BATTLE for PRIDE

BATTLE for PRIDE

Hi All,

A battle is looming over the rights to Pride. The origins of Pride are deeply rooted in the Stonewall riots. Stonewall was about a community celebrating their lives and standing up for their rights, under extreme oppression by the New York City police. Stonewall is widely recognized as giving birth to gay liberation. It truly was a riot!

Gay and Lesbian liberation, Stonewall and Pride share similar concepts/themes. All these movements have been owned by the people and actions are undertaken on behalf of the people for the greater good. Locally, in Vancouver, the Pride society is attempting to trademark the name Pride and this is being met by opposition. See www.xtra.ca for the full story. You will need to click on Xtrawest.

This same Pride board with a few different members, attempted last year to significantly change the community's Pride. Two leaders in the community, Jim Deva and this blogwriter organized a community meeting in opposition to the changes the Pride oversight committee was attempting to implement. We were victorious in saving our traditional Pride parade route.

Now a bigger battle is looming on the Vancouver horizon.

Will Pride remain in the hands of the people or will it be turned over to a select group of people who desire to control Pride?

Once again, Jim Deva and myself are being thrust into leadership roles on this issue. Plans are being laid to keep Pride in the community's hands. We as a grassroots group will be fighting a select group who have the resources and finances to steamroll us. But what we have is spirit and buckets of it and this is what the original movers and shakers of liberation movements also had. So I will be contacting many of you in the next while to enlist your support in fighting the corporatization of our Pride.

Its important to get our message out and we do not have much time to organize since Pride occurs Sunday August 6.

Please get in touch with me at tricia_foxx@yahoo.com to offer your support!

Jamie Lee Hamilton
tricia_foxx@yahoo.com