they did all that, then the statement about police violence against minorities in general and Alphabet minorities in particular must have been woefully inadequate.
Let’s see.
“Boston Pride grieves the deaths of yet another list of black and brown people unjustly killed by brutal acts committed by people wearing police badges and uniforms,” it began.
And that was just for starters:
The LGBTQ+ community is no stranger to the systemic racism, homophobia, transphobia, and sexism shown starkly through inhuman acts of violence committed by some members of the law enforcement community throughout the decades. When we watch as a nation an unjust death of a human being we felt rage rising in our collective souls.
Citing the homosexual heroes who staged the Stonewall Riots in 1969, Boston Pride averred that “fifty years later, the violence against black and brown people, especially black transwomen, undeniably highlights the ongoing structural systems of oppression and racism, reminding us that the work is far from done.”
That wasn’t all, but you get the idea. The cops really had Boston Pride’s bloomers in a twist.
Don’t Make BLM Mad
And yet the statement wasn’t enough. Floyd had died, and it didn’t mention Black Lives Matter, the multi-million dollar shakedown scam.
Lipstick flew. High heels came off. Claws came out.
Defectors from Boston Pride formed their own groups, and in “in Dec. 2020, Pride 4 The People, Trans Resistance, Boston Black Pride and other LGBTQ+ organizations called for a boycott of Boston Pride and the Boston Pride Parade until community demands were met,” WBUR reported:
One of those demands was the resignation of the current Boston Pride board and the elimination of bylaws that former volunteers said gave the board unfair and undemocratic control of the organization. To date, 26 LGBTQ+ organizations have joined the boycott.
Boston Pride dissolved.
“It is clear to us that our community needs and wants change without the involvement of Boston Pride,” its board announced on July 9. “We have heard the concerns of the QTBIPOC community and others. We care too much to stand in the way. Therefore, Boston Pride is dissolving.”
But ignoring Floyd and BLM, it seems, wasn’t the only problem with Boston Pride. Another was the group’s board of directors, the Rainbow Times observed.
All of them were white.
