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SXSW Drops U.S. Army and Weapons Manufacturers

TIES TO ISRAEL & WEAPONS COMPANIES: Founded in 1987, SXSW is an annual film, cultural, and technology festival that takes place in Austin, TX. Palestine solidarity activists have targeted this event several times over the years for its ties to U.S. weapons manufacturers and its platforming of “Brand Israel,” a public relations campaign led by the state of Israel to culturewash Israel’s war crimes.

RESPONSE TO GAZA GENOCIDE: More than 80 artists withdrew from the 2024 festival, pressuring SXSW to cut ties with U.S. militarism.

Chicago-based songwriter Ella Williams, AKA Squirrel Flower, explained her decision to boycott in an Instagram post: “These defense contractors make the weapons that the IDF uses to bomb Gaza. The IDF has now killed at least one in every 75 inhabitants of Gaza, [and] I refuse to be complicit in that,” she wrote. “I don’t believe that a music festival should include profiteers of war—I believe that art is a tool to create a better world and has no place alongside warmongers.”

Following the pressure campaign led by artists, in June 2024, SXSW announced: “After careful consideration, we are revising our sponsorship model. As a result, the U.S. Army, and companies who engage in weapons manufacturing, will not be sponsors of SXSW 2025.”

The success of the SXSW campaign demonstrates that even innocuous-seeming cultural institutions have long been entangled with the U.S. war machine, and that through organizing and strategic pressure campaigns, those ties can be cut.

Boeing’s Influence in St. Louis, Missouri

TIES TO WEAPONS COMPANY: Boeing, the fourth largest arms manufacturer in the world, produces advanced weaponry for use in global conflicts. Many of these munitions, which have killed countless civilians including in Gaza, are built in Boeing facilities in St. Louis, Missouri.

CULTURAL & EDUCATIONAL POWER: Boeing’s influence in St. Louis extends far beyond its industrial operations. The company sponsors key local events and institutions like the St. Louis Science Center and Pride St. Louis. Its executives hold influential board positions at prestigious local institutions, including Cortex St. Louis, and donate significant sums to local universities, cultural institutions, and philanthropic efforts.

Washington University’s ties to Boeing are extensive. Boeing funds a research center at the business school, offers tuition discounts for its employees, funds scholarships, and is a major employer of Washington University graduates. This relationship has drawn sharp criticism from student activists who assert that the university is complicit in the genocide in Gaza by maintaining financial ties with Boeing.

RESPONSE TO GAZA GENOCIDE: After months of organizing on campus to demand divestment from Boeing—passing resolutions and hosting peaceful rallies—students, staff, and faculty from Washington University experienced extreme repression from the University ultimately resulting in physical violence.

In late April, during another protest calling for divestment from Boeing, Washington University administrators called in multiple police departments to violently break up a peaceful student demonstration. A total of 100 people were arrested at the protest, including students, Washington University faculty, and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville professor, Steve Tamari. Professor Tamari was recording video of the protests when police officers slammed him to the ground and arrested him. The police broke nine of Tamari’s ribs and his hand in the violent arrest, showing the extreme measures police at Washington University were taking to silence and deter protests.

The violent repression faced by campus protesters must be contextualized within Washington University’s deep financial ties to Boeing. By maintaining these ties, the university attempts to mask its role in global violence and war profiteering. Washington University is only one university among hundreds who prop up the genocide gentry.

Human Rights Campaign: Uniquely Powerful, Uniquely Vulnerable

TIES TO WEAPONS COMPANY: HRC is supported by big donors, including corporate partners like Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, and Target. Among HRC’s Platinum Partners is weapons manufacturer Northrop Grumman.

In 2023 HRC exemplified pinkwashing by awarding two weapons companies, Northrop Grumman and Boeing, its highest Corporate Equality rating for their “treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees.” Pinkwashing involves the use of rhetoric supporting LGBTQ+ identity to obscure justifications for violence, war, militarism, or any oppression that materially harms others.

CULTURAL & POLITICAL POWER: HRC is the largest civil rights organization in the United States focusing on “the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people.” Established in 1980, HRC is a uniquely powerful lobby that represents a significant portion of the Democratic Party’s voting base. Insiders say that HRC is the organization that the Biden administration most closely listens to on policy, and leaders of the organization meet with the Biden-Harris administration on a weekly basis.

RESPONSE TO GAZA GENOCIDE: On Valentine’s Day 2024, over 100 protestors gathered outside HRC’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. demanding that the organization call for a ceasefire in Gaza and condemning the organization’s pinkwashing of the war machine.

HRC’s entanglement with weapons companies and the genocide gentry is a key barrier to the organization’s support for a permanent ceasefire.

An ongoing campaign, led by Adalah Justice Project, ACT UP New York, No Pride in Genocide, Writers Against the War on Gaza, and others, is demanding that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) sever its ties with Northrop Grumman. The campaign calls on HRC to align its policies and actions with its stated values of equality and dignity by advocating for a ceasefire, ending relationships with weapons companies, and supporting Palestinian lives, including those of queer Palestinians.