the “___ change my mind” guy sitting at a desk is Steven Crowder who is literally a deep conservative “comedian” and the biggest transphobe of 2018 so can we NOT use that meme anymore thanks. he literally calls trans people tr**** in some of his videos and refers to caitlyn jenner (I may not like her but Christ) as a transgender f@scist because she transitioned and refers to her transitioning as “going full #sjw.” this meme is cancelled and not funny. use google if you don’t believe me. bye
what a lot of these contemporary queer theorists have done is they’ve collapsed critiques of homonationalism into their critiques of what they term “homonormativity” which is their fancy way of saying that cis gay and lesbian people are Evil and Catered To or some shit. but understanding homonationalism and pinkwashing, which are very much different from “homoassimilation”, is incredibly important, especially because lgbt people of color are impacted by homonationalism.
lgbt inclusion in the military; corporations at pride; “pro-gay” corporate ads; drone operators and soldiers and CEO’s who are lgbt; white nationalists such as milo yiannopolous; patriotic pictures of white lgbt people with the american flag overlaid on their faces; wanting cops to be included in pride parades – this is all what homonationalism is. prioritizing capitalist notions of success over liberation is what this is. israel touting itself as “pro-lgbt!1!!” while blackmailing gay palestinians is what this is.
gay people wanting to get married is not a bad thing and it’s not “assimilationist” of lgbt people to want to lead happy, healthy, safe lives with their loved ones, lol. however, gay and trans people being pro-cop and pro-military and pro-capital and white lgbt people aligning themselves with white nationalist ideology is very bad and you really cannot use your hatred of contemporary queer theory to ignore actual critiques of homonationalism.
This is such a great post omg. I was thinking about this the other day and couldn’t figure out how to put it into words, let alone put it into words that aren’t four letter words!
re some tags: if you want to understand homonationalism you need to read jasbir puar’s works because she’s the one who coined the term. those of you who assume that homonationalism is a criticism of gay and lesbian people being exclusively SGA are wildly missing the point! homonationalism has nothing to do with that – it’s about white lgbt people and the global ascendancy of whiteness, how empire sets itself up as sexually exceptional, how white lgbt people are used to advance empire’s agenda, and how white lgbt people align themselves with white nationalism to gain rights.
I feel the mountains burn inside 