PRIDE!

Dear Reader,

LGBTQ pride is an everyday thing.  And yet it is right and fitting to assign it a unique month.  June always feels special to me, because each day reminds me of the great progress made in the struggle for equality.  And the fight for essential rights still not granted.  And the extraordinary vigilance needed to prevent erosion.

June also reminds me of the revelers who turn out for the big Pride March in Manhattan.  June 24, this year.  For a period of about six years—from 1998 to 2004, roughly—I watched every parade, viewed every float, and read every banner.  And took pictures.  Lots of pictures.  Walter and I had a system worked out:  We took along a step-stool so that I could perch just above the crowd and get a good view of nearly anyone—and anything—passing by.  Walter minded the equipment bag (as well as steadying the step-stool) and got very good at helping me change film.  Remember film?  And Walter stowed each precious exposed spool in a dark pocket of the camera bag.

I was so delighted with my photos that I put them up on a website.  My first, I think.  And it looks it.  Prideview.com is still live, in case you want to see it.  I ran out of steam after a few years, but I’ve always been pleased that I posted as many images as I did; even though I rarely look at them except in June.

Walter and I often set up on Christopher Street.  Even though it was at the end of the parade route and the marchers were beginning to tire, the welcome they received from deep in the Village was rousing and vocal.  Every year there were new favorites—activist charities and TV actors, principally.  And there were perennial faves, especially PFLAG.  And the Gay Officers Action League.  The sight of all those men and women in blue dedicated to rainbow ideals was always stirring.

Things change.  This year, the hosts of the NYC Pride events—Heritage of Pride, or Pride NYC—have rebuffed the demands of a group called Reclaim Pride Coalition.  I didn’t quite get it at first, that RPC demanded that the police presence in the March be reduced, including no uniforms—or weapons—for the GOAL.  But they have reasons, of course.  And in this case they are offering a powerful argument for freeing the March of symbols of discrimination for people of color.  And RPC is protesting—loudly—that their placement in the stepping-off schedule will deny them press coverage.

Who’s right, HOP or RPC?  I’m just glad that we can have the argument.  And speaking of arguments, the new parade route makes no more sense to me than it does to RPC.  Check out the new route at MarchRouteMap.pdf.  Or read about it at https://www.nycpride.org/events/the-march/.  This year the March will not form on side streets near Central Park (where there is room for groups to assemble) nor end near the piers on the Hudson (where after-parade events have been scheduled for decades).  And, of course, there will be no chance for marchers to register their beliefs in front of Trump Tower or St. Patrick’s Cathedral, as marchers have been free to do for some years now.

I’m disturbed, and I’m also hopeful.  And that is a perennial—and healthy—position for all of us to find ourselves in.  The image below is from 2000, by the way.  As always, I wish you pride and outrage, probably in equal measures.  Thanks for reading.

Bruce