Politics

The Cops Are Trying To Improve Their Image By Handing Out Cupcakes For Mardi Gras

And people are not impressed.

by Rachael Conaghan  27 February 2020
mardi gras police

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Historically, there hasn’t been much love lost between the police and the queer community.

But today the police took some steps forward in fixing that damaged relationship with … cupcakes?

Officers from the NSW police force were handing out free baked goods in Sydney’s Taylor Square today in support of Mardi Gras, which left a bitter taste in a lot of people’s mouths — metaphorically.

Famously, the first Mardi Gras back in 1978 started as a protest, with people pushing for the decriminalisation of homosexuality while marking the anniversary of New York’s Stonewall riots.

The protest ended in violence after a huge police crackdown, with 53 people arrested for taking part in the march.

Over the coming months the police brutality continued to escalate as protests continued, until finally the NSW Parliament repealed the legislation that had made the arrests possible. That’s how Australia’s first Mardis Gras became such a major civil rights milestone, with around 3,000 people marching the following year.

So, naturally, the presence of police at the event is a sensitive subject for many.

It didn’t take long for people to start airing their grievances about a whole bunch of other issues — chiefly, the strip searching of children and their horrific track record of Indigenous deaths in custody.

I love a free cupcake as much as the next person, but it looks like it’ll take more than that to make people forget that you were literally arresting people for being gay just over 20 years ago.