Pride, above all else, was created to be transgressive, assertive, and a political statement – but now it's turned its back on the community in favour of pink capitalism.
On Thursday, 26 October, the United States embassy issued a terror warning that Sandton was likely to be a target for an attack on Saturday "targeting large public gatherings" – the same day of Joburg Pride.
They aren’t wrong - Johannesburg Pride was started by Simon Nkoli and Beverly Ditsie through the Gay and Lesbian Organization of Witwatersrand in 1990 to protest the intersectional oppressions of race, sexuality and gender. In fact, in a statement to 702, the chairperson of Johannesburg Pride and founder of Pride of Africa, Kaye Alley said that Pride needed to adapt its modus operandi to move from “hardcore protest action” to advocacy with a “celebratory tone” in order to stay relevant to younger audiences.
Superficially, this might not be important to note, but contextually the “all live matter" rhetoric was popularised as a reaction by white people against the Black Lives Matter protest movement. For all intents and purposes, the event was perfectly fine: the stalls were cool, the march itself was okay, the drinks were expectedly overpriced, and the attempts at politicising Pride by including vague talks about queer rights were just as hollow as the event’s modus operandi itself.However, what I found particularly interesting about Pride was not the event, it was the community of people occupying the space.
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