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
