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(OccuQueers' 'Fuck Hyatt' Banner Drop at Kiss & Fly, Austin Pride 2012. Photo: Lainie Duro / Used With Permission)
OccuQueers Strike Back at Corporate Pride
Past myFDL coverage of Occupy Pride events: Gay Crumbs From the Table of the Masters and Why Occupy Pride
Austin Pride 2012 (Photo: Kit O'Connell)
Austin, Texas came alive with Queer Pride last Saturday night, as a full day’s events culminated in a long parade through the heart of downtown and one of its small gayborhoods. A charity ‘fun run’ was followed by the ‘Pride Festival,’ a ticketed event with a strictly limited number of free volunteers at Austin’s Fiesta Gardens, culminating in the annual Pride Parade, which featured a handful of floats alongside large contingents from churches, activist groups, and city departments. A Capitol Metro bus with a bubble machine was chased by balloon decorated ambulances. Austin Police Department officers, fresh from their new It Gets Better video, marched near groups from huge corporate sponsors like Wells Fargo.
Not all were pleased with Pride as it has become. Amber Baldwin echoed many in the community in a Facebook post after the event:
[A] gate price of $20 dollars … excludes many in our community. I do not believe Pride should be a fundraiser. The reason I believe this is the fact that if it is a fund raiser…only those able to raise funds can participate. Also, if Wells Fargo and Hyatt, and David Acura want all that publicity and advertising…they should provide the funds for everyone in our community that wants to be able to attend to attend!
Hyatt sponsorship was deemed especially problematic — though Hyatt is publically welcome to LGBTQ clients, it is also increasingly well known for its poor treatment of workers in a field that is traditionally highly populated by queer people — hospitality. Over 5,000 unions, organizations and individuals have joined the Hyatt Boycott. When we reached out to hospitality union organizers, we heard horrifying tales — in just one incident, a $5,000 tip left by a major sporting team intended for housecleaning workers was stolen by the hotel.
In retaliation, an affinity group formed by the Occupy Austin OccuQueers scaled the outside of the Kiss & Fly, a gay bar shut down after the owner became notorious for dealing drugs and stealing worker tips. The banner, depicting the Hyatt logo with the word ‘Fuck’ in bold letters above it, was painted on a pink satin sheet. It hung along the parade route, visible from a block away even as night fell, for the entirety of pride parade and about an hour after.
GetEqual TX, the OccupyAustin Party Wagon, and Friends Take the Streets; Gay Bashing Taints Celebration
Pink Bloc marching at Occupy Austin Pride (Photo: Jamie Rainbow-Warrior / @FlashOccupyATX)
Sign: Welcome to the Right Side of History. I'll Be Your Guide. (Photo: Katt Freedom, used with permission)
While a team of activists was dropping their deliberately provocative message, another group was gathering near the Texas State Capitol. GetEqual TX, as in previous years, would be the last to march in the Pride Parade. This allowed them to encourage regular spectators to join them in the street.
In 2012, their efforts were aided by Occupy Austin and its famous Party Wagon, a mobile, lighted sound-system cart which protesters pull through the street on marches. The OccuQueers had also recruited allies from Occupy Bexar and the UNITE HERE! Hospitality Workers Union in San Antonio. Banners demanding full equality and anti-Hyatt signs, stickers and literature spread through the crowd as the march soon grew to take up two and a half city blocks.
All through, people danced to the tunes from the Party Wagon, which ranged from classic funk tunes to Nicki Minaj dance hits; needless to say, Austin’s queers kicked it Gangnam Style that night. As we passed the banner drop, the crowd cheered and chanted its words while a smaller group lead a mic-check about Hyatt’s evils. The crowd thinned as we passed the Fourth street clubs, but at least a couple hundred continued to dance. The wagon moved past the clubs, headed toward Republic Square Park.
The Austin Police Department, fresh from their new declaration of tolerance, couldn’t pass up a chance to harass our street march. Officers told us to shut down the sound. In this video, an officer has the following exchange with Joe Cooper, the Party Wagon DJ:
Officer: Go Inside A Bar and Dance!
Cooper: But a lot of these people don’t have any money.
Officer: Then I don’t know what to tell you.
Celebration of Pride is only condoned by the authorities when it makes the city money. Though the dance party had been joyous, calls to continue in the face of police threats were forestalled by a generator that was running out of power. After a mic check to announce the upcoming one year birthday of Occupy Austin on October 6, the party wagon was wheeled away just as motorcycle cops and multiple cars arrived at 4th and Colorado to enforce the shutdown.
Later that night, police were nowhere to be found as a gay bashing occurred at the same intersection, as reported by KLBJ Radio:
A man beat-up in downtown Austin over the weekend is asking police and the Travis County District Attorney to investigate his assault as a hate crime.
“I came up here and on Friday night, I was acosted by a stranger at a pizza truck,” Andrew Oppelman, a Houston hotel worker, said Monday.
Oppelman and a companion standing near the intersection of Fourth & Colorado at about 12:15 a.m. Saturday when he says an Asian man, no older than 30, became belligerent and words were exchanged. That’s when Oppelman says it got physical.
Elsewhere, I received reports that police took the time to harass several homeless queer people, making one arrest.
The Occupied Parade and banner drop created lively, controversial discussions both online and off; it seems likely that both Austin Pride and Hyatt are paying attention. These discussions add to an international dialogue about the meaning of Queer Pride and the attempted corporate takeover of our celebrations.
The OccuQueers meet this Wednesday at the Q in Austin (5:30pm, 3408 West Ave) to discuss followup actions and their participation in upcoming October 6 events.
Occupy Austin Pride 2012 (Photo: @OccupyURCapitol, used with permission))
6 Comments
Thank you, Kit for this important report. Relatedly, below is a link to a trailer video for a documentary I have yet to view (but would like to) entitled “Raid of the Rainbow Lounge”, by Robert Camina, about the now infamous incident at a popular gay bar in Ft. Worth, TX. Sometime after this incident occurred, I recall reading an article in a local newspaper reporting on how Ft. Worth LGBTQ law officers who had “outed” themselves (gone public) were endeavoring to work toward helping to improve local community relations. Admittedly yes, this remains a work-in-progress where unfortunately at times it seems the progress can only be measured with specialized high-precision instruments. IMO, you take that and do your best to build on it from there, since the outcome from any lesser alternative is unsavory at best.
Now, come next year, if only Michael Moore would graciously loan out his Big Pink Lovemobile R.V. (or whaddever he calls it) free of monetary charge…
http://youtu.be/cKPVCbe-Z7Q
Thanks, I’m glad you liked this & that movie does look interesting. Police marching in Pride parades is definitely a big step above raiding gay bars, but that doesn’t mean we can’t hold them to a still higher standard.
I was an out gay teen over 30 years go, sentenced to homelessness and street life for a fair stretch.
The journey, and cultural difference, from then to now is almost inexplicable if you haven’t experienced it or something very like it first hand.
As far as the major complaint that “Pride Shouldn’t Be Fund Raising” well then just exactly who is to do it for the groups that would be supported, according to the Austin Pride site:
-AIDS Services of Austin
-Out Youth
-Transgender Education Network of Texas
-Equality Texas
OccuQueers have problems with fundraising for those listed groups? Really?
Your reporting makes it sound as if one couldn’t participate in Pride at all without that ticket price, but that really isn’t so, is it, as your videos themselves show, as the Austin Pride site says the most popular event is the Parade, which mirrors my experience of Prides across the country over the last 30 years.
Parade For All – then many events and depends on who and where and many are pay-fors. This is nothing new or unusual.
And as a guy who fought for equal domestic benefits for same-sex partners, and thought it was a good idea to make companies acknowledge their employees with diversity groups including the gay affinity groups, where it Never Existed Before – Ever, it just amazes me for that to be called “crumbs.”
So hats off to you Kit, for being able to confidently spit on the accomplishments of myself, and people like me. You couldn’t have done it without us.
I don’t have a problem with fundraising for those groups, they are all good groups. But I think that the corporations we raise money from
a) shouldn’t do it on the backs of oppressed workers, queer or otherwise and
b) those sponsors should be willing to make the whole event accessible. Yes, I do believe that. Because otherwise our Pride doesn’t respect its heritage — the very poor, disadvantaged people that started us off at Stonewall in the first place.
I’m sorry you take this so personally and see it as spitting in the face of your hard work.
Just to be clear, one of the major members of Occupy is a deacon at a local church who has been active in these causes for over 30 years, too. Every Sunday he still feeds dozens of queer street youth, and some of them are members of Occupy too. This keeps us intimately aware of the class struggle and how it’s very much a queer issue.
I refuse for my Pride celebration to be on the backs of the people Wells Fargo made homeless, or for the fundraising to come via the theft from workers that companies like Hyatt are responsible for. How does that respect your decades of hard work?
Let’s not forget Penny Pritzker of Hyatt opposing EFCA, or Rahm giving Hyatt $5 million that was supposed to go to inner city schools for things like cleaning the mold out of the air ducts, and functional air conditioning. Which I’m sure Hyatt lobbied hard for.
I’m not saying that Hyatt should not sponsor the event, or that the organizer are bad for taking their money. But as long as we’re on the Hyatt subject, they are generally bad players across the board.
Thanks Jane, good points to remember.