The Hollowness Of Corporate Pride
Performative displays of allyship are no substitute for substantive activism
Pride Month, at it’s core, is a commemoration of rebellion; a period to honour and remember the 1969 Stonewall riots; where predominantly POC members of the LGBT+ community rioted in response to the police raid of the Stonewall Inn. The riot was a turning point in LGBT+ activism, which beforehand had been predominantly non-confrontational and regrettably ineffectual. Stonewall ushered in an entirely new era of LGBT+ activism; one whose rewards the LGBT+ community are still reaping today — even if there’s still so much further to go.
It’s hard not to feel like, however, that Pride’s origin story has been buried deep these days; replaced with the slactivism of Corporate pride; of rainbow-coloured Twitter logos, Goldman-Sachs sponsored Pride banners and empty sloganeering. The recent backlash against the idea of ‘kink’ playing any part in Pride was a reminder of the sterilization of Pride; an attempt to deprive the event of anything truly subversive in an attempt to offset the concerns from the straight gaze.
Corporate Pride, hypothetically isn’t a bad thing; the willingness of corporations to don the colours of the rainbow in a show of allyship — however performative, it may be — is a welcome indicator of a society that is increasingly tolerant of and accepting towards the LGBT+ community. The motives may be purely self-interested, but the end result is still the same.
The problem, though, is how displays of corporate pride are used as an alternative to real, substantive activism and how performative displays of allyship are used by companies to whitewash a troubling reality. Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with so-called ‘Corporate Pride’, but it has to be built on a substantive foundation of real allyship. In reality, the opposite is often true.
Corporate Pride never has been, and never will be, what Pride month is truly about
Many companies with pride collections at least give financial support to pro-LGBT+ causes (see: H&M). Many others however, fail to do anything beyond selling rainbow t-shirts and bags to support the marginalized community. The…
