Sunday’s Pride Parade in New York City was a moment in history those who were part of the massive crowd will never forget. A beautiful, colorful, joyful spectacle that marked the beginning of the world so many have dreamed of, ached for, for lifetimes.
It was, quite simply, a day about love. Just love. And for someone who grew up in a neighborhood marked by bigotry, it was a day almost too big, too beautiful, to grasp in its layers of meaning, in the lives it can change, and hearts it can heal.
But first, a little history: Growing up in Brooklyn, we kids saw the world through a lens colored by hatred.
Our groups of friends were sharply divided: White kids hung out with other white kids, blacks and Latinos did the same. And when the groups dared to step across the invisible but sure as steel lines, the fights often escalated into deadly assaults.
When I got to high school, the names for each of the ethnic groups became even more ugly. The fights, more vicious. The scene outside the school building, by the corner where we waited for the bus, sometimes resembled nothing more than a teeming mass of prejudice, with kids jumping each other, hurling racial slurs and throwing punches.
And this was in a “good” neighborhood.
Some of the guys went from serving as altar boys to forming tough-guy crews who’d head, we’d hear, via salacious whispers, into New York City on a Friday night, aiming for the West Side, brandishing baseball bats and hoping to beat up a few “fags.”
Having been brought up by my mother, my free-spiriting, peace-loving mother, who believed white or black, purple or green, straight or gay, everyone was equal, I couldn’t understand the vile, hate-laced rants my peers would engage in, couldn’t fathom why my crush at 14 on a young, handsome Latino boy was enough to send my friends into a hatred-filled frenzy. They warned me that were I to date someone of his ethnic background, I’d be ostracized and an outright war could ensue.
One of my best friends in high school was a boy named Joey. He took me dancing at discos, bought me chicken with peanuts and broccoli in Chinatown, and showed me the meaning of what true style meant. I didn’t realize until college that Joey was gay, and I could not have cared less. But his sexuality, back then, was a secret. There were no gay-straight alliances in our high school. And I’d never met a lesbian. Not until, again, college, when my world expanded and I enrolled in an art school that openly gay and proud graffiti artist Keith Haring had attended, did I realize that the world was suddenly filled with vivid, beautiful color. Black, white, gay, straight, purple hair, nose piercings, the theme was acceptance.
I’d found my people.
I think it’s almost impossible to grasp just how important Sunday’s Pride Parade in New York was to the many thousands that packed the streets to witness a singular moment in history.
After Friday’s Supreme Court ruling that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right, the hours’ long procession was marked by such outright joy it was often difficult to remember the parade was taking place on New York’s cynical streets.
On Saturday night, I interviewed a group of gay women who shared their stories. They’ve been beaten. Forbidden to stand beside the ones they loved who lay dying in hospitals, unless they said they were sisters, not lovers. One woman, an accomplished writer, had to use a pseudonym for years; no one would publish a book written by a lesbian. Another, a reverend, performed countless marriages but was unable to plan her own wedding. Another woman was called a child molester by her family; kids were dragged out of the swimming pool when she stepped inside.
Those stories were echoing in my heart and mind Sunday at the parade, when I saw the tears on the faces of couples marching side-by-side, proud and exuberant. Finally, finally accepted. And not only accepted, but met with cheers and thunderous applause.
Babies and their moms marched alongside two men, as one man knelt to the ground and proposed to the love of his life. Baring their bodies and their very souls, those marching in the parade seemed fueled by an almost frenzied energy, an almost palpable passion.
Openly gay, uniformed police officers danced joyfully in the crowd, years of secrecy shed like so much confetti.
Love won. It was the mantra of the day. For one single day, there were no assaults, no thugs brandishing bats. There was no need to hide passion and true love in dark, dingy bars or to cloak a relationship under the gray cover of night. On Sunday, the Pride Parade was a loud, flamboyant, gloriously colorful party. One man wore a sign that read, “I’m free.”
And he was. So were the many denied the right to marry, the rights afforded heterosexual couples forever. Holding hands, kissing, dancing, singing, getting engaged and celebrating decades of union, couples were free to just be. To just love, openly and without reservation.
Sunday was about love, in every shape and color, size and incarnation. And while it was a victory for same-sex couples, it was a defining moment for us all, a moment when our humanity came shining through, stamping hatred to the ground in a dance of solidarity. It was a moment when love won, pure and simple.
It was a personal moment of victory, when the memories of bat-brandishing racists was banished by the sight of couples dancing, holding hands, kissing, proposing.
And then, Sunday was followed by last night, when a crowd gathered in Greenport for a vigil to fight back against a hate-filled act of violence in Charlotte that left nine dead.
To paraphrase one of the wonderful women who shared their stories with me this weekend, for the first time in perhaps my lifetime, I felt my faith in humanity restored.
At the Pride Parade, I saw the future in the face of my son and his friends, a new generation that hosts pride parties, joins gay/straight alliances, and champions not hatred, but outright, across the board, acceptance. In their bright, cheering faces, I saw the hope of the future.
Yes, evil exists. Vile, horrific acts of hatred and racism and prejudice and crippling ignorance. But we have the power to fight back, not with guns, not with knives or beatings, but with the power of human connection. By holding hands, wrapping our arms around each other, and choosing love. Just love.
