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Chicago Pride Banning Jewish Flag Garners Outrage On Twitter: Human Rights Campaign & Others Condemn Decision

By Perri Fisher
Published on: 15:36 PST, Jun 25, 2017

A Chicago Pride event is causing major outrage after three attendees at Chicago’s Dyke March were ousted for carrying a Jewish Pride flag, which is a rainbow flag with the Jewish Star of David symbol in the middle, according to the Inquisitr.

The marchers who kicked out the Jewish attendees defended their action by explaining that the march was “pro-Palestinian” and “anti-Zionist,” claiming that the flag made some people at the Pride march feel “unsafe.”

This decision has garnered an intense backlash, with many commentators taking to Twitter to voice their shock and displeasure at the Chicago Pride Dyke March’s apparent anti-semitism.

The Twitter Response

Many commentators on Twitter who discussed the decision did so from a critical perspective. One account that weighed in was that of the Human Rights Campaign, which is the largest nationwide LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) civil rights organization in the country, according to its website. The Human Rights Campaign has been instrumental in many LGBT struggles, the most notable of which is the fight for marriage equality. This well-known LGBT rights organization tweeted a measured response to the Chicago Pride Dyke March’s decision: “Marches should be safe spaces to celebrate our diversity and our pride. This is not right.”

MSNBC‘s Joe Scarborough, one of the co-hosts of the Morning Joe talk show, was much less kind, calling the Chicago March organizers “pathetic antisemitic bigots.” Scarborough’s comment mirrored the tone of other pundits, some of whom did not buy the justification of the marchers who removed the Jewish flag-wavers.

Actor James Woods, one of the few well-known Trump supporters in Hollywood, made his feelings known as well, asking “Will my Jewish friends ever learn?”

Inclusiveness vs. Bigotry

The Chicago Dyke March brands itself as a “more inclusive” option for those who take issue with the Chicago Pride Parade’s alleged focus on “gay white males,” according to the Inquisitr. Many individuals on Twitter, especially those of Jewish descent, find this stance hypocritical in light of the Chicago March’s decision to oust marchers displaying their own Jewish Pride flag.

One Twitter user asked a pointed question, “When intersectionality excludes Jews, is it really intersectional?”

According to the Washington Post, the term “intersectionality” was coined in 1989 by critical theorist and legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw and refers to the idea that different demographic identities, such as gender and race, can overlap and be connected to unique forms of discrimination that may be distinct from the forms experienced by members of each group separately. For example, a black woman may experience discrimination that is different from that experienced by a white woman or by a black man. While classic feminism allegedly focused on white women, modern feminism is “intersectional” in that it takes into account other demographic identities such as race, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

[Image by gmstockstudio/Shutterstock]

While this concept seems inclusive in theory, some are wondering, in light of the recent Chicago Pride incident, whether it can be applied practically with any consistency. According to Jewish commentators on Twitter, the answer is “no.”

[Featured Image by RightFramePhotoVideo/Shutterstock]

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