During Pride Month, towns and cities light up with celebratory parades on the street, complete with rainbow colours. Celebrations this year were dampened owing to social distancing guidelines and a cancellation of all official street parades. The New York Pride Parade is one of the largest and most well-known parades to take place, with over two million people estimated to have taken part in the one last year. Bill Clinton was the first US president to officially recognize Pride Month in 1999 and 2000. Then, Barack Obama, during his time in office declared June the LGBT Pride Month.
This year, celebrities, drag queens and pop stars participated in the very first global LGBTQ event: a 24-hour Global Pride livestream. It garnered up to 300 million viewers. Participants included Joe Biden, the possible Democratic nominee for president; the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi; Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister; Carlos Alvarado Quesada, the president of Costa Rica, where same-sex marriage was legalized in May, and many others. The entertainers included Laverne Cox, Adam Lambert, Kesha, Rita Ora, the Pussycat Dolls, Dixie Chicks, Olivia Newton-John and Pabllo Vittar.
NYC Pride also held a virtual rally hosted by Ashlee Marie Preston, the first transgender person to openly run for state office in California, and Brian Michael Smith, a transgender actor who has starred in Homeland and Queen Sugar.
Freedom for all
This year, Juneteenth was more significant than perhaps ever before. Amid the protests around the US and the world against racism and police brutality, America celebrated Juneteenth — also known as Liberation Day or Emancipation Day. On this date, in 1865, the last few enslaved people were freed from slavery. While most were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation put forth by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, those in Texas were not made aware of the decree until 1865.
In Houston, people attended a virtual parade or participated in a Juneteenth bike ride. In New Orleans, people visited Congo Square, a historical gathering place for enslaved and free people, or spent the day at the Whitney Plantation, the only plantation museum in Louisiana with a direct focus on the lives of enslaved people. The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, signed an executive order last month making Juneteenth a holiday for state employees. Elon Musk agreed to make Juneteenth a permanent US holiday for his companies, Tesla and Space X. Target, NFL, Google and others also gave employees the day off. Coronavirus restrictions have hampered the ability to gather to celebrate this day, but people were encouraged to find ways to celebrate ‘blackness’ all day long. Food delivery apps highlighted restaurants that are owned by black people. Amazon, too, highlighted black-owned businesses. Traditional ways to celebrate Juneteenth are rodeos, fishing, barbecuing and baseball, according to the Juneteenth website.
Tall promises
In the light of recent protests against racial injustice, many corporations are making it known that they do not stand for racism. In addition to messaging, companies are also taking action. Nike, MasterCard, Twitter and many other companies gave workers Juneteenth off as a paid holiday for the first time ever. In an effort to address discrimination against shoppers from the black community, Walmart removed its ‘ethnic’ hair section. Jamie Dimon, the chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase, knelt with staff at a branch of the United States of America’s largest bank, mirroring the controversial pose of the former NFL quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, calling attention to police brutality against the black community.
Many such companies are also being forced to analyze their own processes that perpetuate bias in hiring, promotions and pay. The Bank of America promised to spend $1 billion over the next four years to address “economic and racial inequality accelerated by a global pandemic.” Employees and many diversity and inclusion consultants are not too optimistic about these actions. Moreover, executive and board positions still do not represent people from diverse backgrounds.
Back again
An old internet sensation is emerging again: the Karen. The somewhat sexist, white woman trope has actually existed for years, but its popularity has dramatically increased in recent months as the country grapples with racism and the pandemic. A ‘Karen’ is a middle-aged white woman who represents entitlement. The Karen meme is often a picture of such a white woman combined with the phrase, ‘Can I speak to your manager?’ It started out being used for women in almost comical situations such as getting the wrong meal at a restaurant. It evolved into a figure known for her hypocrisy, anti-science beliefs and rudeness toward the working class, and then escalated to exemplify instances of racism, silence and privilege.
Last month, Amy Cooper, a white woman who called the police on a black man in Central Park when he requested that she put her dog on a leash as per the rules, was exposed on social media for her overreaction. After the video of the encounter went viral, Cooper became a national example of a Karen acting in a racist manner. In a grocery store in LA, a woman was filmed screaming at a store employee when challenged for not wearing a mask. The sexist complaint comes into play because there are as many encounters of men behaving the same way, yet there is no label for them.
FOOTNOTE
The entrance of the American Museum of Natural History in New York always had a statue of Teddy Roosevelt flanked by an African man and a Native American man. It has been associated with racism, colonialism and oppression. While the fight to bring it down has been on for years, protesters wearing MAGA hats recently demanded that it remain. The museum has announced that, with approval from the mayor and Roosevelt’s family, it would remove the 80-year-old statue.
