The most prominent slogans of ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), however, were "WHERE IS YOUR RAGE?" and "SILENCE = DEATH" (see the photographs of big banners that read "WHERE IS YOUR RAGE?" and "SILENCE = DEATH" at <http://www.actupny.org/video/>).
Great slogans, though not at all funny. What motivated ACT UP activists was griefs over deaths of their friends and lovers and genocidal malice and indifference that the homophobic power elite manifested toward queers and other outcasts through pharmaceutical companies' profiteering and the federal government's slow, inadequate, and inappropriate responses to the AIDS crisis (e.g., in funding research, testing drugs, establishing prevention education, implementing needle exchanges, taking care of the sick and destitute, responding to same-sex activities and AIDS among the exploding prison population, etc.).
The relationship between joy and rage was also complex for Queer Nation activists. Queer Nation activists defiantly affirmed the courage of being an "alive and functioning Queer" at all in a world that wished queers dead as a revolutionary act and celebrated the joy of affirming their rage in public:
<blockquote>How can I tell you? How can I convince you, Brother, Sister, that your life is in danger? That everyday you wake up alive, relatively happy, and a functioning human being, you are committing a rebellious act. You as an alive and functioning Queer are a Revolutionary. There is nothing on this planet that validates, protects or encourages your existence. It is a miracle you are standing here reading these words. You should by all rights be dead.
Don't be fooled, straight people own the world and the only reason you have been spared is you're smart, lucky, or a fighter. Straight people have a privilege that allows them to do whatever they please and fuck without fear. But not only do they live a life free of fear; they flaunt their freedom in my face. Their images are on my TV, in the magazine I bought, in the restaurant I want to eat in, and on the street where I live. I want there to be a moratorium on straight marriage, on babies, on public displays of affection among the opposite sex and media images that promote heterosexuality. Until I can enjoy the same freedom of movement and sexuality, as straights, their privilege must stop and it must be given over to me and my queer sisters and brothers.
Straight people will not do this voluntarily and so they must be forced into it. Straights must be frightened into it. Terrorized into it. Fear is the most powerful motivator. No one will give us what we deserve. Rights are not given they are taken, by force if necessary.
(_The Queer Nation Manifesto_, <http://5of5.info/virtualexile/manifesto.htm> and <http://www.jessanderson.org/doc/qnation.html>)</blockquote>
That's more Malcolm X than a carnival. And it's no wonder. Queer Nation activists were appropriating the words and means developed by the Black nationalist movement.
Yoshie