Pride and Juneteenth: Cognitive dissonance

The beginning of June, the beginning of Pride—and Juneteenth happens this month as well. In recent years, these events were cause for celebration as we acknowledge and celebrate the LGBTQ+ community as well as celebrating Black liberation. However, at this moment, we find ourselves in a very different reality than a year ago, as the Trump regime has made it a top priority to roll back progress and cause active harm to both the LGBTQ+ and Black communities with its desire to strip the humanity away from anyone it deems problematic.

As I write this, transgender members of the military have been given 30 days to voluntarily leave the military. That 30 days expires on June 6. After that date, the defense department will start going through medical records to identify transgender service members to kick out.

From firing qualified federal employees deemed to be “DEI hires” to cutting the budgets of programs that serve or uplift the LGBTQ+ or Black community, we are in a new era, and we need to be cognizant of that reality in how we choose to celebrate. In fact, our celebrations should reflect that new reality.

It is not business as usual. We can’t check our localized “diversity” boxes without awareness of what marginalized communities are experiencing.

For months, the state of Maine has been a target of the administration, because our state laws don’t allow discrimination and one very unwell state legislator, Laurel Libby, decided to be loud and wrong and she doxxed a trans teenage athlete under the guise of “protecting” women and girls.

This abhorrent behavior earned her recognition from the regime and a meeting with U.S. attorney general, Pam Bondi, along with a censure from the Maine House of Representatives after Libby refused to remove her Facebook post about the student athlete. Most adults would agree that a politician targeting a child is a bad thing, but in this upside-down world, Libby disagreed. The U.S. Supreme Court recently reinstated Libby’s right to vote as a member of the House but she still must keep her offensive trap shut.

Across the country, trans people are scared; gay and lesbian people are scared. Black folks are concerned as we realize that we are inching closer to going back to the very Jim Crow existence that many of our parents and grandparents endured. Interesting tidbit: The last of Jim Crow laws were struck down in 1968, the same year my white ex-husband was born and only five years before the birth of yours truly.

Black folks in America have only truly been free for 57 years. We made a lot of progress in that time, and it was never enough to make up for this nation’s debt to us, but it was apparently enough for enough white people to decide that it was too much. They were tired of Black excellence and, well, here we are.

The most impacted group with the DOGE cuts, other than women in general, has been Black folks. Federal employment was literally the ticket to growing a Black middle class in this country and with the reduction in workforce, that means we will see the Black middle class shrink.

Here in Maine, our Black community has grown due to the influx of Black immigrants over the last two decades. We have seen communities transformed into diverse multicultural communities that add value and depth to all our lives.

This also means that a disproportionate percentage of Maine’s Black community is in a heightened state of awareness and fear as the regime’s policies impact them here in Maine. The local Immigrant Welcoming Center in Portland, Maine, recently had to shutter its physical location due to the funding cuts. It almost certainly won’t be the last group to be impacted because of what is coming out of Washington.

Yet, as communities plan their annual celebrations of Pride and Juneteenth, the cognitive dissonance is real. Events are being planned and that is great but if we really want to celebrate, how are we keeping people safe? How are we assisting targeted communities beyond the days of celebration? Hell, are we even asking members of impacted communities to participate and offer to pay them?

As a formerly prolific public speaker, I am not speaking anywhere for Juneteenth. I had one inquiry, and they said they would get back to me and never did. I asked around in my circle of fellow Black speakers nationally and almost no one has been booked to speak for Juneteenth, not even my buddies with Wikipedia pages and multiple books.

This is the continuation of a downturn that many of us had started to see even before the election, when our calendars dried up. Mine dried up so much that I decided I no longer needed an agent because when I did get a gig, her 20% fee was starting to hurt.

Instead, what I have noticed is that communities will plan events celebrating diversity and look for any available marginalized person who fits the criteria for said diversity initiative and who is often happy for attention and a few bucks.

I am not knocking the hustle; hell, I also started off totally underselling myself and essentially giving away my labor. But I also know as a Black woman, especially when I am working with a predominantly white audience, it is a heavy energetic lift. I also know if that event is publicized, I need to prepare for the possibility of harassment, and this was even before the return of Orange Julius.

We absolutely should celebrate Pride. Hell, Pride started as a riot. We need to honor that history and bring it into the current moment as we watch this regime attempt to dehumanize our queer family.

If anything, this year’s Pride should pay deep homage to the struggle and how that fight will continue moving forward. For Juneteenth, the fight also continues for liberation. These events cannot simply be fun and rainbow flags or Pan-African colors with corporate sponsors.

More than ever, we will need to rely on the historic strength that guided our ancestors so we could get to a place of celebration. Event organizers need to lean into paying homage and going fully in and showing these events that still occur will be more than box-checking, feel-good performances.

They need to be grounded in current reality, celebrating those who came before us and the progress, while also understanding that we are living history right now that might undo all that work. Live your values and bring them everywhere, even to the community celebrations.

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