Le Chat Nécro
most thugged-out dope hoe
Speaking of how far we've come, and how far we have yet to go, let's talk a little about first Pride.
This year will be the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. And I think with all the glitter and rainbows and parades it's easy to forget that the first Pride was in fact *a riot*. It wasn't pretty or fabulous. Police raided the Stonewall Inn as they did nearly once a month, as it was a well known gay hang out, breaking up and arresting the revelers inside. But this time, instead of going quietly to their jail cells for crimes no more severe than wearing a dress while having a penis, they fought back. First coins were thrown (a nod to the huge payoffs the cops would get from gay bars as protection money from their morality raids), then bottles, then rocks. Billy clubs were drawn. People were liberated from paddy wagons. Riot control was called in. Instead of fleeing, rioters broke formation, ran around the block, and came back up behind the line of police and enforcers. At one point a chorus line of drag queens came in singing.
‘We are the Stonewall girls
We wear our hair in curls
We wear no underwear
We show our pubic hair…
We wear our dungarees
Above our nelly knees!’
It was a delicious mockery of the whole violent affair. The next night, the same thing went down. And the night after that. For five days they protested, handing out leaflets about police brutality and mafia profiteering against gays and queers. People like Marsha P Johnson, Silvia Rivera, Storme DeLarverie were there throwing the first march that would turn into the Gay Rights Movement as we think of it today.
A year later, Brenda Howard organized the 1 year anniversary rally to commemorate the riots which would become the annual Pride March we know today. But it didn't start out being about pride. It was about fighting for their rights to exist as themselves without fear or oppression. It was a violent affair that sparked more work and more demonstrations to get us where we are today.
I've been posting a lot straight from Tumblr, so I'll simply paraphrase things this time around
"you cannot settle into the mentality that someone fought so that you wouldn’t have to"
The people that night fifty years ago fought hard, really really hard, to make the progress they did. And we have come so far. But we're not quite there yet. It's important to know our history, and reflect on our future. What we can do to build on the legacy of Stonewall and the brave people who decided that it was time for change.
Good links to learn more:
Brenda Howard Memorial website: www.nyabn.org: Brenda Howard 1946-2005
A Free Essay on Why Stonewall became *the* Event that everyone remembers: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~elarmstr/publications/Movements and Memory Armstrong and Crage.pdf
6 Major Moments in LGBT History other than Stonewall: www.them.us: 6 Major Moments in Queer History BEYOND the Stonewall Riots
This year will be the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. And I think with all the glitter and rainbows and parades it's easy to forget that the first Pride was in fact *a riot*. It wasn't pretty or fabulous. Police raided the Stonewall Inn as they did nearly once a month, as it was a well known gay hang out, breaking up and arresting the revelers inside. But this time, instead of going quietly to their jail cells for crimes no more severe than wearing a dress while having a penis, they fought back. First coins were thrown (a nod to the huge payoffs the cops would get from gay bars as protection money from their morality raids), then bottles, then rocks. Billy clubs were drawn. People were liberated from paddy wagons. Riot control was called in. Instead of fleeing, rioters broke formation, ran around the block, and came back up behind the line of police and enforcers. At one point a chorus line of drag queens came in singing.
‘We are the Stonewall girls
We wear our hair in curls
We wear no underwear
We show our pubic hair…
We wear our dungarees
Above our nelly knees!’
It was a delicious mockery of the whole violent affair. The next night, the same thing went down. And the night after that. For five days they protested, handing out leaflets about police brutality and mafia profiteering against gays and queers. People like Marsha P Johnson, Silvia Rivera, Storme DeLarverie were there throwing the first march that would turn into the Gay Rights Movement as we think of it today.
A year later, Brenda Howard organized the 1 year anniversary rally to commemorate the riots which would become the annual Pride March we know today. But it didn't start out being about pride. It was about fighting for their rights to exist as themselves without fear or oppression. It was a violent affair that sparked more work and more demonstrations to get us where we are today.
I've been posting a lot straight from Tumblr, so I'll simply paraphrase things this time around
"you cannot settle into the mentality that someone fought so that you wouldn’t have to"
The people that night fifty years ago fought hard, really really hard, to make the progress they did. And we have come so far. But we're not quite there yet. It's important to know our history, and reflect on our future. What we can do to build on the legacy of Stonewall and the brave people who decided that it was time for change.
Good links to learn more:
Brenda Howard Memorial website: www.nyabn.org: Brenda Howard 1946-2005
A Free Essay on Why Stonewall became *the* Event that everyone remembers: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~elarmstr/publications/Movements and Memory Armstrong and Crage.pdf
6 Major Moments in LGBT History other than Stonewall: www.them.us: 6 Major Moments in Queer History BEYOND the Stonewall Riots
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