Hello, fellow GLBT brothers & sisters. Some of you may remember me as a board member for the 2007 Pride. After completing work on that Pride, I moved to Los Angeles, where I have been since.
Last night, I marched 10 miles over nine hours from one end of Hollywood, straight into the heart of West Hollywood — the home to our city’s largest gay population. On that long, slow, arduous, and painful late-night walk — at which point the marchers faced-off with LAPD and eventually succeeded in having them clear a long stretch of Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard on a traffic-jammed Saturday night — I felt echoes of the struggle at Stonewall, wondered if I was taking part in the second coming of GLBT opposition to public repression.
In the past eight years, we have lost immeasurably against the forces of intolerance in our country, even as a black man was elected our land’s highest office this past week. Even as we gain allies through simply being out, the doors to our civil liberties have been slammed shut and locked close by the people of many states. But now, as this refreshed hunger for equality spreads across our country, I can see that the straw has finally broken on this camel’s back. We will not be denied what is rightfully ours.
I remember how dark and lonely Arkansas could feel at times. How every conversation with even my closest friends felt like a dull, awful burn whenever they would question why my rights were necessary. But I knew, at our Pride Celebration in 2007, that we had made huge progress in bringing our community together and for once appreciating the assets we had, right there in our small city.
My friends: you have only eight months until the next Pride celebration is due to be held. And that will be only nine months after the public took from you the privilege of caring for those children without families, who most need our love and guidance. If you have not yet thought about how you PERSONALLY will help this organization succeed, then you are failing it. Now, when enthusiasm is rising in our community across this great country, is the time for you to take ownership over a small piece of this coming Pride celebration. Now is when Arkansas needs this enthusiasm. It needs your voices, and your compassion, your energy, and your ability to educate friends, family, and neighbors. The people of Arkansas need to understand why you are who you are, and they need to understand why trampling on your civil rights is the very thing that our founding fathers hoped to avoid when they began this grand experiment.
Participating in Pride does NOT require months or work or hundreds of dollars. Your contribution does not need to be big, it just needs to BE. Boundless opportunities are available. Some of these include assisting in the organizing and setup of fundraising events; showing up at meetings to provide your support, enthusiasm, and creative ideas; helping to publicize the organization and it’s events by just telling one other person and asking them to join you; and so-forth. Many of these things can be done in a few minutes, in small bits, across the next few months. Don’t commit to do everything, just commit to do SOMETHING. Whatever that may be, just make sure you do it.
This is it, folks. If you wait much longer to do your part in making this event a success, the opportunity will pass you by, and much like how we here in California believed that “others were taking care of it,” or that “there’s no way ‘it’ could pass here”, you will be blindsided by the reality of the loss. Do your part. Show up. Make a difference.
- Jordan
