Definition: Pinkwashing is a portmanteau compound word of the words pink and whitewashing. In the context of LGBT rights, it is used to describe a variety of marketing and political strategies aimed at promoting a product or an entity through an appeal to queer-friendliness, primarily by political or social activists.
From Legal Insurrection:
Columnist Jonathan Capehart at The Washington Post has a rather extraordinary column on the “anti-pinkwashing” near-riot at the Creating Change conference in Chicago on Friday night, January 22.
The column is extraordinary in that it reflects a growing realization even in the mainstream media that the thin line between rabid anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism has been crossed in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
We covered the situation in our post, Jewish Voice for Peace helps disrupt Israeli LGBTQ group Sabbath event, which has video and images, and explains the tactic:
"The pinkwashing charge is essential for BDS on U.S. college campuses because BDS has trouble squaring its support for regimes (including Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, not to mention most Arab countries) which abuse and persecute gays with BDS’s attempt to co-opt the progressive movement. Hence, the pinkwashing claim that Israel’s promotion of its gay-friendly policies is actually a greater evil than the abuse heaped on gays in areas controlled by Israel’s enemies."If you want to get a sense of how threatening the anti-Israel crowd was, view this video from a group that appears to support the protest. Imagine yourself in the conference room with hundreds of people screaming just outside the doors and trying to push their way past security. Also note the chants of “mic check” — a phrase made famous during the Occupy Wall Street protests:
GO READ THE WHOLE THING.
AND THEN THERE'S THIS:
Sadly some people have to get “mugged” before they come to terms with reality. And the reality is that Islam is anti-Semitic, not to mention anti-Christian, anti-Hindu and anti everyone who isn’t Muslim; or even the right kind of Muslim. Importing millions of Muslims imports intolerance on a terrifying massive scale.
When Judith G. helped out at a refugee center near Frankfurt last October and identified herself as Jewish, she was spat on and insulted.German Jews say the case of Judith G., a 33-year-old optician who asked not to be fully named, isn’t isolated and underlines concerns many have about the record arrivals of asylum seekers, largely from Muslim countries in the Middle East.
