#Don't allow HSBC to "Pinkwash" Birmingham Pride

The last couple of years have been a challenge to say the least and I think it’s fair to say we could do with a good time. I do understand why Birmingham Pride might need corporate sponsorship, BUT, by allowing HSBC to sponsor the event, they, and Becky Hill's management team, are allowing themselves to be "Pinkwashed".

Four reasons why Birmingham Pride should not accept HSBC's sponsorhip and why Becky Hill should not perform at Birmingham Pride if they allow themselves to be "Pinkwashed" by HSBC are:

1: HSBC allegedly still provides loans to companies that are destroying the eco-system that all life on earth depends on. Since 2016, they have provided approximately £72billion to fossil fuel companies. Approximately £26billion of that has gone to coal, gas and oil companies expanding fossil fuels. In 2019, it was linked to livestock and soy companies (that have allegedly been linked to illegal deforestation in the Amazon rainforest) to the tune of approximately £626million.

2: They have also been widely criticised for publicly supporting China’s anti-democratic legislation in Hong Kong where people face lifetime imprisonment if they dare to stand up to the system.

3: “In July 2017, War on Want released a report which found that HSBC had provided £19.3 billion in loans to and held £832 million in shares for companies supplying Israel with arms”*. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign wrote an open letter (https://www.palestinecampaign.org/open-letter-to-birmingham-pride-from-11-lgbtqia-groups-drop-hsbc/) to Birmingham Pride in 2020 asking them to drop HSBC as a sponsor as they finance the atrocities that are taking place in Palestine. Side-note, by trying to claim Palestinian land as their own, haven't Israel been doing to Palestine for decades what Russia is currently doing to Ukraine?

4: In the year 2020, HSBC allegedly had the worst gender pay gap of all the British banks. Side-note, can you imagine how quickly pay gaps would close if a black man was being paid more than a white man or a gay man was being paid more than a straight man for doing the same job?

LGBTQIA+ communities around the world have fought long and hard against oppression. Sadly, in some parts of the world, they are still fighting, sometimes for their lives, against oppression. If Birmingham Pride accepts sponsorship from a business that not only plays a part in the oppression of Hong Kong citizens and the killing of Palestinian citizens but is also financing the destruction of the planet and if Becky Hill performs at a festival that is sponsored by a business as toxic as HSBC, the messages they are sending to the LGBTQIA+ community in Birmingham, oppressed people the world over, women and our children is loud and couldn't be clearer:

Birmingham Pride and Becky Hill don't care about the oppression and killing of people in other countries, Birmingham Pride and Becky Hill don't care about the destruction of the eco-system that all life depends on (including the lives of our children and our children's children) and Birmingham Pride and Becky Hill also don't care about financial inequalities between the sexes.

If Birmingham Pride, the LGBTQIA+ community, the people of Birmingham and Becky Hill allow themselves to be "PInkwashed" by HSBC, the message they will send is that none of those things matter, just so long as people get to have a good time at Birmingham Pride.

Is that really what Birmingham Pride, the LGBTQIA+ community, the people of Birmingham and Becky Hill want to be known and remembered for?

*https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/money-finance/whats-wrong-hsbc-barclays