PRIDE and Transparency
June is Pride month.
Taylor Swift recently said at one of her concerts "we can't talk about Pride Month without talking about pain.”
It IS painful to see concerted effort to silence our LGBTQ community, our successes and our losses are all —our voices.
It IS painful to watch us come this far only to be erased by buyers not purchasing LGBTQ merchandise out of fear of backlash and loss of sales.
It IS painful corporations try reducing acts of assault at the expense of the LGBTQ community.
It IS painful to see Disney, currently a frontrunner for LGBTQ rights, stand up for our community as many companies pale in shortsighted policies aimed more at profitability than humanity, putting profits above the rights and dignity of the very people they claim to serve.
It is not acceptable. Please stop hiding behind false slogans when asked serious questions.
June is Pride month.
The Department of Homeland Security issued a warning about an escalation of threat and violence against LGBTQ events, gatherings, and individuals.
While inclusion and diversity wording is making its way into corporate rhetoric, the truer needs for safer and healthier live, work and play environments lives in these points:
Stand behind what is good and right for human rights, don’t ignore it and walk away. This chapter in our lives will become history, written as such and documented by historians, thus reflecting back in historical context the common and best practices of current CEO’s and their board members views.
It serves no one when individuals, groups, or a company hides their LGBTQ merchandise either by design or by company buyers just plain not purchasing it. Shame on those corporations, and the people making those discretionary decisions.
After the world watched the assault on January 6, 2021 on the United States Capital and American democracy, seeing disinformation campaigns multiply the manipulation of innocent people, or the rhetoric from some Floridian wannabe authoritarians that wish to end any and every form of “woke” leftism —the last thing we should be enduring today is the silencing of celebrating a world-wide voice Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, in 1957 called “the beloved community”
“Love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears down and destroys. The aftermath of the ‘fight with fire’ method which you suggest is bitterness and chaos, the aftermath of the love method is reconciliation and creation of the beloved community. Physical force can repress, restrain, coerce, destroy, but it cannot create and organize anything permanent; only love can do that. Yes, love—which means understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill, even for one’s enemies—is the solution to the race problem.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr., 1957
During the 1960s and 70’s, minority groups fought uphill battles to achieve freedoms that exist today. One example is gay marriage. (Though some would like us all to retreat backward into a 1950s southern pre-civil war era.)
Our battles allowed us to become visible in more positive ways. We sought not to hide but to become part of culture.
Pride isn’t only about gay rights. In 1973, abortion became legal in all fifty states. We almost past the ERA, and with a new attitude single women could manage career, achieve higher education, become music superstars and own businesses. As we’ve seen by the Supreme Court decision in 21st century politics, women’s rights too are on republican states’ chopping block.
Our bottom line is this. We (LGBTQ, minority groups, and women) feared for our lives, often beaten and left bloody by haters or bullies, too many left to die on dark lonely streets or on kitchen tables.
Not considered equal to those who lived “traditional family” lives. Not considered human to some.
June is Pride month.
We are not victims, not weak, nor helpless. We are leaders.
We are leaders.
Leaders.
So don’t talk to us about protection and don’t talk to us about controversy, and don’t talk to us about the falling in line when our community has lived —a violent past.
Today’s businessmen and politicians can best serve us all by simply walking their talk on diversity.
June is Pride month.
Our North Star is well past due.
We need to do better. We can do better.
And in closing, the one thing we can say with certainty is this; silence is complicity.
Photo by James A. Molnar on Unsplash