Mardi Gras in Sydney began in 1978 as an unauthorised commemorative protest for the Stonewall Riot.
My old Kung Fu instructor was one of the ‘78ers. They were attacked by cops, arrested, and had their names and addresses printed on the front page of the newspapers the day after. At the time, she primarily worked as a self-defence instructor at posh girls’ schools; her business was destroyed by the publicity.
These days, the festival is controlled by comfortable middle class assimilationists [1], and the cops are invited to the parade. Which is why we now have this happening:
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[1] There have been recent efforts by a faction to change this, which mostly resulted in the incumbent Mardi Gras board rewriting their constitution to keep the protesters away from power.
