Open Letter to Pride in Protest Sydney
5/6/2021
Pride in Protest (PiP) started three years ago as an activist intervention into the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Board, with a focus on refugee rights and police abolition. Since then, the organising work of the collective has developed beyond the Mardi Gras Board campaign to include protests, fundraisers, a podcast, a reading group and more.
However we, the undersigned, recognise that the Sydney collective has recently descended into hostility and social violence, including a complete breakdown in communication between members, personal attacks, mass resignations and the purging of members. This has fallen along racial lines and is a racialised issue, which came to a head on the 17th of May (minutes here), where a meeting was held to discuss the payment of First Nations speakers at PiP events and the general atmosphere of racism in the collective.
Since that meeting, bureaucratic processes have been used to stifle dissenting members (a majority of whom are Indigenous, Black or People of Colour) and a statement full of unverified allegations was published. No one was given a chance to reply to this statement before a meeting decided to ask various members to leave the collective. It has become clear that their professed values of decolonisation and anti-racism are performative, as seen through the complete refusal to mediate or adopt the politics of transformative justice to allow both sides of the debate to reach a common understanding.
Indigenous members have particularly felt tokenised due to a fundamental lack of democracy in the Pride in Protest collective. Collective decisions are not made by consensus and do not even aim to be inclusive (even including the decision to purge members to which there was dissent). Decisions are commandeered by a small minority who have used Indigenous folks for media and propaganda, but have no genuine working relationship with Indigenous members nor prioritise their inclusion within the collective.
The deep harm resultant of a disagreement regarding what contexts we should and should not pay Indigenous speakers and the ensuing hostility, disrespect, and bullying behaviours from PiP’s elected Mardi Gras Board Members and key organisers resulted in factionalism. One side continually refused to engage with the idea that the structural processes of the group were undemocratic, silenced disagreement and sidelined folks less versed in bureaucracy; Indigenous folks, people who have been incarcerated, young activists and people with disability. Instead of coming to a resolution or recognising the debate was racialised between settlers and Indigenous folks, these organisers aggressively attacked and bullied people out of the collective.
As evidenced by their statement (available here) there has been absolutely zero engagement regarding the bullying behaviours and the lack of democratic decision-making in the collective. Pride in Protest Sydney cannot claim to value Indigenous voices without engaging with them in their own backyard.
Additionally, almost half of this statement is a personal attack against one member, who did not attend the special meeting. None of the allegations are present in the minutes of the Special Meeting and no evidence regarding these allegations has been provided. It is clearly a personal attack, another example of bullying, social violence and abuse, to scapegoat a Person of Colour and justify the purging of any threat to the established political power. To date, no one who has signed this statement has spoken directly to the individual, calls for a Right of Reply have been refused and the cycle of yet more bureaucratic ‘proposals’ to be voted on continues.
We are signing this letter to affirm that as of this time, Pride in Protest Sydney is not a safe organising space for anyone who disagrees with key organisers and board members. They have amassed a number of inactive members to sign onto their statement, many of whom have not attended a meeting nor even voted in the Mardi Gras Board Elections in recent years but happen to be in the PiP Sydney Facebook Group.
Specifically on the topic of racism, none of these members seem capable of discussing their personal behaviour nor the structural issues regarding democracy and tokenisation of Indigenous folks. Their lack of good faith engagement, refusal to mediate and purging of members shows that they don’t even have basic compassion, kindness, empathy nor respect for fellow comrades. The speed with which members were purged from the Facebook group for political convenience compared to the languishing process of removing members over racist incidents in the past is evidence enough.
We continue to stand by abolitionist principles in all this. We do not need police or prisons to resolve violence and harm, and we call for a transformative justice process to heal the conflict and find resolution. We want to maintain a united front against the conservative forces that seek to weaponise this conflict against the work we have done in Mardi Gras and beyond. However, we the undersigned, will not be working with these organisers nor voting for Pride in Protest candidates for Mardi Gras Board until this issue has been resolved and they engage in good faith in a process of listening, healing and resolution for the harm that has come to so many as a result of this conflict.
Evidence:
Minutes of the May 17 Special Meeting
Statement to the May 17 Special Meeting
Statement from current PiP members
PiP Naarm Statement regarding the conflict
Letter from PiP Naarm Members to PiP Sydney
Evidence of PiP Narrm’s Social Media Pages Creation and Statement
Update: As of 13 June all signatories to this letter have been purged from the Pride in Protest Facebook group — including all active Indigenous members of Pride in Protest. Mardi Gras members and ex-PiP members who have requested a right of reply, or even basic conversation about the issue have been refused or ignored.
Signatories
Momo N, ex-member, Mardi Gras member
Bridget H, ex-member, Mardi Gras member
Hayden M, ex-member, Mardi Gras member
Keith Q, ex-member, Mardi Gras member
Rowan, ex-member, Mardi Gras member
Amber L, ex-member, Mardi Gras member
Diego G, ex-member
Kiki, Pride in Protest member
Mikhael Erzengel, Pride in Protest member
Benjamin Hammond, ex-member, Mardi Gras member
Ché Baines, Mardi Gras member and LGBTQIA+ community member
Mums4Refugees, Mardi Gras member
Josie B, Mardi Gras member
Sean Womersley, Mardi Gras Member
Lindsay Davis, Mardi Gras member
Malaika Green, Mardi Gras member
Eme, Mardi Gras member
Max Lee, Mardi Gras member and LGBTQIA+ community member
C Laidler, Mardi Gras member and LGBTQIA+ community member
Lynette Ai, Mardi Gras member & queer person
Nora, Mardi Gras member
Sarah, Mardi Gras Member
Francis Carter, community member
Blake Butler, Mardi Gras member
Sinéad Daly, Mardi Gras member
Anthony Brown, Mardi Gras member
Rowan Mayers, Mardi Gras member and LGBTQIA+ community member
Josephine Ajuyah, Mardi Gras member and LGBTQIA+ community member
Kate Green, Mardi Gras Member and LGBTQIA+ community member
Bryony Walters, Mardis Gras member
Laurrie, Mardi Gras member and LGBTQIA+ Blak First Nation + South East Asian Community member
Fatima Rauf, Mardi Gras member
Gina Lawrence, ex-member
River, ex-member
Rusty Nannup, Aboriginal Trans women and First Nations LGBTQIA+ community member
Jessie Ferrari, First Nations Brotherboy and LGBTQIA+ community member
Tammy, LGBTIQ+ community member
Caitie Gutierrez, LGBTQIA+ community member and mental health advocate
William Lawrence, LGBTQIA+ community member
Mia Son, financial donor to campaign
Emery B, community member
Beth, LGBTQIA+ community member
Amber Ralph, community member
Grace, LGBTQIA+ community member
Lukas Prisk, LGBTQIA+ community member