Kentuckiana Pride Foundation Exposes Deeper Issues
Image Source: https://kypride.com/
Kentuckiana Pride Foundation caused an uproar when Eliad Cohen, a veteran of the IDF, was announced as part of the lineup for Kentuckiana Pride. The organization responded with a statement making no direct mention of the issue, stating;
“The lineup aligns with our mission to create a diverse and inclusive celebration that reflects the LGBTQIA+ community's broad spectrum.”
The local nonprofit proceeded to censure and delete comments on the issue. Sponsors and drag queens began to drop out and a boycott by local chapters of DSA, PSL, and Students for Justice in Palestine, was announced until finally, ”after discussions with Eliad Cohen,” he was taken off the lineup. While this certainly leaves a mark on Kentuckiana Pride Foundation’s reputation, the whole ordeal lasted less than a week, and Cohen’s removal seems to have satisfied most other organizations, though some continue to call for accountability and recognition of the struggle of the Palestinians. However, this incident reveals a much deeper contradiction within the LGBTQ+ movement, and the response by these organizations demonstrates a lack of analysis necessary to tackle the heart of this contradiction: imperialism, exploitation, and the irreconcilable differences between labor and capital
Capital has a stranglehold on everything surrounding ”Pride.” From the financial, to the ideological, capital defines the entire foundation Pride has been built upon, providing no means for escape, no safe haven for queer workers. We can invoke Stonewall all we like, but that comparison simply doesn’t apply when capital is responsible for running these Pride celebrations. Capital’s representatives are allowing them to be put on, to give corporations a presence promoting themselves as “queer friendly.”
Kentuckiana Pride Foundation‘s statement exposes the issue, the contradiction in being inclusive toward “all.” The inclusion of capital and its agents alongside the working and oppressed people, united under one rainbow colored banner, requires the erasure of exploitation and imperialism. Eliad Cohen himself owned a tourism company, Gay-ville, promoting Tel Aviv as a queer tourist destination. Such is the tried and true strategy of playing cover for Israel’s imperialist nature by presenting it as a “queer safe haven” when it doesn’t even allow gay marriage on the grounds of the long-term maintenance of Zionism as a project.
We believe there is a tactical error in focusing on Eliad Cohen. It’s true that the promotion of a proud Zionist and IDF veteran comes at the expense of the Palestinian people, queer or otherwise, and we support agitating against this. But the exclusion of one Zionist does not constitute a victory over capital. The reality is that capital has long won out in taking Pride as a vehicle for its own interests.
What should be done? Firstly, we must commend all those who spoke up against the clear attempt to erase the struggle of the Palestinian against Zionism, occupation, and for an independent state. Secondly, we must call upon all queer workers* to recognize that Pride, queer or otherwise, is incapable of removing capital from the equation, as it cannot supersede class. Thus, an independent political path, one rooted in class struggle, towards the revolutionary overthrow of capital, must be established. We should seek not only to celebrate queer workers but also engage in militancy and in struggle against Capitalism and the Capitalists as a class. Finally, we must invite all workers willing to aid their class to help us build a political vehicle prepared for advancing the political aims of the proletariat, including freeing the queer worker – from exploitation, from gender violence, from social ostracism, from the inequality of the sexes – and towards a society that meets the basic needs of all workers and the specific needs of queer workers*.
*Note: The NWEB believes the usage of the term ‘queer’ to be connected to a current of theories which follows an idealist line of ‘gender fluidity’. The term queer and its corresponding modern theory emerged in the 20th century proposing gender to be socially constructed, divorced from objective historical processes. It is understandable that the term is used a sense similar to ‘Black’, ‘Latino’, and so forth. The major difference is that the term ‘queer’ suggests an endorsement of idealist theories on the sex and gender questions.
The NWEB prefers instead to take a dialectical materialist approach which uses a more scientific term, "gender-sexual minorities", as a more accurate description in order to set the communist view apart from the various currents and movements which base their strategy on the individual characteristics of social groups rather than an objective analysis of materialist conditions and the course of social development.