JHB Pride organisers accused of bullying and silencing LGBTQ community

One of the organisers of Johannesburg Pride has been accused of bullying after she sent a barrage of messages to one of the event’s affiliates following a radio interview in which she stated that she believed that there should be more queer people of colour on stage and more youth involved in planning.

The affiliate in question is a makeup artist, rapper, LGBTQ activist and drag performer who goes by the stage name Baba Ganoosh.

Baba Ganoosh shared screenshots of a text exchange with someone who identified themselves as Kaye following her radio interview.

“I heard you want me to hand over to you,” said Kaye in a text, before adding: “If I step down I shit down… you want a pride start from the ground and work your way up.”

Baba then responded at length explaining that the critique was nothing personal and was a critique of pride events in general, not just the Johannesburg event.

https://twitter.com/baba_ganoosh_/status/1179284251788926976

Baba’s critique comes hot on the heels of community-wide discontent among members of the LGBTQ community after the headline acts for this year’s event were announced.

Many took exception to the fact that the headline acts were three cishet men.

*cishet: According to Queer Dictionary, cishet, used as both an adjective and a noun, describes a person who is both cisgender and heterosexual. A person is cishet if he or she is cisgender, meaning identifying with his or her assigned-at-birth gender, as well as heterosexual, or attracted exclusively to people of the opposite sex.

she’s unnecessarily rude. this isn’t the way to approach someone – especially when you represent an entire organisation. you learn to listen and take feedback so you can do better. https://t.co/y1jlRFv1H9

— Lelo (@lelowhatsgood) October 2, 2019

She’s not doing this to Baba alone but to many others. It’s just disheartening. Anyways. We should collectively not even go to JHB Pride. I won’t be supporting it anyways. 🤷🏾‍♂️ See you guys at DDI the night before.

— Lelo (@lelowhatsgood) October 2, 2019

By the way… @JhbPride blocked me for calling them out for having 3 cis-het men as their headliners. They also lied by saying they reached out to all the queer artists in the city… uhm… sure sis… but fuck our voices right?#BoycottJHBPride pic.twitter.com/ecHcXlh8pp

— Baby Caramelle (@baby_caramelle) September 30, 2019

https://twitter.com/NonCuratFlex/status/1179306593399328768?s=20

Screw accountability, right? @jhbpride blocking us is literally why we’re upset at them. They’re lifting non-queer voices whilst stifling and silencing ours. pic.twitter.com/dH00ok7nDJ

— Baby Caramelle (@baby_caramelle) September 30, 2019

https://twitter.com/taahira_k/status/1178636055601467393?s=20

https://twitter.com/lulzin_thulzin/status/1178633569125781504?s=20

https://twitter.com/AbutiGatvol/status/1178632484654895104?s=20

https://twitter.com/AbutiGatvol/status/1178634522742657027?s=20

JOBURG PRIDE IS SILENCING THE QUEER COMMUNITY

— Baby Caramelle (@baby_caramelle) September 30, 2019

We reached out to both JHB Pride and Kaye Ally for comment. Ally stated that the official JHB Pride organisers’ publicists were working on a statement in response, which they would release in due course.

UPDATE:

JHB Pride released a statement via Twitter in which they explain their lineup as well as the fact that some artists have refused to perform for no remuneration – a structure they had to adopt as a result of their budget constraints.

They also rebutted claims of exclusion by alleging that those who expressed their feelings of exclusion from the event have never approached them.

They concluded by apologising for how they handled the discontent on their social media pages and have thus hired professional social media managers in an effort to remedy this.

https://twitter.com/JhbPride/status/1179390746778099712?s=20

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