Queer Antiracist Vigilance: Pinkwatching ‘Queer Investments’ in State Racist Violence | Wahab | Visual Ethnography
Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access
Cover Image

Queer Antiracist Vigilance: Pinkwatching ‘Queer Investments’ in State Racist Violence

Amar Wahab

Abstract


This article critically investigates the ways in which racialized queers (and their politics) are naturalized as abandonable and disposable vis-à-vis (predominantly white) queers who are regenerated as vital citizen-subjects (worthy of state protection) by focusing on the vigilant radical critiques of racialized queers to state violence. Specifically focusing on images from Toronto’s LGBTQ Pride parade, the author places a critical spotlight on the homo-nationalist politics of inclusion of LGBTQ into state formations of citizenship through antiracist queer protests against state racism and racism within the LGBTQ community. In so doing, the essay attends to a broader
questioning of which non-normative subjects and populations are constructed as ‘too queer’ to matter within Western frameworks of gender and sexual intelligibility.

Keywords


pinkwashing; homonationalism; pinkwatching; racism; Pride; Toronto

Full Text:

PDF

References


ABUNIMAH, Ali

Toronto Transit Bans ‘Disappearing Palestine’ Ad Claiming Risk of Anti-Jewish Violence. The Bullet, October 23. Accessed online, January, 11-2019: https://socialistproject.ca/2013/10/b891/

AHMED, Sara

The Promise of Happiness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

BASSICHIS, Morgan - LEE, Alexander - SPADE, Dean.

Building an Abolitionist Trans and Queer movement with everything we’ve got. In Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex. Eric Stanley and Nat Smith (eds.). Chico, CA: AK Press. Pp.15-

CHISHOLM, Kami

Pride Denied. (Unpublished Master’s Thesis). York University, Canada.

COHEN, Cathy

Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?. GLQ: A journal of lesbian and gay studies, 3 (4): 437-465.

COLE, Desmond

Pride has divorced blackness from queerness: Cole. The Star, July 7. Accessed online, January, 11-2019:

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2016/07/07/pride-has-divorced-blackness-fromqueerness-cole.html

DONATO, Al

Black Lives Matter takes back the night and shuts down downtown Toronto. The Huffington Post Canada, September 28. Accessed online, January, 11-2019: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/28/blacklives-

matter-toronto_n_8209932.html

DRYDEN, OmiSoore - LENON, Suzanne

Disrupting Queer Inclusion: Canadian Homonationalisms and the Politics of Belonging. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

DUBRO, James

The Vanishing Men of Toronto’s Gay Village. Torontoist, July 30. Accessed online, January, 11-2019:

https://torontoist.com/2017/07/vanishing-men-torontos-gay-village/

FATAH, Natasha

Black Lives Matter Toronto stalls Pride parade. CBC News, July 3. Accessed online, January, 11-2019:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/pride-parade-toronto-1.3662823

GREEY, Ali

Queer Inclusion precludes (Black) Queer Disruption: Media Analysis of the Black Lives Matter Toronto sit-in during Toronto Pride 2016. Leisure Studies, 37 (6): 662-676.

HUDES, Sammy

Anti-Israel group to march in Toronto Pride parade, but with little opposition this year. National Post, June 24. Accessed online, January, 11-2019: https://nationalpost.com/news/toronto/anti-israel-group-tomarch-

in-toronto-pride-parade-but-with-little-opposition-this-year

JACKMAN, Michael - UPADHYAY, Nishant

Pinkwatching Israel, Whitewashing Canada: Queer (settler) Politics and Indigenous Colonization in Canada. WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, 42 (3): 195-210.

JAMES, Riley

Toronto Chief Of Police is blaming serial killer on LGBTQ+ community. MTL Blog. Accessed online,

January, 11-2019: https://www.mtlblog.com/news/toronto-chief-of-police-is-blaming-serial-killer-onlgbtq-community

JANEBROWNNEWS

Pride Toronto lost $1.3 million last year amid controversy [web blog comment, November 22]. Accessed

online, January, 11-2019: https://www.blogto.com/city/2017/11/pride-toronto-lost-13-million-lastyear-amid-controversy/

KENNY, Jason

Jason Kenney's mass email to gay and lesbian Canadians. CBC News, September 25. Accessed online,

January, 11-2019: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jason-kenney-s-mass-email-to-gay-and-lesbiancanadians-1.1207144

KINSMAN, Gary

Stop the crackdown on consensual queer sex: Toronto Police at it again with ‘Project Marie’. Radical Noise, November 14. Accessed online, January, 11-2019:http://radicalnoise.ca/2016/11/14/stop-the-crackdown-on-consensual-queer-sex-toronto-police-at-it-againwith-project-marie/

KOURI-TOWE, Natalie

Risk, Desire and Adaptation: The Paradox of Queer Solidarity and the Political Possibility of Death under Neoliberalism and Homonationalism. Somatechnics, 7 (2): 185-200.

LAROCQUE, JP

Society made queer men of colour a white killer’s prey. The Huffington Post Canada, February 18. Accessed online, January, 11-2019: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/jp-larocque/society-made-queer-men-ofcolour-a-white-killer-s-prey_a_23354740/

LITWIN, Fred

The hijacking of Pride (once again). Toronto Sun, June 21. Accessed online, January, 11-2019:

https://torontosun.com/2017/06/21/the-hijac

king-of-pride-once-again/wcm/c10ebfd1-f1f9-424cacef-dad1774fb1b7

LORIGGIO, Paola

Toronto police union wants Pride funding pulled after floats banned. The Globe and Mail, April 19.

Accessed online, January, 11-2019: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/toronto-policeunion-wants-pride-funding-pulled-after-floats-banned/article34748932/

MUKHERJEE, Alok

Black Lives Matter and police in Pride: Reaction over reason. NOW Magazine, July 11. Accessed online, January, 11-2019: https://nowtoronto.com/news/black-lives-matter-and-police-in-pride-reaction-overreason/

NANOWSKI. Natalie

Pride Parade to end with sea of black to mourn victims of alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur. CBC News, May 2. Accessed online, January, 11-2019:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/pride-toronto-mcarthur gayvillage-parade-1.4643568

NO PRIDE IN POLICING COALITION

No Date. No pride in police. Facebook. Accessed online, January, 11-2019: https://www.facebook.com/NPiPC/

POWER, Lisa

Pride Toronto lost $1.3 million last year amid controversy. BlogTO, November 22. Accessed online,

January, 11-2019: https://www.blogto.com/city/2017/11/pride-toronto-lost-13-million-last-year-amidcontroversy/

PRESNAIL. Sol

Letter: Trudeau is using Pride as a Corporate Strategy. The Charlatan, March 9. Accessed online, January,

-2019: https://charlatan.ca/2016/03/letter-trudeau-is-using-pride-as-a-corporate-strategy/

PUAR, Jasbir

Homonationalism as Assemblage: Viral Travels, Affective Sexualities. Jindal Global Law Review, 4 (2): 23-43.

QUAIA

No Date Israeli Apartheid is a Queer Issue. QuAIA website. Accessed online, January, 11-2019:

https://quaiatoronto.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/b3.pdf

RAHMAN, Momin

Queer Rights and the Triangulation of Western Exceptionalism. Journal of Human Rights, 13: 274-289.

RAO, Rahul

The Locations of Homophobia. London Review of International Law, 2 (2): 169-199.

RATCHFORD, Sarah

Community seeks answers from police following Toronto transwoman’s death. Vice, March 25. Accessed

online, January, 11-2019: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/5gqjn5/community-seeks-answersfrom-police-following-toronto-transwomans-death-296

ROSE, Rebecca

How Pride became a business — and lost its soul along the way. Xtra, November 2. Accessed online,

January, 11-2019: https://www.dailyxtra.com/how-pride-became-a-business-and-lost-its-soul-alongthe-way-80737

RUSSELL, Emma

Carceral Pride: The Fusion of Police Imagery with LGBTI Rights. Feminist Legal Studies, 26 (3): 331-350.

SALAAM CANADA

No Date Salaam Canada website. Accessed online, January, 11-2019: https://www.salaamcanada.info/

SCHULMAN, Sarah

Israel and ‘pinkwashing’. The New York Times, November 22. Accessed online, January, 11-2019:

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/opinion/pinkwashing-and-israels-use-of-gays-as-a-messagingtool.html

SPADE, Dean

Under the Cover of Gay Rights. N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change, 37 (79): 79-100.

SPURR, Ben

How Queers Against Israel Apartheid changed the course of Pride. NOW Magazine, March 7. Accessed online, January, 11-2019: https://nowtoronto.com/news/legacy-of-queers-against-israel-apartheid-hasnothing-to-do-/

SYED, Fatima

Project Houston focused on three missing men in Gay Village between 2010 and 2012: The three were all middle-aged, of similar skin colour and immigration Status. The Star, January 22. Accessed online,

January, 11-2019: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/01/22/project-houston-focused-on-threemissing-men-in-gay-village-between-2010-and-2012.html

WALCOTT, Rinaldo

Black Lives Matter, police and Pride: Toronto activists spark a movement. The Conversation, June 28.

Accessed online, January, 11-2019: http://theconversation.com/black-lives-matter-police-and-pridetoronto-activists-spark-a-movement-79089

WARD, Linda

Toronto may speaks out for police inclusion after Pride protest. CBC News, July 6. Accessed online,

January, 11-2019: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/pride-tory-1.3666549


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


ISSN Print 2499-9288
ISSN Online 2281-1605
Publisher Altrimedia Edizioni
Patronage University of Basilicata, Italy
Web Leonardo Di Benedetto



Periodico registrato presso il Tribunale di Matera, numero di registrazione 2/2014