My Pride Feels Like This
Some may interpret my words as being negative.
Pride, I have to ask myself, pride in what? Pride in my gender identity, yes. Pride in identifying with the predominant gay culture, my honest answer would be no. How may I ask can I feel pride in being excluded and made to feel less than others?
I feel humbled by the struggles of those who have fought to enable me to be myself. I do not take this freedom for granted. I will not forget. In this, I feel pride for those who have fought for the freedom we enjoy.
Some believe that we have arrived, achieved marriage equality, and are now normalised. One can argue that some, in the name of self-preservation, have embraced the values of the norm. Thus, we can embrace society’s spectrum of values; this includes those associated with gender and race, the ‘positive’ and ‘negatives’. We have the freedom to adopt racist and gender-discriminatory ideologies openly.
One can apply the attitudes above to other excluded cultures.
We have arrived and so can be vocal about homophobia. For example, we can vocalise our hatred of LGBTQ+ under the guise of freedom of expression.
Some tell me I should not be so vocal because the day might come when I will regret it. They say that as if expecting the tide will turn. Then, we can withdraw back into the closet because we have been erased/normalised. Hence forget about black rights or those who are non-cisgender.
The freedom you enjoy today did not come from people in the past remaining silent and colluding with their oppressors. You believe you have arrived, so the fight is over for you. If only reality is the linear narrative to enlightenment that you perceive. For those telling me not to be so vocal: my answer to you is to stop being so selfish.
Some may interpret my words as being negative. Yes, but that is the reality of my experiences. I wish it were not so. However, I know that one should not generalise.
I can dance at the club all night and pretend that life is a dance.
What, then, would that make me? What happens when the music stops? To myself, I must be true. I cannot dance to your merry tunes. I will not elevate you above myself.
I want white gay culture not to perceive me through sexualised and racist tropes. I am not here to exorcise your ghosts or traumas; to do so would inflict trauma on myself. My burden is already heavy, and I can bear no more. I will not be your experience of your journey to the other side — into your heart of darkness. My appendage is not here for you to daly in the savage.
I am tired of you invalidating my sensibilities, of seeing beauty in you. For every time you do this, you erase me. By making this my experience, you tell me that my eyes can only perceive the ugly. Wrapped in your aesthetic ideals, my kind cannot see beauty.
I am grateful to live in a society where I can be myself, but that does mean that I invalidate my everyday experiences. I feel Pride in being a black gay man. I feel Pride in finding beauty in both blacks and whites and every spectrum. I do not elevate any above the other. On the contrary, I aspire to non-judgemental and hierarchical diversity.
I want to celebrate equality without hierarchy and notions of superiority. I want to see the good in all. I want to live in a world where there are no absolutes, a world where we embrace our commonalities and differences. I embrace sensuality. I am a bit of an introvert. I am tall and have broad shoulders. I feel empathy — I am human. The colour of my skin does not define my humanity or gender identity. I take pride in being myself. I take pride in having self-awareness and continually seeking to broaden this understanding.
Let us celebrate and take pride in what has been achieved, but the journey is far from over. Like the individual, the journey commences from understanding the self/yourselves and projecting this to others.
This story is a response to the Prism & Pen writing prompt, My PRIDE Feels Like THIS.