In the midst of new attempts by the Bush regime to ban gay marriage and further impose their hateful “morality” on all of society, this past weekend World Can’t Wait organizers joined, marched in, and distributed our Call at Gay Pride Festivals across the country. Pride participants were estatic to see a movement developing to drive out the Bush regime, we learned a lot from talking with people, and signed up many to get involved. Below are some reports from World Can’t Wait’s participation at Pride events.
Click on city for reports and pictures:
San Francisco:
SUNDAY JUNE 25TH was the 36th annual LGBT Pride 2006 Parade
in San Francisco, said to be the 2nd largest
gathering in the US
after the Rose Bowl. People come from
all over the world to celebrate Pride Day and to see the spectacle – everything
from the 500 Dykes on Bikes to gay families with strollers to very skimpily
clad performers.
This year the World Can’t Wait had a float. We realized that
pictures of torture would not fit in with the party mood. So we went for the
theme of Bush and Pat Robertson behind bars, under a sign saying ‘The Real
Terrorists.’ Two people wearing
larger-than-life Bush and Pat Robertson face masks stood dejectedly in a prison
cell on the truck, clad in prison garb. They
and the drummers and dancers rode on a flatbed truck decorated with banners
that said, ‘No to women-hating, anti-gay Christian fascists’ and ‘Ban marriage
between church and state’. Two people on
foot carried the banner announcing Oct 5th. The chant and drum corps on the float laid
down the beat and led the cheering crowds: ‘There’s a killer in the White
House, time to drive his ass out!’, “We don’t want your hypocrisy, we
don’t want your theocracy(Bush step down!’, “The world can’t wait! Ban the
marriage of church and state!’ and other similar sentiments. Carmen Miranda
read George and Pat their Carmen Miranda rights when she wasn’t drumming. An elderly man waving a PFLAG flag rode the
back of the float next alongside “Pink Sugar,” a passionate protesting
youth who danced and chanted, over and over: “Stonewall! Stonewall!” “The world can’t wait! Drive
out the Bush regime!”
Over the parade route of a mile, the crowd of 500,000-1,000,000
was electrified. Observers reported that
many contingents were warmly received with applause, but the waves of rising
excitement from the sidewalks as our contingent passed were extra-high and
amazing. Block after block of enthusiastic clapping and cheering. Even though
we were the 174th contingent in a very long parade many of the spectators
acted liked we were a dream come true. Part of the contingent passed out flyers
and stickers along the way, getting out thousands of both. People on the sidewalks were grabbing for
flyers, waving, blowing us kisses, stomping, cheering, chanting along – it was
an exhilarating experience.
Did I mention we won a Pride parade prize? Well we did!! A
rainbow ribbon that said ‘Absolutely fabulous theme contingent’. (SEE PICTURE!)
At the end of the parade, as the crowd strolled around Civic Center
Plaza — Just handing out
leaflets wasn’t going to catch their attention. People were there for a
celebration, not a protest. And further than
that: there’s a whole mentality now being promoted through the press and by
some within the community that says now is not the time for the LGBT community
to be ‘political’ — this is just about culture, health and welfare, and
family!
So we did some guerrilla theater. Here’s how it looked to
the WCW person playing Bush:
Once I put that Bush mask on and carried around a huge
holy bible, it was as if my identity changed. People viewed me in a completely different
way. People hissed at me, they laughed
and thought it was a hilarious idea and it all made more sense when X blared
through the speaker-phone: ‘Hide behind your Bible Bush! You are surrounded by
a bunch of homosexuals!’The crowd was really responsive. People posed for pictures
with ‘Bush’ and we asked for donations. We advertised Bush by saying: War
criminal in San Francisco!
Take your picture with a real terrorist! We are the World Can’t Wait, Drive out
the Bush regime and we’re trying to raise some money to kick Bush out of
power.
Our first act as World Can’t Wait was exactly One year ago
at Pride Parade 2005. Next year I hope we’ll be celebrating having driven out
the Bush Regime instead of our second birthday.
From Zara and Stephanie, Bay Area
Honolulu, Hawai’i
Our World Can’t Wait-Drive Out the Bush Regime at the Pride
Parade on June 24th was a great learning experience for our Hawai`i chapter. While overall a big success, we also summed
up that there were some problems with our orientation, and that we’d better learn
from our mistakes right away in order to really build the kind of massive movement
we need to actually Drive Out the Bush Regime.
World Can’t Wait-Hawai`i was the 6th contingent in the Honolulu
Pride Parade – pretty awesome since the political groups are usually in the
back! (Actually, we knew something was
up when we went into the GLBT center to submit our application forms and the activist
there said: “We were waiting for
you!”).
After thinking a lot about how to be a part of the parade (whether
to have a float, music, drumming) we decided to carry banners with the
“Your Government” statements to get out our message most clearly, and
also make it a priority to the Call out to the crowd along the way. We made eight 3’x8′ neon green cloth banners
to carry, but when the parade began we only had enough people to carry them so
our contingent’s first banner was: “The World can’t Wait – Drive Out the
Bush Regime!” and was followed by banners with the statements around
illegal war, theocracy and the last one around greed, bigotry and
intolerance. We stashed the remaining
banners in our car and began marching.
Mistake! We’d no sooner begun marching when more people joined our
contingent and we could have carried all of the “Your governments”!
The Pride Parade is a big party atmosphere, and we initially
wondered how our somewhat stark, overtly political contingent would be
received. Most of our core activists
have been in political contingents in this parade for lots of years, and we’ve
sometimes felt that we were “crashing a party” with sober reminders
of war, attacks on civil liberties, choice, and even attacks on the GLBT
community. Not this time! As soon as we got to the assembly area
people began gathering around our banners and thanking us for being there. And as we hit the street this sentiment grew. The largely silent crowd watching the parade
broke out into cheers and applause when they saw our banners, and fists hit the
air. People snatched up our leaflets
and lots of people commented that we were “the best”!
This was a big lesson for us. We didn’t have to get fancy and spend lots of
time making a float (although those are fun too!), and we didn’t have to change
our message to “fit” the party atmosphere at the Pride Parade. Leading with our main slogan, and following it
with the “Your Government’s” was right on! (And maybe wearing neon green capes like
“super heroes” helped too!)
Soon after the contingent was in the street, one WCW activist turned to
another and said: “things have sure changed! Driving Out the Bush Regime’
is what people want right now!”
With the help of new activists empowered by our message, and
who joined our contingent along the route, we were also able to pass out 1500
copies of the Call to people lining the sidewalks!
After the parade there was a festival and activists were
able to really get into the contents of the Call with people lined up waiting
to get in. The Call polarized a few to
respond negatively, but most seemed to want to listen and speak up on not only
issues most closely affecting them, but also the illegality of the war, GI
Resister Ehren Watada, Guantanamo, Choice, Haditha, theocracy… We got about 35 new signatures on the Call,
and more signed up for our newsletter.
A few activists entered the Festival, talking to people at
organizational tables and making new contacts.
When a really dynamic MC began reading from flyers representing
organizations there, a quick-thinking World Can’t Wait activist thrust a flyer
into her hand. When the MC read:
“The World Can’t Wait! Drive Out
the Bush Regime” the crowd suddenly began clapping. Even people who hadn’t been listening to the
MC before, broke out in cheers when she went on to read: “That which you will not resist and mobilize
to stop, you will learn – or be forced – to accept.” And she didn’t stop there. She flipped over the page and read the entire
call for October 5th! The response was
awesome!
So what’s our summation?
That we were really right-on in focusing on the Call and the “Your Governments”,
and that getting them out clearly was more important than trying to do
something really flashy. But our
orientation was still off. Especially at
the beginning, we were largely relying on ourselves, and we didn’t really
struggle with people to join us! We were
satisfied with approval and accolades (which WERE wonderful!), but didn’t really
have the orientation of calling on people to join our contingent – or the
movement. We should have been calling
out “Join us! Join us!” – with the expectation that they would! In spite of ourselves, people joined
us. We know we could have won a lot more
of the crowd to marching, leafleting the crowd, gathering signatures, and
getting into debate and discussion. The
response of the crowd to the MC who read our leaflet really should have swept
away any doubts we had.
But, overall, it was a great day and we know we could have
had an even greater day with a better orientation! This is driving what we’re doing now and
we’ll be coming back to this over and over as we work toward October 5th.
Cleveland, OH
6/17: The World Can’t Wait in Cleveland OH
joined in the Gay Pride Parade. We
carried a green banner that read:
“Drive Out the Bush Regime!
Not in Our Name–NO! Theocracy, Bigotry, Intolerance, and
Ignorance”
We passed out hundreds of copies of the Call with Oct 5 on
the back, talked to lots of folks, and sold Drive out the Bush regime buttons.
At one point in the march, a group of fascistic theocrats
set up a powerful sound system and were spewing their venom at people. WCW folks got up in their face with the banner
and taking on their vile bigotry.
We had a great time.
Minneapolis
Raucous
sounds of applause and shouting greeted members of Impeach for Peace, the Minneapolis chapter of
World Can’t Wait, as they marched in the Gay Pride parade Sunday, June 25.
Dressed in orange and wearing black hoods, representing prisoners at Guantanamo,
six individuals (as well as one of the organizer’s son) walked the parade
route. Audience members could be seen jumping up and down in energetic response
to the message. They received what can
only be described as a ‘Rock Star’ reception.
They passed out leaflets and carried a banner promoting Impeachforpeace.org, the local website.
Two of the marchers were shackled with a chain, reminding parade viewers of the
conditions of the prison in Cuba.
Following
the parade, Impeach for Peace members set up a table and distributed
information regarding the ‘Do-It-Yourself Impeachments’ that individuals can download and mail to Congress. Organizers explained how the GLBT community
is especially in danger by this administration in light of a recently uncovered Pentagon document
classifying homosexuality as a mental disorder! Names and
e-mail addresses were gathered for people who wish to be informed about the
group’s meetings and events.
Many
of the individuals who stopped by the festival table shook the marchers’ hands
and thanked them for being in the parade and for standing up to the Bush
regime. They ( more than once (
described the marchers as the ‘highlight of the parade.’ One such individual
even got down on his knee and presented a ring to the hand of one of the
marchers. He did so in jest, saying that
he ‘loved what the marcher did so much he wanted to marry him.’
Participating
in festivals and parades this summer appears to be a very successful method for
reaching people and getting out the message about the World Can’t Wait.
Pictures from Chicago
