Anti-War Action Network stands with Palestine against pinkwashing
Minneapolis, MN – On June 26, the Anti-War Action Network (AWAN), a national network of anti-war and anti-imperialist grassroots organizations, hosted its first ever Pride webinar, tackling the important subject of pinkwashing.
Pinkwashing is a tactic used to push pro-war and pro-imperialist politics by appealing to the queer community. The panel consisted of experienced organizers from Minneapolis, Green Bay, Jacksonville, Dallas, and Denver.
Panelists covered topics like how to identify pinkwashing, how the queer and women’s movements in Palestine play into the broader Palestinian liberation movement, and how to insert anti-war politics in queer spaces like Pride parades.
“When we talk about building for Palestine in queer spaces, another important aspect of that is that we also need to be showing up as openly queer in Palestinian spaces. We’re not going into these spaces making things about us; we’re going into these spaces as queer people who are willing to show up for Palestinian liberation. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship, a mutual solidarity effort: ‘I will stand together with you, and I hope you will stand together with me.’ Because this relationship between Palestinian and queer liberation is an intrinsic one,” said panelist Elle Horowitz of the Dallas/Fort Worth Anti War Committee.
AWAN chapters in cities across the country held watch parties to participate in the webinar and ask questions to the panelists about pinkwashing and strategies for combating it. The panel received a resoundingly positive response from watch parties in all cities.
The panel closed with a message from AWAN steering committee member Ryan Delaney about the role AWAN plays in the anti-war movement, “Everyone here who is part of the Anti-War Action Network is fighting like hell in their city, to push back against the United States’ unwavering political and material support for a genocide and for imperialism broadly. It is so valuable for us to have a network like this where we cannot just be taking the fight to our city, but be sharing that fight with people all over the country and sharing the most successful tactics we can pull out of that fight.”
AWAN encouraged any viewers who were not part of the Network to contact [email protected] to start a chapter in their own city.