The Bitten Peach are knowingly working at events, that have ties to genocide.
Individuals and collectives have been meeting with The Bitten Peach privately. The Bitten Peach are aware of the corporate events that are investing in the genocide of Palestinians. They have continued to work at the events.
This is deeply troubling.
As a collective of queer Asians, we are all impacted by histories of colonisation and known the dangers of individualistic capitalism. We understand the importance of representation, spaces for queer joy and funding but not at the cost of human life. We want collective safety.
There has been 40,000+ recorded deaths in the ongoing genocide in Palestine, including 15,000+ babies. The Bitten Peach have raised funds for Palestine. We ask that they do the next, right thing.
Because there is NO Pride in Genocide.
We are calling on our community to sign this open letter to The Bitten Peach, asking that they:
ā drop out of Brighton and Manchester Pride, unless those Prides drop their sponsors
ā work with community to help booked artists recover lost pay (e.g. through The LAD Fund)
ā acknowledge the mistakes around playing London Pride
ā be proactive and intentional about solidarity with Palestine
If you are due to perform at a Genocide Pride and wish to remove your labour in solidarity, The LAD Fund are doing incredible work to provide much needed funds to replace pay lost. Head to @theladfund to find out more.
We are not free until we are all free. Free Palestine šµšø
ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°ā°
All Bitten Peach Pride shows (three of which are known to be complicit) taken from the Bitten Peach summer newsletter:
June 29th: Pride in London
July 27th: Happy Valley Pride
August 3rd: Brighton Pride
August 26th: Manchester Pride
Dear friends,
The Bitten Peach are boycotting Brighton Pride! There statement is below, in full.
This is a win for all Asian artists who took a risk in calling The Bitten Peach in, and a step in the right direction.
This was made possible through your principled solidarity, the labour behind the scenes to organise roundtables, engage in debates and provide political education and seemingly, a commitment from The Bitten Peach to tangible Palestinian solidarity.
It is not a straightforward win. The statement equates the imagined harms against them (this petition) with actual harms (folks being name called for organising, and told to go back to where they came from). There has been no attempt at accountability for that. It was also written in collaboration with Brighton Pride, who have asked boycotting collectives to add a line justifying Brighton Prides lack of action (see if you can spot it).
It is a step in the right direction, nonetheless. We should not have had to fight for it, or come under fire for this petition, but this action has further shone a light on the atrocities in Palestine and the mobilisation of queer culture to pinkwash them.
We move forward in hope that Brighton Pride will see and hear the queer community's action and cut ties to genocide.
Infinite solidarity.
To a Free Palestine in our lifetimes!
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The statement is below in full.
"Following several conversations with Brighton Pride over the last few weeks, The Bitten Peach Team have come to a decision to not take part this year, as Brighton Pride are unable to drop Costa (Coca Cola) as sponsor for 2024.
We continue to challenge organisations and events who take on sponsors which benefit from the occupation of Palestine.
We will continue to work closely with Brighton Pride to help improve Pride 2025. The Bitten Peach makes decisions as a team. In this instance, we gave ourselves time to dissect our thoughts, communicate our stance, and to give Brighton Pride an opportunity to learn, communicate, and work with us.
We have spent the past two weeks engaging in conversations with
Brighton Pride, those calling for the boycott, and our own Bitten Peach performers. We have received a lot of anger from certain individuals for taking this time.
We have not appreciated people purporting false and damaging narratives about our collective when we had not yet said anything publicly and have been working tirelessly behind the scenes. We condemn all personal attacks that have unfolded in the past two weeks.
In regards to Manchester Pride, we are currently awaiting their response to speak to them about how they could do better. We believe that through open conversations, we can use our position to facilitate long-term change and betterment.
The Bitten Peach Team"
Dear friends,
Thank you for taking the time to sign this letter, calling for open dialogue and collective action in solidarity with Palestine. Since this letter was created, we have learnt the death toll in Gaza is likely closer to 186,000. We are reminded of the urgency of our action. Some updates for transparency:
This open letter is not being shared on social media to provide Bitten Peach opportunity to respond to us directly. Unfortunately, The Bitten Peach shared the letter, along with private emails, to other collectives that are choosing not to boycott. An anti-boycott coalition, seemingly. Sadie Sinner from The Cocoa Butter Club followed up by posted a public screenshot of this letter, naming that Bitten Peach felt bullied and victimised. Her post has since been removed.
The Bitten Peach have not commented on any of the above but have messaged the author (Harddeep Singh) to say they have ongoing personal matters and will be slow to reply. They aim to respond this week.
All actions prior to now have centred care, and must continue to. Giving our community members at The Bitten Peach time to respond is important. Until then, the letter is best off of social media. Calling our community in is an act of kindness. The alternative is silence, which is not an option and would be worse than unkind to Palestinians. The other alternative is call outs, which does not feel necessary at the moment, though of course, it might be depending on the response. Fingers crossed it is more kind than their previous action of sharing private communications.
Finally, although the post from Sadie has been removed due to community response against it, it made comment on Harddeep Singh (author), this letter and it also led to a xenophobic statement about Drag King, Prinx Silver, for his associations to boycotting infrastructure (The LAD Fund). None of that is okay. Please keep showing each other your love and support, as we continue centring Palestine.
Backlash for boycotting Israel isn't new as shown in Dean Spade's Pinkwashing documentary, but we remain inspired by the steadfast spirit of Palestinians who continue to persevere through the unimaginable.
We will hopefully have another update shortly.
Infinite solidarity.
Free Palestine, from the river to the sea.