Reacting to the Northern Territory government’s amendments to bail laws in May last year, Senator Lidia Thorpe, then sitting with the Greens in the Senate, got to her feet and offered a scathing criticism, calling the new laws “racist” and “an even bigger pipeline from school to prison.”
Thorpe cited a letter from critics to NT’s Bail Act amendments.
“I do hope the Attorney-General, given he probably didn’t read the royal commission recommendations, hopefully he listens to these experts,” Thorpe said.
“Hopefully, they’re white. You know, white is right in this place,” Ms Thorpe said.
There were just a couple of teensy-weensy errors. The NT Attorney-General was not a he. And she wasn’t white, hopefully or otherwise. The then NT Attorney-General was Selena Uibo. Uibo was born in the Northern Territory. Her mother is a Nunggubuyu woman from Arnhem Land.
Welcome to the world of Lidia Thorpe’s performative activism, where no self-serving stunt could ever be enough and the truth is a first line casualty.
Remember to shout a lot. Swear like a trucker. Try to look angry. Pass the fake blood.
In turn, Uibo responded to Thorpe’s speech in the NT Legislative Assembly.
“There is nothing more galling or frustrating than when we have a senator from inner-city Melbourne, who visits the Territory for five minutes, flies home and then goes back to the Senate and makes deceitful comments,” Uibo said.
And Uibo had some advice on etiquette for Senator Thorpe.
“When you front a committee hearing in Borroloola (a township 900 kilometres southeast of Darwin), don’t play on your phone the whole time. People notice.
“You should take the time before you travel to a remote community to ensure you are appropriately dressed for the community visit and not dressed like some southern tourist on their dry season holiday.”
Ouch.
Which brings us to the Sydney Mardi Gras last Saturday.
Just before midday, Thorpe had tweeted, “Happy #MardiGras #WorldPride 2023” with a photo of herself beaming at the camera, wearing and bearing all manner of indigenous activist slogans.
Happy #MardiGras#WorldPride 2023 pic.twitter.com/4F0vAfIKr0
— Senator Lidia Thorpe (@SenatorThorpe) February 25, 2023
A fun time was to be had by all.
But less than 12 hours later, Thorpe was escorted from the Mardi Gras precinct by police officers after a new round of performance activism which included some shouting, a bit of swearing and lying down in front of a truck, driven by a trucker who may or may not have been swearing. If so, he was drowned out.
The wallopers urged the senator to get back to her feet while the crowd chanted, “Throw her out.” And the police gently did.
Early reporting was desultory, claiming Thorpe had laid down in front of the Australian Federal Police float but it transpired the truck that had to put the brakes on was pulling a float created by Twenty10, a community organisation which provides mental health and psychosocial support programs to support LGBTQI youth affected by homelessness.
The driver of the Twenty10 float felt obliged to stop while Thorpe lay down underneath the chassis as the AFP float made a quick getaway up Oxford Street.
So, what was Thorpe’s protest about?
Lousy kids? Lousy gay homeless kids?
Following the incident, Thorpe tweeted, “Black and brown trans women started the first pride march as a protest against police violence. Today, we still face violence from police. Proud to have joined the #PrideInProtest float in Sydney to say #NoPrideInGenocide, #NoPrideInPrisons, and #NoCopsInPride”
Black and brown trans women started the first pride march as a protest against police violence. Today, we still face violence from police. Proud to have joined the #PrideInProtest float in Sydney to say #NoPrideInGenocide, #NoPrideInPrisons, and #NoCopsInPride
— Senator Lidia Thorpe (@SenatorThorpe) February 25, 2023
This is a bit of a stretch even in Thorpian logic.
Fred Sergeant, an American gay activist and a Stonewall Riot veteran, tweeted in reply, “This is flatly untrue. This is yet another example of 21st century historical revisionism designed to erase gays & lesbians from their own history. Pride was founded and organised by lesbians & gays alone. Provide a citation for this claim & some names or delete this false tweet.”
This is flatly untrue. This is yet another example of 21st century historical revisionism designed to erase gays & lesbians from their own history. Pride was founded and organized by lesbians & gays alone. Provide a citation for this claim & some names or delete this false tweet.
— Fred Sargeant (@FredSargeant) February 26, 2023
But Thorpe’s tweet remains. Performative activism means never having to say, “I was wrong.”
A brief examination of the history of the Sydney Mardi Gras is in order. Gay activism found strength and solidarity following the Stonewall Riots in 1969 where protesters reacted to police overreach in clearing out and violently arresting patrons in gay bars in New York’s Greenwich Village. The protest was centred around the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar then owned and run by the Mafia.
The first gay pride marches took place on the first anniversary of what is known by veterans like Sergeant, a former cop, simply as Stonewall.
Another American push came some years later in response to the Briggs Initiative, put to the people of California in 1978 by referendum, a proposal which sought to prohibit gay men and women working in California’s public schools. Briggs was a conservative state politician from Los Angeles.
Then California Governor, later President Ronald Reagan opposed it as did President Jimmy Carter, and his predecessor, Gerald Ford. The referendum failed by more than a million votes.
While the arguments raged in California, gay activists sent out a global call to arms and it was in this spirit, the first Sydney Mardi Gras took place.
It was very different to the joyous celebrations we saw on Saturday night.
On June 24, 1978, a group of 300 or so protesters gathered at Taylor Square. They began their march down Oxford Street, led by a flatbed truck in precisely the reverse of the direction of the Mardi Gras today. People in the bars along the street were urged to come out and join them. The crowd grew but police stopped the truck and started making arrests outside then Police HQ in College Street.
The crowd turned and began striding down William Street towards Kings Cross. Police were waiting for them and had blocked off Darlinghurst Street at both ends. Protesters were arrested, often violently in the Cross. Some of the locals, including indigenous men and women, stepped in and some protesters were liberated from the divvy van confinement.
In all 53 arrests were made. Many were savagely beaten back in the cells at the old Darlinghurst Police Station.
To its eternal shame, the Sydney Morning Herald published the names, addresses and occupations of the 53 arrested. Criminal convictions ensued. Jobs were lost, careers shattered, and future employment opportunities curtailed. The masthead made a formal apology to the 53 activists in 2015.
In 1979, an organising committee for the Sydney Mardi Gras was created.
Anyone could join with the only stipulations to membership being they be “gay or lesbians who support the idea of a gay festival in the streets of Sydney either for political reasons or because they think it could be a lot of fun”.
In other words, the protests were never about race or racism and any shared sense of persecution and discrimination was coincidental. Sydney’s Mardi Gras was not founded by “black and brown trans women”. The 78-ers, the surviving veterans of the first Mardi Gras, sometimes photographed en masse in the lead up to the parade, are a sea of multicultural faces, the faces of Australia but alas no black or brown transwomen can be seen in attendance.
Identifying Thorpe’s difficult relationship with the truth is a doddle. Spearfishing in a hogshead. But that’s not the point of performative activism. It’s not about being right or even vaguely accurate. Thorpe’s performances are designed to create headlines, good or bad. It really doesn’t matter.
To be fair, it’s the only political tactic available to her that has any chance of working. We might recall another crossbench senator, Nick Xenophon who basically kept a costume hire company in business by waltzing up to the parliament dressed as various farm animals for some reason. Does anyone remember why? Nope. But we all remember Nick.
Buckle yourselves in, folks. We can expect more theatrics, more stunts and more performative activism from Lidia Thorpe. Never mind the truth of the message. Everyone, stop what you’re doing and look at her. Look!
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