We started out at The Fountain on the corner of Vernon and Crenshaw, where only a few years ago you wouldn't quite visit for a picnic. I grew up going to the mall in the area, changing buses and even walking the various stretches of Crenshaw. When I came out I did stop visiting as regularly, preferring to come only for the odd event or filming at Lucy Florence. When I want to kick it, I tend to gravitate more southbay or west hollywood -- places where you know you're safe if you mention gay things, where you could kiss a girl and get strange looks vs. getting it in the head with a bottle. Since I grew up in a conservative, country small town, I'm familiar with the anonymous bottle or rock that comes flying from who?
You get used to these things, or you only move within circles where they are not.
To freely rally and protest against H8 in spots I'd fear'd being out as a kid was beyond liberating AND only possible because we are now MORE than ever before. Determination in our steps and screams no longer strangled made our hearts soar. Hear the toddlers in strollers chanting along, "Eqwal Rights!" and see teens ignore the verbal attacks on their parents, brushing hate off with ingrained nonchalance. Are we real to you yet? Are we re-emerging as missing pieces a whole soul? YES, YES, YES!
Even when we wound down and the homophobes crawled out of their hate pits toward us
(almost see their shredded souls dragging behind?)
They cursed us and our kids, they called their "homies" and said people were coming for us. One attacked my shirt especially, how dare I be wearing a Che shirt to a gay rally. How dare we be here at that fountain, why not give our children a chance to live without sin?. All this they tossed at us, with a bottle in their hand. The police arrived and dragged the brothers to the ground, and all the queers bristled at the police while sighing just a bit in relief. As one organizer told me, I never want a Black man handcuffed because of me. And I could understand, I get followed and profiled like everyone else (certainly less so than the male identified). But how can they tell us they'll shoot us, how can they say guns are coming for the gays and get away? Cops drew down when they arrived and dudes became quite fucking contrite, "oh we didn't say anything. just free speech officer, are the handcuffs necessary?"
And I remembered our ancestors who walked before us for different and the same rights. Those who spewed vile hates were not the every day person, they were not the norm but their behavior reflected what society considered "acceptable". A country's heart changed when children were being attacked by dogs, when video and pictures of us fighting insurmountable odds in the south surfaced. Paradigm shifts, and what was inconceivable becomes reality -- with blood, tears, and protesting sweat. I'm young and proud to be an LGBT American, any one want to tell me different?
Check us out on the news tonite, Fox 11 at 10pm (Fox?! Tricia, I'm Faith.)
My video of Rev. Freda's Speech:
