Gay right-winger Chadwick Moore says Juneteenth is 'colonizing' Pride Month, gets slammed by LGBTQ community
On Saturday, June 20, “Chadwick” was trending on Twitter. Contrary to what it would seem, it had really nothing to do with the ‘Black Panther’ actor Chadwick Boseman. Quite the contrary. It was about Chadwick Moore.
So, who is Chadwick Moore? Moore is an American journalist. One of the more famous pieces Moore has written is a 2016 profile of the notorious gay alt-right crusader, Milo Yiannopoulos, for Out magazine. In fact, Moore’s profile of Yiannopoulos blew up and earned the journalist quite a lot of flak. Why? According to Moore, it was because he had given the alt-right icon a platform.
Speaking to NPR in 2017, Moore, also a gay man, spoke about the aftermath of the profile and the “personal attacks against me, calling me a Nazi, white supremacist, completely insane and ridiculous”.
The same year, Moore wrote a personal essay in the New York Post, titled ‘I’m a gay New Yorker — and I’m coming out as a conservative’. In the piece, Moore wrote that he realized “that maybe my opinions just didn’t fit in with the liberal status quo, which seems to mean that you must absolutely hate Trump, his supporters and everything they believe. If you dare not to protest or boycott Trump, you are a traitor.”
What did Moore do to trend on Twitter?
On Friday night, June 19, taking a dig at Juneteenth, the day that commemorates the end of slavery for African-Americans, Moore wrote on Twitter, “I’m sorry, blacks, but you already have a month. Juneteenth isn’t a thing. Don’t colonize our month as well. thanks. Signed, the gays.”
Many gay people, however, seemed to disagree with him. Benj Pasek of the singer-songwriter duo Pasek and Paul wrote on Twitter, “I’m sorry, Chadwick, but you don’t represent us. Your bullshit isn’t a thing. Stop falling for the trap to pit oppressed communities against each other. It’s sad and pathetic. Also, black LGBTQ+ folks are the reason we even have a f****** month in the first place. Signed, the gays.”
Another Twitter user pointed out, “Firstly. Juneteenth happened 100+ years before pride. Secondly. Pride was started by whom again? Oh yes, a BLACK trans woman. So, Chadwick, I believe it's time you shut the f*** up.”
They were, of course, referring to Marsha P. Johnson, the African-American, transgender woman from New Jersey, who stood up to the police when in June 1969, the police raided a gay bar in New York called The Stonewall Inn. Following this, Johnson led a series of protests and riots demanding rights for gay people. This is what is now known as the Stonewall Riots, in whose commemoration, Pride Month is celebrated.
The critique of Moore was also coupled with the resurrection of several old tweets of his that were highly bigoted. One particular tweet was a photo of a woman in a Burkha, which Moore had captioned, “Introducing my new drag queen persona: Sharia Law.”
Moore, following the thousands of tweets criticizing him, wrote on Twitter, “This tweet seems to have touched a nerve with the left... Because they were all thinking it.”