this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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No matter how much I hate corporate pride, I cannot find a fiber of my being that hates this
Unpopular opinion, I know, but I fucking love corporate pride.
Do you remember being gay a decade ago? Corporations were just starting to touch us with a ten foot pole. And it felt amazing to be acknowledged as existing, without any negative connotations.
Two decades ago? No one would touch us, unless we were the butt of a joke. That we'd hear a million times everyday.
I see corporate pride as a sign of change: sure, those billionaires are just trying to get more money out of us. They couldn't give a shit about you, or me, personally. But they're now willing to openly market to us.
That means public opinion is changing. Support for the queer community is growing. We've even become a market to be advertised to.
No, those rainbow ads don't mean anything more than the green and red ones in December, or the red hearts in February. But the fact that corporations are openly showing support, without fear of death threats, or "more importantly" losing money, means something to me.
The fact that right-wing assholes throw a fit about it and they still choose to pander shows how far public opinion has come. It doesn't mean they care, but it does mean they recognize that the vast majority care.
Don't give them too much credit, they only did it because they saw the demographics shifting and possible profits. It will always come down to money. If the GOP takes power and turns full authoritarian and tells them they can't outwardly show support, see how quick they shut their mouths.
I don't think anyone's giving corpos credit, just acknowledging that public opinion has swayed to the point that corpos show pride because it's profitable for them to do so.
If anyone doesn't believe this, please look at Target or Budweiser. Even better, watch John Stewart's bit on corporate pride.
I can’t say I’ve experienced pride a decade ago, since I’ve been closeted for years and only recently had the epiphany that I can just show up as an undercover ally now that it’s more socially acceptable to have solidarity with the queers.
I can see where you are coming from. Before I realized I was queer, I was an ally and I thought about it a similar way, happy to see people support a group one of my friends belonged to that has suffered historically.
I think our difference of opinion is summed up by your last paragraph:
I genuinely don’t care about symbolic actions. I worry that corporations will heel turn the moment it is no longer safe or profitable to pander to the queers. Having rainbows in june does feel nice, but I’ve come to notice that it merely distracts me from the pain of the closet.
I think it’s more important that pride comes from a stronger base than the whim of a corporation chasing profit. As long as we are profitable, we get support. The moment things change, we lose it all.
I also have a problem with the corporatization of pride. When I went to my local pride parade, I wouldn’t be allowed to march, since I wasn’t a member of an organization/corporation, since pride was no longer for the people, it was for the corporation.
Queer protestors interrupted the parade to try and stand in solidarity with Palestinians, and they were beaten by the cops. Pride used to be a protest, but now protest was no longer possible in pride.
When unaffiliated queers tried to march through the street, cops blocked them and were preparing to arrest people before that crowd took a different route. Had that group of people been an employee of the local military contractor, they would have been able to stroll down the road with them unopposed.
My expression of pride was reduced to standing on the sidelines and watching corporations parade down the street with rainbow banners, interrupted by real people in organizations. There was a sterility of the corporate floats compared to a random organization marching down the road.
For example, there was a group of furries marching down the streets in their fursuits and the pride flags that represent them. There were multiple groups of drag queens strutting down the street with a car following them blasting music. These displays had a completely different feel than seeing some airline company march down the street with their little carts throwing pride themed merch at us.
To me, the big thing I want is solidarity, and corporations are incapable of giving that. And solidarity is what is going to matter if things come crashing down around us.
"worry that corporations will heel turn the moment it is no longer safe or profitable to pander to the queers."
e.g. Target and Bud not bothering with their token Pride month efforts this year.
I think I understand your points. And I mostly agree.
Yes, 100%. I'm terrified that public opinion will turn, and I am certain that corporations will desert us LONG before then. I'm happy that it is, currently, safe and profitable to pander to queers. It makes me feel safe, in a way it maybe shouldn't. I know that the other shoe could drop at any time.
I'm really sorry that was your pride parade experience. Yeah, things along those lines are all too common. Most pride parades are..... still..... in 2024..... very, very bad. And, yes, I don't think corporations are helping in any way.
I agree that I want solidarity. it's the only way forward.......
This would be a public works job. No corpos involved.
You live in a country where public utilities aren't privately owned? Lucky.
What a weird sentence.
The soulless structure of the government is not much different than the soulless structure of a corporation.
Also, there is no indication that this isn’t a private consulting firm, for example.
Very different for a fundamental reason: at least in the US, one exists to serve the people, the other to extract the maximum amount of profit possible from the people. But to your point, they have similarities in that they are both entirely constructed of flawed humans. That difference in purpose though, makes a huge impact on we interact with them, what we expect of them, and our ability to influence them.
I disagree.
The idea that a government will serve a people forms the basis of it’s legitimacy, but as long as a government rules over people, it does not need to serve them. It doesn’t matter whether or not the power is derived from the divine right of kings in a monarchy, or the tyrrany of the majority in a democracy (or alternatively, the tyrrany of the largest minority), the relationship of the governed and the government is always a relationship of subjugation. If enough votes are cast, people will be subjugated. Novel ways will be found to abjectify a group, imprison them, and subjugate them without breaking laws.
Saying the government serves the people doesn’t change the oppressive nature of the structure, and to say that the democratic coat of paint prevents it from being used to oppress is just naive.
The reason I consider both to be soulless is because the organization itself, be it a branch of government or a bureaucratic office, has their support based on political capital. If it becomes inconvenient to support the queers, their support is gone. This is the same with businesses, with monetary capital being the deciding factor of support.
You are right that the means of interaction is different betweeen the two, but that goes down to the currency used to interact with them.
I think the thing is, at the top of a big corporation yeah they don't care. But the boots on the ground people who apply for a DEI or outreach type job? My experience is that they absolutely do care.
I did bike to work one year. Big group of us all at different companies/school. We stopped at Oracle on the way, because they had a big bike to work party. Now, I suspect Larry E. doesn't give a shit about me or my bike. But the people who put that on absolutely cared about the cause, about making people feel welcome, and overall, having a good time (I don't/did not work for Oracle).
The corporation doesn't care about you. But there might be some people who work there who do.
My issue with corporate pride is twofold.
I hate pinkwashing. Pretending to love the gays for a month of the year is shallow, and when you march down the streets waving rainbow corporate logos, all the wile making bombs to blow up people of color or while selling bombs to queerphobes half the world over is a wild double speak.
I also hate the fact that the pride companies show is often for political capital, and that the company is really just indifferent at best. If all LGBT restrictions were stripped away, the companies marching down the streets of new york wouldn’t risk itself to try and protect the employees at the bottom. It would move on, logos now unchanging.
The point you make about the higher-ups or the corporation itself vs the people who interface with employees is absolutely correct and I think that’s why I have no issues with this, alongside the fact that it is funny as fuck. That shirt seems to have come from someone at the company, not the company itself.