This week Manchester Pride added brown to the LGBT+ flag and Japan rules transgender people must get sterilised

Football and racism is that extremely toxic relationship that goes on for way longer than it should. Now, Millwall could be the first club to be punished under new racism laws after “some of the most shocking football violence” in years, according to Scotland Yard, including vile racist chants against the Pakistani community. The FA’s clamp down means that clubs can’t dodge responsibility by saying they’ve taken all possible steps to prevent racism. If the club’s fans are racist

Millwall is vowing to give racist fans a ban for life. There was also an issue of racism within the PoC community this week as Bollywood actress Esha Gupta described Arsenal’s Nigerian midfielder Alex Iwobi as “gorilla faced” on her Instagram.

Donald Trump has cut off his nose to spite his face once more with a 35 day government shutdown that cost the US government $6 million (more than he wanted for his beloved steel wall), but looking to the future of presidency, a YouTube time traveller has “revealed” that Martin Luther King Jr’s granddaughter, Yolanda Renee King, will be the last and best US president by 2030. Maybe there is hope for us yet.

Also in America, Chris Brown is proving he is trash as he monetises and mocks the rape allegations made against him by an Algerian model in Paris with a t-shirt collection embellished with the slogan “This B!tch Lyin’”.

Mark Zuckerberg is flexing his terrifyingly big data muscle as he plans to integrate Whatsapp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger which between them has over 2.6 billion users, a concerning insight into the power and future of global tech monopolies. There really is no smoke without Fyre, as the flames of the notorious Fyre festival grow and it becomes clear this catastrophic exploitation of Bahamian people by a white privileged man stinks of classic imperialism.

Over on this side of the pond, Love Island’s Megan and Wes shocked the nation with the announcement that they had still actually been together up until this week, oh and apparently British companies are planning a mass exodus in the event of a no-deal Brexit. At least we’ll still have the NHS, right guys?

Here’s what went down in the last week.

Manchester Gay Bar Under Fire For ‘Vile’ Mocking of New Black and Brown Stripes On Pride Flag

Manchester Pride recently revealed it would be including a black and brown stripe in its rainbow flag for its 2019 event this year to address the movement’s failure to include people of colour. The move caused controversy, with many people claiming the rainbow flag was already designed to be inclusive of all, however, Stonewall research reveals that 51% of BAME LGBT+ people face discrimination within the LGBT+ community, making it clear the community is not as inclusive as the rainbow flag denotes.

A white drag queen has come under fire after advertising her show at Canal Street’s Bar Pop with a “vile” poster that mocked the new black and brown stripes.

Peggy Wessex posted a promotional poster featuring a regular rainbow flag with an image of a unicorn on it vomiting the black and brown stripes, with the caption “How it should be! See you there Manchester.”

Just so all of my POC friends know, you are not welcome at Bar Pop Manchester @BarPopMCR @peggywessex pic.twitter.com/XqvfMBOc4h

— lew. (@LewJB) January 23, 2019

Tolu Ajayi, co-organiser of Rainbow Noir, a peer and social support group celebrating LGBTQI people of colour in Manchester, told gal-dem: “Our skin colour has been represented as vomit, with a caption of “How It Should Be”. It lets us know we are still not welcome, and our experiences are only worth being shut down. We are already other in our BAME families, the one place we should be safe is within queerdom, but instances like Peggy Wessex’s fundraising poster confirm this presently isn’t the case.”

When the black and brown stripes were introduced by Manchester Pride, Tolu said there “was a joyful sense of intentional inclusion, a pang of hope that there’s tangible recognition that something isn’t right”. While Ajayi said the “the symbolism of being an ‘addition’’ is not lost on them, the shift in conversation about race can only be a good thing.

Ajayi explained there is a distinct unwelcoming message towards BAME LGBT+ people from the mainstream scene. This comes through the “continual denial of entry, to the lack of diversity of music and BAME artists at venues, to the white models used club night promotion, to the food on offer at eateries – there are constant reminders everywhere that The Village is not designed with us in mind.”

Bar Pop released a statement apologising, saying the imagery was not created or promoted by them directly, and that the intention was “not to offend POC, but as a negative response to Manchester Pride,” saying it was “ill thought out, insensitive, and something which we do not wish to promote.” The popular LGBT+ bar also said that Miss Peggy Wessex would no longer be performing at the event.

Japan’s Supreme Court Rules Transgender People Still Have To Get Sterilised

The Supreme Court of Japan has upheld a law which forces transgender people to get sterilised before they can legally change their gender.

The panel unanimously ruled on January 24 to reject an appeal filed by Takakito Usui, a trans man who wants to change the gender on his official documents.

Law 111 required any person seeking to change their legal gender to have “no reproductive glands or reproductive glands that have permanently lost function”.

Despite the ruling, one judge said “doubts are undeniably emerging” about the 2003 Law 111 and that legislation should be reviewed as cultural attitudes shift. Last year the Japanese government announced it would subsidise gender affirming surgery for trans people, but only if the applicants were sterile, single, without children under 20, and would undergo a psychiatric evaluation to diagnose gender dysphoria.

Usui’s lawyer Tomoyasu Oyama told CNN: It is unthinkable in this day and time that the law requires a sex-change operation to change gender.

Forcing people to undertake medical treatment in order to obtain legal gender recognition violates their right to the highest attainable standard of health. We urge the Japanese government to end this discriminatory and highly intrusive policy

ICYMI

Police are investigating a “disgusting” video of Muslim school girls filmed in London by a man calling for them to be sterilised, quoting Nazi rhetoric.
White supremacist James Jackson pleaded guilty to killing black man Timothy Caughman as practice for further assaults on black people.
The Metropolitan Police is disproportionately using stop and search powers on black people. Although black people make up 15.6% of London’s population and white people make up 59.8%, the data shows that during 2018, 43% of searches were of black people, while 35.5% were of white people.
A white woman, Martina Big, who now “identifies as a black woman” after a series of tanning injections thinks she will be able to conceive a black child with her white husband.
Noodle company Nissin found itself in hot water after it produced an anime advert featuring half-Haitian tennis star Naomi Osaka as a white woman, sparking accusations of whitewashing. This is the second time Osaka has been portrayed as white.
A racist Dolce and Gabbana advert that showed Chinese model Zuo Ye struggling to eat spaghetti and pizza with chopsticks has almost ruined the model’s career, she has said.
The University of Liverpool has been accused of racism after it sent an email suggesting Chinese students didn’t know what cheating was.
Sri Lankan Model Jeenu Mahadevan, 20, has called out colourism in Asian communities, saying: “Most of the negative feedback I got in the beginning was from Indians – many Indian people thought that a dark-skinned guy shouldn’t necessarily be in fashion.”
Katie Price’s eldest son Harvey has launched his own Instagram account after MP’s back Harvey’s Law to make online abuse a crime.

Moment of the Week

Ariana got new tattoo omg pic.twitter.com/WxFXKNK60e

— Ariana Grande Update ? (@ArianatorFallen) January 30, 2019

Ariana Grande pretending to be happy with her new Japanese tattoo that she thought meant « 7 rings » but found out that it actually means « bbq grill » pic.twitter.com/BhG402myfI

— that nigga Kyungsoo (@frdegama) January 30, 2019