NOT TODAY SATAN! NYC PRIDE '16
It's a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in New York City. Less than a week from the horrifying massacre that took place in Orlando, the Village is saturated, overflowing with love. People - regardless of race, gender, faith, or sexuality - fill the the streets and sidewalks with indescribable exuberance. As we walk through the winding pathways of Manhattan's west side, I'm in awestruck by the freedom of every individual. Groups gather in small bunches and clusters, each with a charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and style all their own. My God, what a time to be alive.
I gaze in wonder at the scene before my eyes and am confounded by the disparities that exist between this image of indiscriminate acceptance, and the blind, gross, hatred still rampant in parts of our world. How can such antiquated views still prevail when pieces of our population coexist so easily and peacefully?
I suppose I was spoiled - raised in a family of hodge-podge heritage, with a great uncle who owned a gay bar in the heart of the Midwest, and a slew of parental figures who always stressed the simple virtue of people being people.
I remember long nights of game play and hearty laughs in my grandma's piano room - a myriad of colorful men and women sat around the table, eating parfaits, drinking g&ts. I remember painting Auntie Bob's toenails purple before he returned home to Arizona; the sly grin on Uncle Gene's face when he stepped out of the car on Halloween of '98, dressed in full drag, a big-chested cheerleader eager to cause a ruckus. In love with pop culture and immersed in the arts, I was sure that the world could overcome all through song, dance, and creative self-expression. Regardless of any other ups and downs associated with my upbringing, I feel immeasurably blessed to have been gifted this insight from such a young age.
It was over a decade into my life before I realized that such experiences were not necessarily the norm. Shortly after my tenth birthday, I moved from Kansas City, Missouri, a relatively eclectic outpost of middle-America, to Springfield, the home of Bass Pro and over five hundred churches. Unsurprisingly, one of the first things I noticed was how flagrantly Caucasian everything was.
"Where are all the black kids?" I asked my aunt after my first day at McBride Elementary.
Unlike my previous school, a Spanish-magnet where the vast majority of both pupils and staff were either black or Hispanic, at McBride, there was one other student of color in my class - a demographic spread that sadly only differs by a percentage or two from the city's as a whole. Sadder still, sometime around January, tragedy struck, and Andre, our single, beloved, brown-skinned boy, transferred, officially making the fifth grade the whitest place I'd been in my life. Still, I held tight to my familial flavor and attempted to understand my new surroundings.
In addition to being the most fair-skinned community I'd ever been a part of, Springfield was also the most conservative, a detail that made that understanding stuff a bit more challenging. All the things I'd grown up watching and listening to - Madonna, MTV, Too Wong Foo - were suddenly so taboo. Even the reading of Harry Potter had been banned by the parents of many of my friends and classmates. None of that devil craft to fill the minds of suburban Hannah or Baptist Haley, no siree!
In middle school, being black or well-read became slightly more okay. Gay on the other hand, was absolutely still a synonym for stupid. For a while, it was a word that my peers and I used that way quite regularly. My aunt, who had become my legal guardian, generally wrote it off as youthful ignorance and poor language. We definitely weren't anti-gay in our beliefs after all. However, the scoldings and looks of disgust dished out by my grandma when I let the phrase slip around her let me know pretty clearly that this derivative was not okay.
At first I didn't understand why it was such a big deal. I didn't mean it "like that." But as I began to take in the world around me, to better understand the power of language and speech, I soon realized regardless of my personal intent, hate breeds hate, and there was nothing uplifting about what my words were building.
Views obscured by the microscope of my life, I easily forgot how pertinent the battle for human equality remained. Just because my own bubble had been touched by every shade and prismatic shape of the rainbow, didn't mean that the rest of the world had caught up; nor did it give me permission to proliferate negativity without regard of effect.
While I have long since purged my vocabulary of such associations, recent events have been a stark reminder that again, my own microcosm is a blessing and sadly still a rarity. As progressive as many of our surroundings have become, there is still so much work to be done.
Recently I spent an hour debating my Auntie Mother about the political mockery continuing to unfold this election year; about the injustices, the corruption, the undeniable brokenness of our sociopolitical systems. Things came to a head when she admitted that she haaaatess Hillary Clinton. I hear my grandma's gasp fall from my own mouth at the other end of the line.
"Seriously, I'm hanging up if you say you're voting for Trump," I threaten, attempting to reign in the vocal despair.
Suddenly I feel fourteen again, like I'm fighting "because I said so" logic, the childlike crack of voice betraying my composure.
"I might just not even vote this year."
The social studies teacher in me rises up in protest.
"You can't just be indifferent! How is that going to change anything?! This is about human rights!"
"Oh Min," she says. "I admire your passion."
All afternoon I pout over the defeat of the draw, try not to be overwhelmed by the condition of society, by the state of my own life. It's nothing new, this endless list - ideas, missions, dreams, to-dos; nor is the challenge of deciphering where to begin. I read the news and unpack my thoughts, say a prayer, and hope for the best.
When I finally let go and look around, at the parade of unapologetic love and personal freedom before me, at the tangled web of weird and wonderful humans who have made me who I am, I begin to understand. We don't all have to be activists or politicians to make a difference. It is not our individual task to save the entire fucking world. What it ultimately all comes down to is empathy, simple and plain.
Regardless of where one falls on the spectrum of beliefs, the emerging extremes of our cultural climate have finally forced us, as a people, to think, to have conversations, to at least attempt to understand all sides. After decades of pretending it's all good, we as a nation, are ACTUALLY acknowledging the harsh, reality that confronts us - first-world riches and tremendous global influence do not make us immune to the issues of inequality that have plagued humanity for centuries. We are a fractured state, with conflicts of core rooted deeper than imagined. And it turns out, progress and peace are incredibly complicated.
Redefining the doctrine of American ideals is not something that happens over night. It takes A LOT of time to eradicate antiquated beliefs and to destroy systems long built for the limiting of power to the historical elite. As a people, we must be patient, but not complacent. We must be aware of the status quo, without succumbing to it. We must fight long and hard if we are to establish an infrastructure that is truly founded on real freedoms.
Although progress is slow, as I long as I live and breathe, I cannot help but remain hopeful. With passions high and fight freshly roused, the outpouring of life, in my city alone, is proof too potent to be suppressed or denied. A change is in the air. Full faith I put forth, that ultimately love will ALWAYS conquer all.
