"Driving wedges" and "hijacking" Pride: Disrupting narratives of black inclusion in LGBT politics and the Canadian national imaginary

This paper analyzes public debate pertaining to a demonstration by the Toronto chapter of Black Lives Matter (BLMTO) at the city's 2016 Pride parade. The movement's actions, and ultimately the organization itself, have been widely condemned for disrupting the event and calling attention to anti-Black racism within the Toronto Police Service and queer spaces. A critical discourse analysis of mainstream media content reveals the emergence of three major themes repeated across Canadian news outlets in the denouncement of BLMTO. Central to this process is the myth of multiculturalism, which effectively displaces the phenomenon of racism onto previous centuries and other countries. By scrutinizing the parameters of the Canadian national imaginary, this paper reveals the ways in which anti-Black racism has become compounded by the mainstream LGBT movement.