Oakland. Celebrates. Pride.

On Sunday, September 8, 2018, the city of Oakland celebrated the annual LGBT Pride event small town style.

I've attended this pride event off and on over the years and I have never been disappointed in the vibrancy of the city's attendees, the activities, and intimacy of the pride street venue. Although Oakland's population is over 400,000 people, it seems to embrace and enjoy the added population on the yearly September festival. Normally pride events are held in the month of June. It's so refreshing to have one at the end of summer to ease the arrival of the fall season.

At this year's event, a number of event stages were filled with lots of music, dance, and rallies. Some stages included the Latin and women themed stages. Clearly the diversity of this city and population warranted the stages to be packed with joyful and inspired brothers and sisters of pride.

Every year, I've always taken in at least one pride event for many different reasons. One would be to celebrate our "coming out" in public in a more dignified way. Another would be to recognize that we are allowed to celebrate who we are and who we choose to love. It's a constant reminder that once we leave the pride grounds, we deal with reality of knowing we are still a minority even in 2018. We are not fully recognized; granted we are more visible and are able to "come out" a little more easily, but the nation is yet to fully embrace us, and fully accept us.

Yes, we have same sex marriages, yes, equal rights, civil unions, but clearly these are slow gains towards acceptance that we still need to keep striving. Clearly, pride events are needed to celebrate our community and the gains we've made. I'm very hopeful that each year after coming out of the closet, each of us who battles discrimination on a daily basis, we hope we can say we've finally arrived.

Happy. Pride. LGBT!

Source: Oakland Pride

Disruptive. Political. Climate.

February is upon us and we are well into 2017 and yet there is still some unsettling energy in the American air. What is it? Obviously it's our recent election result that has dramatically changed the politic climate in our country.  No sooner have our newly elected president, Donald J. Trump arrival to the White House, executive orders are signed, new inexperienced staff members are in place, and a brash and combative White House Press Secretary takes the podium.

Personally, I have yet to fully recover from the election results; I've gotten over hang overs much more quickly than this situation and still find it still unsettling. With no time to digest these sudden and intrusive political announcements have I had a chance to really recover. It has been clearly disruptive. It's clearly not your politics as usual.  To get my bearings, I begin to try to combat this direct hit to help soothe the pain of political jolt.

I participated in a recent Women's March in San Francisco that drew thousands in the pouring winter rain in the city. But not one person flinched, many carried on in protest to our new President's policy announcement changes. Many marched for various reasons, dissent to resistance to government or specific issues that are at stake affecting their lives. For example, women's health, health funding cuts, gay and lesbian rights, and supreme court rulings that can be reversed like Roe v. Wade, a ruling that has held for decades for women having the right to have an abortion. I participated because of my own dissent, disappointment, and anger in some ways on American civil rights in general.

Women's March - San Francisco, CA
One of many protest signs

Women's March - San Francisco, CA
Started at City Hall, and ended at the Ferry Building

It felt liberating, celebratory, and at the same time civil. Seeing other protesters marching in peace and carrying signs that are thought provoking and resonate clarity of the sign holders thoughts about our new leader in office.


The climate has surely changed for many Americans, somehow though, middle America sees things differently. Living in San Francisco, California is clearly different in social, economic, and job opportunities compared to states say, in Arkansas or South Dakota. I should remind myself that those regions of our country are different and their thoughts and ideas are not as one with Americans to the west or east. I get that, but when I voted for our next President, I honestly had them in mind, and hoped they had the same thoughts, clearly this was not the case.

I'm hopeful that in 2017, we will be able to do a restart, reset, or start a dialogue that allows all Americans to meet in the middle. We need this to happen. Always the optimist. Let's see where we go as we head into spring.