For those who don’t know, June is Pride Month, a celebration of LGBTQ lives and rights hard-fought-for. Like many other celebratory months, Black History Month among them, it is a time to be more publicly loud and proud, a time for reflection and, you know (if you’re fortunate) a time to educate people who aren’t completely invested in ignorance and prejudice for their identities.
It’s been great this month to not only see so many LGBTQ people celebrating themselves individually and each other as a group (and there’s so much diversity within this group) but also supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and Black and brown people generally. Over and over online, I’ve seen people from the whole spectrum of the LGBTQ+ experience remind others that one cannot honestly and completely celebrate Pride Month and then complain about the recent protests (mostly peaceful but also some that have not been). Because Pride Month and LGBTQ rights and recognition that have been won owe themselves in large part to the Stonewall Riots at the end of the 1960s. Peaceful protests and out-and-out rioting both have a place in the struggle for people to demand recognition of their humanity, from the Civil Rights Movement to now.
Knack Factory, which has been a great friend and partner to BGIM Media, recently put together a really nice video titled “Proud” that brings forth the voices of four Black people in the LGBTQ+ community in Portland, Maine, to talk about Pride Month, BLM and more, from the standpoint of being LGBTQ, from the standpoint of being Black, and from the standpoint of intersectionality.
Please take the time to watch and learn why Pride and Blackness are not simply separate entities, and why Pride Month can celebrate its own themes and embrace the recent Black uprisings in America.
From Knack Factory:
We talked with Flo, Eddie, Oronde and Christiana—members of the LGBTQ+ community in Portland, Maine—about what it means to be proud.
Thanks a million times over to these four, and to Oronde for helping to orchestrate this project.
You can find them here:
Flo: https://www.instagram.com/the.flo.edwards and https://venmo.com/donna-ekart-1
Eddie: https://www.instagram.com/dimitried and https://venmo.com/dimitriusdesigns
Oronde: https://www.instagram.com/orcrug and https://venmo.com/floc1003
Chistiana: https://www.instagram.com/oatmilkmaiden_ and https://venmo.com/chistiana-marvray
If you are looking for resources such as black businesses and artists to support, educational material, or community organizations that focus on related issues to donate to / assist, please visit: http://bit.ly/maineracialjustice
This video was produced in partnership with Knack Factory. Visit us at https://www.instagram.com/knackfactory, http://facebook.com/knackfactory, http://twitter.com/knackfactory and https://www.knack-factory.com/
Alex Steed, Partner and Operations, Knack Factory
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Correct Venmo for Mx. Marvray:
Christiana:
https://venmo.com/christiana-marvray