Pro-BDS group defends counterprotest of 'Pride' parade, blames HRC for 'pinkwashing'
Columbia University's Apartheid Divest Coalition posted a series of statements on Instagram to bring greater awareness to 'Palestinian liberation' following the conclusion of 'Pride Month.'
'There is no pride in genocide, no queer liberation without Palestinian liberation,' the group also wrote.
On July 4, Columbia University’s Apartheid Divest Coalition posted a series of statements on Instagram to bring greater awareness to “Palestinian liberation” following the conclusion of “Pride Month,” writing, “WE MEAN IT: NO PRIDE IN GENOCIDE.”
The pro-Hamas student group titled the post as being, “A message from the actionists who targeted the ‘Human Rights Campaign’ at NYC Pride.”
In one of the slides of the post, the group called out the United States, saying, “This empire’s persistent pinkwashing has transformed every Pride parade into a necropolis.” The group also put quotations around Israel and America while claiming that the U.S. has backed the deaths of 40,000 Palestinians during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
The group continued on another slide, saying, “What is there to feel but abject shame as the rainbow flag is raised over razed neighborhoods? When Pride is flattened into a vapid part- defanged from its radical politics?”
“55 years after whoever threw the first brick, we honor and continue that legacy by throwing anything at our disposal in the face of empire,” the post stated. “There is no pride in genocide, no queer liberation without Palestinian liberation.”
The group also offered an explanation as to why pro-Hamas student protesters clashed with individuals involved in the NYC Pride parade and the organization backed the actions of the counterprotesters.
Apartheid Divest called out the pro-LGBT Human Rights Campaign, saying it “arguably helped invent pinkwashing.” “The non-profit was founded during the 1980s, which is when Northrop Grumman, one of their biggest corporate sponsors, began supplying heavily armed missile ships to the Zionist navy,” the group said.
Criticizing the HRC’s mission to uphold the freedom of individuals who identify as LGBT, Apartheid Divest stated, “What about people in Palestine? Do they not deserve to ‘live their truth?’ Do they not deserve to live?”
The group added that the protest was meant to give the HRC “an action item: divest. Immediately.”
The group further blasted the HRC, saying that, “The version of ‘human rights’ that HRC actually champions is one in which they run interference for the neoliberal state and do its bidding in the US and abroad, picking and choosing which lives matter, wielding human rights discourse as an alibi for imperial and carceral violence.”
Columbia Apartheid Divest also criticized the NYPD, saying that, “The irony of cops clad in rainbow uniforms arresting ten queer protesters at Pride needs no naming.”
“OINK OINK PIGGY PIGGY QUEERS WILL TAKE BACK NEW YORK CITY,” the post concluded.
Campus Reform has contacted Columbia University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
