Justin Filip campaigns against Val Hoyle at Pride rally

A Green candidate for Oregon’s 4th Congressional District speaks at the Pride Rally Against Pinkwashing on June 15.

Sam Cook (Party for Socialism and Liberation): And I’ll pass it over to Justin.

Justin Filip (Green candidate, Oregon CD-4): Thanks, Sam. Hi everyone. My name is Justin Filip. I’m one of the founding members of the University of Oregon Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine. Proud to be part of that group.

[00:00:27] I’m also the co-chair of the Eugene chapter of the Pacific Green Party, the secretary of the Pacific Green Party, and I am now the Green nominee to represent Oregon’s 4th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

[00:00:43] I’m not going to make this all about the Green Party, but let me say just a few things. I’m proud to say that the Green Party has supported the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction movement since its inception in 2005. And gay rights and marriage equality have always been part of the Green Party since we first put our shared beliefs down on paper in 1984.

[00:01:01] Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential nominee, argued for same-sex marriage when she ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002. She was the first gubernatorial candidate to do so in the state that first gave us marriage justice.

[00:01:15] Jason West, Green mayor of New Paltz, New York, was arrested, handcuffed, charged for marrying 26 same-sex couples in 2004.

[00:01:25] All of that is to say we have long supported both the Palestinian struggle and the struggle of our queer friends. As Fannie Lou Hamer said, ‘Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.’ And I believe that sentiment is at the heart of a lot of our organizing.

[00:01:45] I’m here today to join with you as an ally and to join the call to reject pinkwashing. We say there is no Pride in genocide. That’s because Pride is a celebration. Hosting a Pride flag among the ruins of Gaza is not a celebration. It’s a theft of queer identity and it’s an exploitation of LGBT+ community used to manufacture the consent for a genocide. Shame. (Shame.)

[00:02:14] We are here to say, we will not let colonialists and imperialists use this community to wash away their sins against humanity. Pinkwashing will not remove the blood from their hands. Pinkwashing is a form of propaganda. It is an attempt to manufacture consent for the genocide of a people.

[00:02:30] Israel attempts to manufacture consent for their genocidal action by painting a picture of themselves as civilized and of the Palestinians as uncivilized. And they use pinkwashing to do this. If one can successfully dehumanize a people, it becomes much easier to perpetrate horrors against those people. This is a theme we’ve seen before, through history.

[00:02:53] The colonizer has employed this tactic time and time again. We’ve seen it here in North America when official government documents often use terms like ‘savage’ and ‘uncivilized’ to describe Native people. Words like these serve to justify the taking of Indigenous lands and the murder of Indigenous people.

[00:03:12] Shame! (Shame!) The oppressor used a similar tactic against Black people whose families were brought here as slaves. Black people have been depicted as ‘brutes, savages, and violent,’ but every accusation from the oppressor is a confession.

[00:03:28] Proponents of slavery created and promoted images of Black people that justified slavery and soothed white consciences. The terrible crime most often mentioned and connected with the ‘Black brute’ was rape, specifically the rape of a white woman. The claim that Black brutes were in epidemic numbers raping white women became the public rationalization for the lynching of Black people. Mob lynching was a brutal and savage event and it necessitated that the lynching victim be seen as equally brutal and savage.

[00:04:01] And the more Black people stood up and demanded their rights, the more the oppressor came down on them. Are we seeing the parallels?

[00:04:10] Similarly, proponents of Israeli apartheid and occupation seek to create and promote images of Palestinians as evil. They make wild claims, not backed by any evidence, of mass rape, beheaded babies, babies in ovens, to justify the ethnic cleansing they’re carrying out.

[00:04:27] Shame. (Shame.) Israel understands the power of public perception, which is why it tries to portray itself as the civilized society, but what is civilized about trying to destroy a civilization? What is civilized about destroying every university and hospital in Gaza? What is civilized about murdering innocent civilians?

[00:04:50] Malcolm X said: ‘If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.’

[00:05:00] Time and space have allowed for us to safely call those things for the great injustices that they were, and in many respects, continue to be. But for some reason, that’s harder for people to do when it happens in real time.

[00:05:14] The president of the University of Oregon refuses to call what’s happening in Gaza a genocide. Never mind that he had no problem calling the events of Oct. 7 an act of genocide.

[00:05:24] At the University of Oregon, they will read a land acknowledgement statement before every meeting. But if you dare ask them to divest from genocide, like I did, they will call you into a meeting, and tell you they’re placing you on paid administrative leave, pending your termination.

[00:05:42] Native American students have no trouble seeing the connection between their struggle and what’s happening in Palestine.

[00:05:48] Painting Palestinians as savages, incapable of pursuing self-determination is both infantilizing and patronizing. And never mind that gay marriage isn’t legal in Israel. They don’t want to talk about the fact that they use gay Palestinians’ identity against them and blackmail them into becoming informants.

[00:06:08] They erase the Palestinian organizations like Aswat, Al Qaws, and Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, who are pursuing queer liberation right now.

[00:06:20] There’s a hierarchy of needs when it comes to rights and liberation. There’s not much time to fight for queer liberation when you’re fighting for your very existence.

[00:06:33] So, I say to you, do not let them co-opt the movement for queer liberation to uphold their oppression of the Palestinian people. This is the time where I guess we have a call, a call to action. It’s not enough to call out this propaganda, although calling it out is necessary. We must continue to apply pressure on politicians and corporate entities in the streets, on the campuses and at the ballot boxes. We can’t let Joe Biden light the White House up like a rainbow and then send bombs to be rained down on Palestinians.

[00:07:10] So what can we do? We can have conversations. I’m so grateful for Kamryn for taking the lead on organizing this event. It’s opened up so many conversations already.

[00:07:23] When I tell people, ‘I’m going to a Pride rally against pinkwashing.’ ‘What’s pinkwashing?’ So it has given us an opportunity to have those conversations with our friends and our family. So thank you for that. What else can we do? We can continue to apply pressure. Let’s push on every lever we can. Let’s take it from the streets to the campus, to the ballot box. Let’s see a free Palestine in our lifetimes together. Thank you.

[00:07:59] Kamryn Stringfield (Event organizer): And then there’s also a showing of a film, ‘The Life and Death of Marsha P. Johnson,’ on June 28 at 6 p.m. at the Art House (13th and Ferry). Okay, and that’s part of the Afro Valley Film Festival, by the way.

[00:08:17] Also coming right up at the Afro Valley Film Festival: On Tuesday June 18, Daughters of the Dust. On Wednesday June 19, Watermelon Woman. 7 p.m. both nights. Read more about these films at AfroValley.info. Afro Valley Film Festival is a curated film series that highlights international, Black and LGBTQ stories, art, history, and culture. These historical and arthouse films aren’t about slavery, or centered around white stories.

[00:08:46] Justin Filip’s speech June 15 at the Pride Rally Against Pinkwashing was recorded by Todd Boyle of KEPW News.