When far-right protestors interrupted a drag queen story hour

Brut America

Drag queen Panda Dulce was hosting a children's event when a group of far-right protestors stormed in.  Here's what happened next …

Transcript

00:00So who brought the children? Who brought the profile?

00:04Why would you want to bring children to this? Why would you want to expose your children to this?

00:08Reading a story to kids in a public library should not require bravery.

00:12Get out of here! You're not safe here!

00:30We had just finished the Welcome In song when suddenly

00:33eight to ten far-right extremists stormed into the library.

00:37This is the thing that's here reading to children.

00:40Wake up! Wake up!

00:43I guess when they came in I immediately knew what was going on.

00:48I saw the assault rifle on that person's shirt that said kill your local pedophile.

00:52I saw black and yellow Proud Boy colors and I knew that this was some kind of protest.

01:10The parents who were very brave as I was like kind of frozen

01:14because I knew that I was like the object of their ire,

01:18they stood up and they said this is inappropriate, this is a kid's event, you need to leave.

01:22And they didn't care and so they escalated and they started yelling

01:27and the kids were upset and confused.

01:30Some of them like buried their heads in their parents' chests,

01:34some of them were just looking around being wildered, some were like covering their ears.

01:38A lot of the parents teared up because they knew what this represented.

01:56As scared as I was, I didn't want them to have the satisfaction of knowing that

02:06they had effectively disrupted our event just by causing a tantrum and intimidating us.

02:13I knew that bringing representation came with its risks

02:18and so I said I want to finish the story, let's go back.

02:26It's so visceral and immediate when there is a group of extremists in the room with you

02:40who are deeply misinformed, who have built an entire story about you that you cannot budge

02:48and all they have is their misguided notion of who you are and what you stand for.

02:55It is a youth literary program that brings drag performers to bookstores,

03:07schools, classrooms, and libraries to read children's books to kids.

03:12A lot of the books that we read are LGBTQ themed or gender affirming,

03:16but not always. Sometimes it's just affirming diversity.

03:19One of the books that I was reading the day of the incident was called Families, Families, Families

03:23and it was about different permutations of family structures, so featuring zoo animals.

03:30This family of zebras has two moms, this family of lions has a mom and dad,

03:34this family of koalas lives with their grandma.

03:38So

03:51members of a far-right extremist group showed up to a children's event at a county library

03:57yesterday. Body cam video from Woodland PD showing an altercation at a drag show last night.

04:03New details today after police arrested more than 30 members of a white nationalist group

04:08in Idaho. Officers confronted the Patriot Front group on Saturday. Police say they

04:14were traveling to a Pride event where they were hoping to set off a riot.

04:18Right when the protests came to an end though, a man seen wearing Proud Boy clothing approached

04:23the library with a gun, causing everyone outside, including children, to run into the library for

04:29cover. If the right is so concerned with protecting children, which by the way just reeks of 70s moral

04:35panic that never died, like then they would be similarly outraged at Larry Nassar from the

04:44gymnastics, at the Catholic church, at the Boy Scouts of America. And what does that tell you?

04:49It tells you that it doesn't matter what I'm doing. This has never been about what I am or

04:53am not doing. It's entirely about who I am. This is literally about their inability to

05:00accept the fact that queer people exist and that we are living the lives we want.

05:17And I think that is ultimately the aim of the right. They don't believe that we are entitled

05:22to cultural reflections of ourselves, to understanding and believing that we exist,

05:28that we have a future, that there is a point B to our point A as youth, who are just coming

05:33to understand our sense of self in the world and see nothing. And we'll continue to see nothing if

05:39Don't Say Gay persists, if we are erased from history. But I do not see ourselves resigning

05:47to complacency. Every child deserves to see themselves reflected in the world, reflected

05:54in joy and success and thriving, because seeing is believing and representation matters.

Category

Transcript

Recommended