We distributed flyers at a “march for queer visibility in Neukölln” yesterday. The attending crowd was (unsurprisingly) overwhelmingly white and sprinkled with a bunch of rainbow-colored european union flags. Fun fact: people with EU-gear were especially unwilling to read our flyers and engage with our criticism, immediately throwing them away or demanding that absent BPoC queers explain to them personally why they chose not to attend in an act of unpaid emotional labor.
The speeches included one in which greetings by Hickel (SPD), the major of Neukölln, were passed on to the crowd. We aren’t interested in receiving words of comfort and concern over transphobic violence by Hickel, who has been pushing a ridiculous law and order agenda against shisha bars in Neukölln. How can politicians who play the divide and rule game with a racist criminalization campaign and prepare the grounds for deadly racist violence be considered “queer allies”, 4 (!) days after the fascist terrorist attack in which nine people were murdered in Hanau, and even less days after shots have been fired against shisha bars in Stuttgart and Döbeln?
Another speech was given by a member of the military and “trans activist”. As we were shouting our disdain at her speech on the importance of human rights, something the army famously cares for while waging imperial wars, we were asked to stop this unpolite behaviour and articulate our concerns in a polite and orderly manner. We could have spontaneously given a speech at the microphone, but we decided not to comply with homonationalist respectability politics. We believe that our message came across anyway.