As we all know, June
is Pride Month for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,
and queer (LGBTQ) communities across the country - and
parades abound.
Unlike
the revolutionary decade of the 1960s, during which the
air bred dissent, we LGBTQ people appear to be residing
in a sanguine time - rebels without a cause, a context
or an agenda. Many of us would argue that we have moved
from our once urgent state of, �Why we can�t wait!� to
our present lull state of, �Where do we go from here?�
With advances such
as hate crime laws, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell� repealed,
same-sex marriage legal in some states, anti-homophobic
a national concern, we have come a long way since the
first Pride marches four decades ago. Also, with the AIDS
epidemic no longer ravaging our community as it once did
- an epidemic that galvanized us to organize - and with
the Religious Right becoming more of a political liability
than an asset to political candidates these days, our
backs appear to not be slammed as harshly up against a
brick wall like they used to be.
Some in our community
contest that we are in a holding pattern while other argue
that we are ready to assimilate into mainstream society.
Boston Pride's new Human Rights and Education Committee
(HREC) broached this topic by presenting a forum to discuss
the impact of assimilation on LGBTQ communities and cultures.
In its flyer HREC
wrote, "2010 was a year of progress for the LGBT
Community...Of course there is more to accomplish before
we can consider ourselves truly equal and some of the
questions we want to delve into are:
With
the LGBTQ community being the fastest disenfranchised
group to touch the fringes of America�s mainstream since
the Stonewall Riots in 1969, many who oppose the LGBTQ
community driving forth an assimilationist agenda are
waving a cautionary finger saying to us �not too fast
now.� And the cautionary finger waving is because not
everyone in the LGBTQ community is accepted.
While we all rev up
each June for Pride so, too, do the fault lines of race
and class in our larger and white LGBTQ community. In
addition to Gay Pride events, there will be segments of
our population attending separate Black, Asian, and Latino
Gay Pride events. And oddly enough, the racial divide
that is always evident at Pride events across the country
shows us something troubling and broken about ourselves
as we strive to be a community and movement.
The growing distance
between our larger and white LGBTQ community and LGBTQ
communities of color is shown by how, for an example,
a health issue like HIV/AIDS, that was once an entire
LGBTQ community problem, is now predominately only in
communities of color.
The themes and focus
of Black, Asian, and Latino Pride events are different
from the larger Pride events. Prides of communities of
color focus on issues not solely pertaining to its LGBTQ
community but rather on social, economic and health issues
impacting their entire community. For example, where the
primary focus and themes in white Prides has been on marriage
equality, as in the larger community, LGBTQ people of
African descent Pride events have had to focus not only
on HIV/AIDS but also on unemployment, housing, gang violence
, LGBTQ youth homelessness, etc.
And cultural acceptance
is just one of a few things LGBTQ communities of color
still do not experience from larger Pride events, experiencing
social exclusion and invisibility. For example, Sunday
gospel brunches, Saturday night Poetry slams, Friday evening
fashion shows, bid whist tournaments, house parties, the
smell of soul food and Caribbean cuisine and the beautiful
display of African art and clothing are just a few of
the cultural markers that make Black Pride distinctly
different from the dominant queer culture.
After decades of Pride
events, where many LGBTQ people of African decent tried
to be included and weren�t, Black Gay Pride was born.
While Pride events are still fraught with divisions, they,
nonetheless, bind us to a common struggle for LGBTQ equality.
Driving forth an assimilationist
agenda would eradicate the idea that our gift and our
struggle are that we are a diverse community. Our diversity
as a LGBTQ community should not be diluted, but rather,
our diversity should teach us more about its complexity,
and by extension, teach the larger society.
Our diversity not
only affirms our uniqueness as LGBTQ people; it also broadens
America�s
understanding that a democratic society is a diverse one.
BlackCommentator.com
Editorial Board member, the Rev. Irene Monroe, is a religion
columnist, theologian, and public speaker. She is the Coordinator of
the African-American Roundtable of the Center for Lesbian and
Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at the Pacific
School of Religion.
A native of Brooklyn,
Rev. Monroe is a graduate from Wellesley College and Union
Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and served
as a pastor at an African-American church before coming
to Harvard Divinity School for her doctorate as a Ford
Fellow. She was recently named to MSNBC�s list of 10 Black Women You Should Know. Reverend Monroe is the author
of Let Your Light Shine Like a Rainbow Always: Meditations on Bible
Prayers for Not�So�Everyday Moments. As an African-American
feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector of society
that is frequently invisible. Her website
is irenemonroe.com.
Click here
to contact the Rev. Monroe.