Wichita Pride Parade, Pride Marshall, September 2016
“Well, I didn’t get shot!”
I said these surreal words to my best friend after she asked me at the end of the Pride Parade how it went. She enthusiastically responded, “Yay! I prayed that you wouldn’t get shot!”
It was September 2016. I had the honor of being the Pride Marshall for the Wichita Pride Parade, which meant I got to ride in a convertible at the front of the parade and awkwardly wave to everyone. I would be lying if I said my family, friends and I weren’t a bit nervous about what might happen that day. It was just a few weeks before the November 2016 presidential election and acts of violence against my LGBTQ+ friends and Black, brown and Asian friends were happening all across the country due to the stochastic terrorism* fueled by one of the candidates with a thing for red hats. The Pulse Massacre had happened just three months prior in Florida. The rising tension was almost palpable for those of us paying attention.
I reignited my racial and social justice advocacy journey in 2012 and saw the stochastic-terrorism-empowered “lone-wolf attacks” on people in my community increase drastically after a mostly broke businessman (more famous for being a former television-show host who shouted, “You’re fired!”) announced his run for office in June 2015. In the weeks and months that followed, I publicly shared stories of the acts of homophobic, transphobic and racist violence my friends survived on streets, subways, trains and bars at the hands of “lone wolves” who chanted the candidate’s name. I believed I was helping everyone in my circle more clearly understand who this candidate really was and how he was empowering bullying, division, hate and violence with his dangerous rhetoric. I was so wrong.
In October 2016, I learned that several of my family members planned to vote for the man who was empowering the previously hidden darkest parts of many Americans to come to the surface. I pleaded with my family to see what I’d been seeing about the culture of violence he was ushering in. It went over about as well as you might expect. I was told I was over-reacting, called “intolerant”, and compared to a suicide bomber for “blowing up relationships”, but things were just getting started. Read More →