The Argument for Permitting Straight and White Pride Events; Hear Me Out - by Starla Knight

For as long as there have been LGBTQ or people of African descent, who have dared, once a year, to publicly and unashamedly celebrate who they are and their community’s vibrant history of resistance and resilience in a Pride or Black History, Month or parade or party, there have been straight or white people who have stomped their straight, or white, feet and whined in their straight or white voices, “Wait! What about us? We want that too!”

The spoiled cries from the socially and culturally elevated masses aren’t new. 

Every February, since I can remember, I’ve listened to European descendants complain that it’s not fair that the whites don’t have a month devoted to “their” contributions to society and culture like black people do. I shake my head in pity, as a white person, and wonder what it is that prevents them from being able to recognize the celebration of European culture, values and achievements reached by white people every day of the year, in every state, every city, coast to coast.  Even through Black History month.  And while the white elitist complaints had been relegated to Info Wars or other AM radio listeners/callers, ranting in their ignorant, uninformed voices, it seems that MAGA hat wearers and marchers in Charlottesville are unfortunately getting louder.

In 2015, after the Supreme Court ruled that LGBTQ had equal rights to marriage, a gentleman in Seattle, clearly threatened by the equality provided to non straight people, called for a Straight Pride Parade. He felt as though he and other straight people had been marginalized by the equality.  Nothing was taken from this person, not a single thing or right, but somehow the sharing of rights that had always been his, caused this individual to feel threatened. Over two thousand invites were sent via FaceBook. Of those, 169 accepted the invitations, but no one showed up. No one, but him.

Yet the latest glob of elitist sludge to take human form and complain about the lack of straight pride celebrations is Ted Hickman, vice mayor of Dixon, California, who recently wrote a piece proclaiming July to be “Straight Pride American Month,” otherwise known as ... SPAM. (I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried, folks.)

In his op-ed (and I’m using that term here very loosely), which appeared back in June in a local newspaper and on the politician’s personal website, Hickman claims his idea for SPAM is “not really legally anti anything,” but, rather, a time for “hundreds of millions of the rest of us” to “celebrate our month, peaking on July 4th, as healthy, heterosexual, fairly monogamous, keep our kinky stuff to ourselves, Americans,” by organizing “our parades in every state and county in this country with families celebrating together” [emphasis are Hickman’s].

Hickman, who generously notes that he “support[s] the First Amendment, as much as the next person, and support[s] the rights of grown men to wear skin tight short-shorts and go-go boots and don tinker bell wings with wand and prance down the streets of San Francisco,” seems to take the most issue with what he calls LGBTQ people’s “inferior complex ‘show we are different’ type of crap.”

He ends his piece by emphasizing that he ― and all other straight people ― “ARE different from [LGBTQ people] ... We work, have families, (and babies we make) enjoy and love the company (and marriage) of the opposite sex and don’t flaunt our differences dressing up like faries and prancing by the thousands in a parade.” He then spirals off into a bizarre rant about “faries” being “powered [by] ‘bypiezoelectric’ crystals which can be energized by sound waves like made by clapping.”

But, sadly, Hickman is not the only one pushing for straight pride months or parades. In fact, “Heterosexual Pride Day” reared its ugly head as a hashtag on Twitter in 2016 and now appears to officially be “a thing.”  It seems that some straight people just can’t handle the idea of a day or, heaven forbid, an entire month not being about them.

When faced with this kind of absurd and offensive rhetoric (to suggest, as Hickman did, that LGBTQ people don’t “work” or “have families” is so ludicrous I’m not even going to address it), most LGBTQ, black people and their allies have pushed back by rightfully arguing that there is no need for a straight or white pride month or parade since every day is straight white pride day and every month is straight white pride month.

Unlike LGBTQ or black people, who have faced great adversity and danger because of their sexual orientations, gender identities or skin color, non-LGBTQ or non black people wake up every morning without having to worry about being discriminated against or facing violence because of their skin color, how they love or get off or understand themselves to exist in the world.

Non-LGBTQ and non black people are not murdered for being straight or white. They don’t experience higher levels of homelessness because they’re straight, and their parents don’t tell them they’re deviant or sinful and then kick them out of their childhood homes because they’re straight. They don’t get pulled over by police for being white, even while wearing a suit and tie on their way to work for no reason. They don’t need a day or a ride on a float to honor their community or tell themselves that they’re OK just the way they are, because the world ― and every magazine, TV show, movie, pop song and history book in it ― already assures them of that every second of every single day.

And that used to be my go-to response when I was confronted with this kind of nonsense, too. However after Charlottesville and encountering Hickman’s proclamation, I changed my mind. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I believe we should have straight white pride parades.

No, really! Think about it...

If Dixon (or any other city) had a straight white pride parade, we could immediately identify the anti-LGBTQ, racist assholes in town just by seeing who participated in or supported the parade. We’d immediately know which politicians were anti-LGBTQ racist assholes based on who rode through the crowds while waving from the back of slow-moving convertibles (and we could vote them out of office and maybe even score an all-LGBTQ black city council. And it’d be obvious which local businesses were owned by anti-LGBTQ racist assholes that were willing to use their profits to help bankroll the event, and we could then spend our money at other stores.

A straight white pride parade could essentially function as a way to ferret out the kind of bigoted racist thinking that still exists in America, even in 2018, but is often covert, slippery, cloaked in or justified by religion, or culture, or simply left unaddressed. Not everyone or every corporation is as blatant with their bigotry as Hickman or, say, Chick-fil-A, so it would be invaluable to have a foolproof tool to identify those who either oppose LGBTQ or Black equality or are so confused by or ignorant of their straight white privilege that they need to be challenged and, hopefully, educated. Bring it on!

My hunch is that nary a mayor like Hickman will get very far into their parade planning before they realize they doesn’t have much support for it. But if I’m wrong and they do, I’m dying to see who shows up and I can’t wait to call them out for doing so.

As always, I’d love to know what you think. Feel free to write me at starla.friction@gmail.com.

Live and let love, lovies!