Uniformed Police Participating in LGBT Pride Parades

The distinction between the virtuous Black and LGBT Pride movements and White and Straight Pride hate movements is no longer very clear among the general public.  In this vein, it is asserted that Pride, dropping the explicit focus on the LGBT community, is simply about inclusion and therefore it is argued that Uniformed Police should be included as any other constituency.

This argument is designed to erase the historical origin of Pride as a protest movement for the LGBT community's fundamental and civil rights.  The LGBT community has been historically, and is currently, violently suppressed by the Police around the world.  Logically, following from the historic origin of LGBT Pride, efforts for further inclusion would naturally highlight the Black and Brown liberation movements, and the Palestinian freedom struggle among other just causes.  If this were the dominant trajectory of the LGBT Pride movement, and it would once again become an anti-establishment protest movement for the rights of the oppressed - not the festival atmosphere viewed as a major economic stimulus it has become in the West - I contend we would soon see the police reinvigorate their role, with regards to LGBT Pride, as the agents of oppression.  It should be no surprise that there is no similar demand for uniformed police to participate in May Day demonstrations.  In the United States, the catalyst for the modern LGBT Pride movement was the June 28, 1969 Stonewall Inn Riots.  Learning more about this history is a good place to start to understand why uniformed police have no place in LGBT Pride.

It is only the historically ignorant, or those with sinister motivations, that would suggest the police should be treated as honoured participants in a LGBT Pride parade.