Pride TO!
Date #860 — Sunday, July 3, 2016
B: After the Jays game A and I headed to watch the Pride Parade. A and I love Pride so much and I’m happy we got to celebrate again this year.
This year’s parade was really special for a few reasons — one, it was the first time the political leaders for Toronto, Ontario, and Canada would be marching in the parade together; two, Black Lives Matter Toronto were guests of honour and used the opportunity to highlight Pride’s “history of anti-blackness”.
Everything felt kind of epic. For the past while Toronto was dealing with a mayor who chose fear over love — who never came to Pride. And Canada’ Prime Minster seemed also to be constantly absent. The gesture was symbolic and said, “this is important and we are listening.” Which I think is great. It felt great.
When Black Lives Matter stopped the parade it was a huge shock for many, which I think is part of the problem. They took the opportunity of so many people listening (or saying they were listening) to say, “Hey, things aren’t great, especially for us.” And I’m happy that happened, I’m happy because I didn’t know that was an issue and it pointed my ignorance. I’m happy because it showcased a lot of other problems.
Pride is great and I want it to stay great, which means it needs to keep getting better.
But because A and I showed up late and were watching from an apartment above the festivities, we learned about a lot of that after.
During the parade we had snack and threw water balloons. After we headed on to the streets and found a dance party. We danced and partied and it was so much fun!! I started getting really tired and so we left our two friends to dance some more.
A: I’m shocked we made it to Pride this year because I thought the parade would have been finished by 5, but it wasn’t! We took a chance and rode the subway to College and lucked out. B got a burrito and we headed to Andre’s for the rest of the parade. It’s a tradition at Andre’s to throw water balloons at the people in the parade (once you get eye contact) and if they catch it, they throw it back at you. It’s so fun and ‘Im glad we made it! A bunch of friends who we haven’t seen in a while were there too so it was great to catch up in such a nice, welcoming place.
After, we went to a concert off Church and it was a lot of fun roaming around and dancing with B. B was supercharged. It was nice to see them so into it. B’s energy was infectious! B said they used to come to pride and dance and jive and its fun to do that with B because B does it without any alcohol at all. I find it frustrating to be around drunk, pushy people in crowds without also having a drink or two myself. I don’t get as frustrated when someone yells at me or trips over me… Well, I do, and I try not to do that to others, but if I’m sober I usually just want to go home because I get overwhelmed. Does that make sense? I think that’s fairly normal.
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