Queers Scare and Melt ICE With Mockery and Celebration

Photos: Leon Kunstenaar

The Haloween event assembled at the Powell Street cable car turnaount. They unfurled their banners and marched down Market to Montgomery Street, ending in front of the ICE courthouse at 100 Montgomery Street, renamed the “ICE Abduction Center.”

A common technique of oppression is to appropriate not only reality by replacing truth with fantasy but by appropriating the visual and behavioral language itself.

Understanding this, San Francisco’s queer community replied with its own languages. They replaced rhe magga’s grim, militarized police costumes with outrageous and festive dress. They replaced the “law enforcement” context with dance and celebration. Oppression seeks conflict but can’t quite cope with a party. Cultural revolt at its finest.

They danced and smashed piñatas representing ICE and police agents as much approval honking came from Montgomery Street’s passing traffic.

See all high resolution photos here.