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'Pinkwashing': Just Stop Oil Blocks London Pride Parade in Sponsorship Protest
'These partnerships embarrass the LGBTQ+ community at a time when much of the cultural world is rejecting ties to these toxic industries'
Jul 01, 2023
Just Stop Oil protesters temporarily blocked London’s Pride Parade Saturday afternoon to protest the event accepting sponsorship money from “high-polluting industries.”
Pride faced accusations of “pinkwashing” over its decision to make United Airlines the headline sponsor of this year’s event.
Seven protesters were arrested at 1:30 pm after blocking the road in front of a Coca-Cola truck. Coca-Cola is seen as the world's biggest plastic polluter.
LGBTQ+ members of Just Stop Oil called on organizers to condemn new oil, gas, and coal licenses and stop allowing the inclusion of floats from these corporations in the parade.
James Skeet, a Just Stop Oil spokesperson, said in a statement:
“Pride was born from protest. It speaks to how far we’ve come as a community, that high-polluting industries and the banks that fund them, now see Pride as a useful vehicle for sanitizing their reputations, waving rainbow flags in one hand whilst accelerating social collapse with the other. It is queer people, and particularly queer people of color in the global south, who are suffering first in this accelerating social breakdown. What would those who instigated the gay liberation movement during the Stonewall riots in 1969, make of the corporatized spectacle Pride has now become?"
“These partnerships embarrass the LGBTQ+ community, at a time when much of the cultural world is rejecting ties to these toxic industries. We call on Pride to remember the spirit in which it was founded and to respect the memory of all those who fought and died to secure the rights we now possess whilst taking the necessary steps to protect our community long into the future.”
London Mayor Sadiq Khan speaking before the parade said:
“I agree with protesting in a way that is lawful, safe, and peaceful. I think that Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil are really important pressure groups trying to put power on those who have power and influence."
“I fully support the right to protest. It’s really important to recognize the joy of democracy is protest."
“I am somebody who feels quite passionately that we have to tackle the climate emergency. And I feel quite passionately about encouraging people to join the movement to tackle the climate emergency. In my view, protest should be peaceful, lawful, and safe.”
Peter Tatchell, the legendary LGBTQ+ rights campaigner, and prominent member of the Gay Liberation Front and the civil resistance group OutRage! Said:
“I helped organize the first Pride in the UK in 1972 and have attended every Pride London march since then. Pride was always meant to be both a celebration and a protest. From the outset, we stood in solidarity with other struggles for freedom and social justice, against corporate pinkwashing and all forms of exploitation. We saw queer liberation as just one aspect of a wider liberation movement.”
“Climate destruction is destroying communities, jobs, homes and lives across the world, especially in poorer countries. Fossil fuels are endangering the survival of humanity – including LGBTQ+ people. Our community must not collude with environment, species and climate destroying companies.”
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How to Ensure Next Month's Pride Is More Than a PR Stunt
Pride should be a time to focus on pushing forth progress for all LGBTQ+ individuals, including our LGBTQ+ community incarcerated in our nation’s carceral system.
May 13, 2023
It’s official—we’re less than a month away from the beginning of Pride. And the anticipation is building. Disney recently announced its first ever Pride event, “Disneyland After Dark: Pride Nite.” Meanwhile, cities around the country have been announcing their Pride themes. San Francisco will focus on “Looking Back and Moving Forward.” D.C. Capital Pride’s theme will be “Peace, Love, Revolution;” and New York City’s is “Strength in Solidarity.”
But if we really want to show solidarity across our community, we must remember how many within our community aren’t truly free.
Pride represents a time to celebrate and honor the progress that has been made for LGBTQ+ rights, especially during a time where anti- LGBTQ+ laws are being introduced nearly daily. But it’s also a time to reflect on how many within our community are exposed to violence and trauma because of their identities. That’s why I believe while we celebrate the progress made for LGBTQ+ rights, Pride should also be a time to focus on pushing forth progress for all LGBTQ+ individuals, including our LGBTQ+ community incarcerated in our nation’s carceral system.
Today, lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals are incarcerated at a rate three times greater than that of their heterosexual counterparts.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of mass incarceration in the U.S., a system of policies and practices that increased the prison population and have continued to disproportionately targeted LGBTQ+ people. Today, lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals are incarcerated at a rate three times greater than that of their heterosexual counterparts. Approximately one in six transgender individuals have been incarcerated at some point in their lives. Overrepresentation of LGBTQ+ within our criminal justice system is no accident, but rather a reflection of a system that polices and criminalizes queer and trans lives—particularly queer and trans people of color.
Incarceration isn’t easy for anyone, and LGBTQ+ folks have an unusually harsh experience while incarcerated in an already cruel environment. In California, nearly 60% of trans individuals incarcerated have been sexually assaulted during their incarcerations, which is well higher than the average incarcerated population reports. Lesbian and bisexual women are almost five times more likely than heterosexual women to have a sentence length of over 20 years. Nationwide, over 70% of gay and bisexual men incarcerated have experienced solitary confinement, which is nearly twice the odds for heterosexual incarcerated men.
Pride, despite its intentions, has not always been aligned with the needs of those most marginalized within the LGBTQ+ community. Rather, the increased commercialism of Pride has resulted in corporations like Walmart actively marketing the month for profits while doing little to support the most urgent social problems faced by the community throughout the year, such as mass incarceration. This year, amidst unparalleled attacks on LGBTQ+ rights and transphobia, Pride should reflect its origins of community organizing for our most vulnerable members and achieving structural change.
To be sure, Pride is an important time of celebration and rejoicing over the progress we’ve made, and some may feel that a focus on those within a violent system of incarceration detracts from that moment of celebration. But I argue we can both celebrate the accomplishments that have been achieved over the last decade, from the passage of same-sex marriage to unprecedented representation of LGBTQ+ individuals in state and federal administrations, while demanding more. Pride should never become a time solely for anger or mourning, but we cannot rightfully celebrate these accomplishments that benefit us without pushing for additional ones for others in our community.
More so, what we yearn for as a community are systematic societal changes to protect and promote our well-being, including that of our most marginalized. While reforms to improve prisons and jails as well as the reentry process for LGBTQ+ incarcerated individuals are needed, we must also prevent LGBTQ+ people from being incarcerated in the first place. Abolishing HIV criminalization laws would be one place to start—an archaic notion of HIV risk transmission that allows 35 states to funnel their homophobia and transphobia. Anti-profiling laws from police that include protections for LGBTQ+ could be a start to reduce the overrepresentation of queer and trans people inside. Policies that prevent poverty and homelessness—which disproportionately impact LGBTQ+ people—could reduce scenarios that lead to incarceration in the first place.
The urgency of mass incarceration and its lasting harm on the LGBTQ+ community cannot be emphasized enough. We must not allow for another 50 years of mass incarceration as an ineffective solution to the ills of society, including poverty and inadequate health access. This Pride, we—as the queer and trans community—should live up to slogans praising solidarity, strength, or revolution by advocating and fighting for our incarcerated siblings.
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Anti-'Pinkwashing' Campaign Sets Sight on Komen Partnership With Fossil Fuel-Backer Bank of America
Group says prominent foundation must end its partnership with the Wall Street giant, "a primary funder of the fossil fuel industry—an industry that’s fueling the climate and breast cancer crises!"
Oct 01, 2021
As corporations nationwide "go pink" in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month beginning Friday, an advocacy group has launched a campaign targeting one of the best known names related to the fight against the disease--Susan G. Komen--over the organization's partnership with Bank of America, which "funds the cancer-causing fossil fuel industry."
The campaign is part of Breast Cancer Action's ongoing efforts to push back against what it's coined "pinkwashing"--when a company promotes a product emblazoned with pink ribbons signifying the battle against breast cancer but simultaneously markets or produces a product linked to the disease.
"At Breast Cancer Action," said the group's executive director, Dr. Krystal Redman, "we demand accountability and transparency, and we expect our allies in the breast cancer field to follow through on their promises to address and end breast cancer. We call out those who use the pink ribbon with no intention other than virtue signaling, or worse yet lining their own pockets."
\u201c#ThinkBeforeYouPink is here!\ud83d\udce2 We\u2019re telling @SusanGKomen: #StopBankingOnBreastCancer and calling out the Pink Ribbon Banking Program, a partnership between Komen & @BankofAmerica. \nSee the full details & get ready to join us in action throughout October! https://t.co/voBvcSP0Nk\u201d— Breast Cancer Action (@Breast Cancer Action) 1633097381
Komen has been at the center of previous "Think before you pink" annual campaigns by BCAction, including its 2010 "What the cluck" effort targeting Komen's partnership with KFC.
At issue this year is the Pink Ribbon Banking program. When a Bank of America customer uses a Pink Ribbon credit card, "Komen receives at least $3 plus 0.08% of all purchases (less returns)," the foundation states on its website. Those funds are part of the $1.5 million the bank pledged to Komen from the start of this year until the end of 2023. The bank also offers a Pink Ribbon debit card.
According to BCAction, the cards "are a blatant example of pinkwashing." The campaign explains what it frames as the heart of the problem:
Bank of America is a top financial contributor to the fossil fuel industry, an industry that increases our risk for breast cancer through environmental exposures produced all along the fossil fuel continuum. We are exposed to chemicals such as benzene, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), dioxins, and PFAS from extraction to processing, to exposure to fossil fuel products and byproducts.
Susan G. Komen is pinkwashing by accepting money from a Pink Ribbon Banking Program that also grows the profits of Bank of America, which funds the cancer-causing fossil fuel industry. Susan G. Komen cannot claim to care about ending breast cancer while pocketing MILLIONS from an industry that causes the disease.
As one example, the campaign notes Bank of America's financial backing of the controversial Line 3 tar sands pipeline--support which has already led to accusations of the bank "greenwashing" by climate campaigners.
Also referenced by the campaign is a recent analysis led by Rainforest Action Network naming Bank of America as among the four worst banks in terms of financing fossil fuels globally from 2016 to 2020.
"The financial industry's continued support of fossil fuel projects," Breast Cancer Action program manager Jayla Burton said in a statement, "proliferates a legacy of climate destruction, environmental racism, and public health negligence."
Komen's partnership with the bank must come to an end, the campaign aruges, if Komen is to stop running afoul of its own stated goal.
"Susan G. Komen claims to be 'where the end of breast cancer begins.' If this is true," organizers wrote, the foundation "must stop banking on breast cancer and divest from pinkwashing! Phase out the Pink Ribbon Banking Program with Bank of America, a primary funder of the fossil fuel industry--an industry that's fueling the climate and breast cancer crises!"
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