This year’s Black Pride event is being hosted at Margate Beach Club today (September 13).
Since its founding in 2022 by Gaëtan Gauthier, the grassroots initiative has remained self-funded, without corporate sponsorship, in order to maintain integrity, independence and authentic representation.
Margate Black Pride celebrates and supports Black and Brown and disaporias LGBTQIA+ communities and allies.
Organisers say it is “a space not only for Black people but also for Brown and diaspora communities, uplifting LGBTQIA+ people of African, Asian, Caribbean, Latin American, Pacific Islander and Middle Eastern descent.”
The event offers free stalls for LGBTQIA+ community organisations, removing financial barriers and ensuring that grassroots voices are given visibility.
Gaëtan Gauthier, founder of Margate Black Pride, said: “We are here to celebrate LGBTQIA+ people of the diaspora in all our richness. From African, Asian and Caribbean, Pacific Islanders, Latin American and Middle-Easterns communities and beyond. Our Pride is a gathering of voices too often erased. Being grassroots and self-funded means we can remain accountable to those communities first and foremost.”
During the event, Laila El-Metoui will lead a conversation on the current challenges faced by# LGBTIQA+ people in education, including barriers to representation in the curriculum, the impact of discrimination, and the urgent need for safeguarding policies that reflect the lived experiences of Black, Brown and diaspora queer youth.
Event includes:
• Free community stalls for LGBTQIA+ groups
• Live performances, storytelling and cultural showcases celebrating queer artistry from the diaspora
• DJs: Faiza Uncle / April Brown / Gaëtan Gauthier (Margate Black Pride Founder) / Sophie Stirling
• Hyper – Kurdish queer man, energetic performer inspired by Nicki Minaj, exploring queerness and neurodivergence.
• Rahim El Habachi – Moroccan gay refugee, playwright, actor, and belly dancer. Founder of HOMNA. Advocates for HIV stigma eradication and intersectional queer visibility.
• Vipul Bhatti – London-based dancer trained in contemporary and Kathak. Performed at London 2012 and internationally. His work addresses mental health and celebrates queer expression.
The event runs until 10pm.
Are white heterosexuals of Jewist desent welcome?
Why don’t you pop down and see?
Yes. Because they aren’t bigots. Do you see?
There’s niche and then there’s…
Whatever happened to that European legal precept of Proportionality that was introduced with the original European Convention? When will people get media attention proportionate to their number?
I’m sitting here watching Tommy Robinson chatting with Elon Musk via Starlink in front of a physical audience of hundreds of thousands of people and a global audience of millions.
I’m looking forward to a multicoloured, sexually diverse and tolerant celebration on Margate beach, where what people do behind close doors doesn’t even come into any conversation.
Would be nice, preferably complete with a beauty contest featuring women in bikinis.
150,000 attendees, and 25 arrests. Yet at last week’s pro-Palestine protest, 1,500 turned up, and 890 were arrested (and don’t get me started on the “peaceful” Notting Hill Carnival!).
It’s not illegal to attend a lawful event.
It is illegal to support a proscribed organisation.
Indeed, they get what they deserve.
It’s perfectly legal to attend a carnival though, even though 423 were arrested this year.
NOBODY deserves a government that can’t differentiate between a violent terrorist and a frail OAP holding a placard, while the Prime Minister rolls out the red carpet for a genocidal president.
Write to your MP. She always replies (so we’re told).
Lodge your complaint with the Jewish Chronicle Peter, I’m sure they at least would be interested?
What about Chinese, Indian, big ears,short people, wheelchair, Charlie chalk, lord Charles,Bert n Ernie, pride.where does it end….
Who cares, they’re self funding and had an event i expect none of us would have known about if it was’nt in the IoTN.
Just imagine the comments here if you were to organise a White pride?
Fascists, supremacists, racists,… and whatever other insults.
Pat,
You would have 5 armed police banging on your door at 7am if you were to organise a white pride day.
These things only work one way, including the non proportionate publicity given to these ‘diverse’ groups.
Why cannot people just get on with their lives and just be BRITISH, no matter their sexuality, ethnicity or hue?
Because “inclusive” groups like to exclude those who are different from them.
Everyone should be proud of their heritage. End of.
Why is there a need for a white pride event? Are white, straight people marginalized within our society? Do white, straight people feel as though they need to have an open, inclusive event where they can feel a sense of community with others that face the institutionalised prejudice that they do?
As a white, straight person I can’t say that I do.. but what’s stopping you from creating such an event? One that’s about togetherness and not an excuse to be awful. Nothing.. other than your complete lack of interest in doing that because you only want to whine about things that aren’t explicitly for you.
I imagine people feel the need to organise events like this because they don’t feel able to inherently feel pride in their culture, heritage, identity etc because as soon as they do, a bunch of losers start screaming at them that they should only feel like that pride locked behind their own doors
Black homosexuals (etc) as welcome everywhere, as much as anyone else. Or are you saying Wetherspoons or Dreamland or The Loop ban them?
As far as your experience with that community stretches, my bet is that their lived experience would speak otherwise. I’m sure if you go to next year’s event and speak to some of the people taking part they can give you a much better insight of why they feel they need a pride event and how they haven’t always been made to feel welcome.
Perhaps consider how you may feel out of place at an event for queer, non-white people and how it would make you feel if there was a long, clear history of this othering leading to you being discriminated against, attacked, abused etc. I’d imagine that such a feeling is why people still feel they need pride events.
This existing didn’t impact me in any way and I can’t imagine a scenario where any one was negatively impacted by it.. other than those screeching in the comment section about how someone didn’t put on an event for them.
“Queer” is a horrible word. I’d never call a homosexual a name like that.
It’s a word that’s been used commonly amongst the queer (i.e. non-heteronormative) community for like 40 years; so I feel pretty comfortable using it in an appropriate, non-pejorative way.
40 years? No way would that have been acceptable in the 80s or even 90s (but prove me wrong if you can!). I know several ageing homosexuals and lesbians who abore the term… or don’t their opinions matter to you?
Jay- “queer” started to be used as meaning “homosexual” in the late 19th century. (I’ve just been reading about its history.)
Yes, as an insult. Which is why some older homosexuals still object to it. Back in the 70s & 80s, terms like “wooly woofter” were far more acceptable, at least on family TV shows.
Jay- if you look up articles on the history of the word queer, you’ll find that there are several ways in which it is used.
Are you offended by the word “Taffy”? Like “Paddy” and “Jock”, that’s another “Queer-like” word that some find offensive and others are OK with.
Wild swings there Pete, almost as though you have nothing interesting to contribute.
But anyway.. in terms of popular culture; Queer as Folk is a pretty good indicator that the term was getting more widely accepted. A very quick Google also brought up these articles:
http://www.qrd.org/qrd/misc/text/queers.read.this
https://archive.org/details/thatsrevoltingqu0000unse
Common acceptance isn’t universal acceptance, obviously; but I have several queer friends that don’t only identify as such but also aren’t fictional and convenient for trying to discredit someone making a reasoned argument where no rebuttal is forthcoming… Almost as though the only purpose in ones life is making snide comments on the message board of a local newspaper……
Yuk!