we're here, we're queer vs the professional glbts

[libodem]

15. The 70's were all about the pride

Black pride, was a really big example. Before we said black, Negro or Colored was proper. Bad people used the n-word. Which I wanted to just write out right there because it would be in context. But I have very negative associations with hearing it or seeing it. I've never used it. I read an epic Mitchener book about Africa, and he used colored throughout the book to describe people of mixed black and white heritage. What I've heard used in the past is malato. It was illegal to marry one another if you were not the same race. Some of the stuff we take for granted was illegal 30, 40, 50, years ago.

Same deal with gay pride. Being homosexual was hidden. It was illegal. Everyone hid it. Everyone was in the closet in the 50's. People were made to feel shame and worse yet fear. Real fear of being killed. Gay wasn't a word yet. All we heard were those bad words. Homosexual is clinical and formal and long to type. But that was the only nice one, we could use. There was no gay. There was shame.
That's part of why I love the 70's. Drag Queens came out and marched down the streets in flaming drag, in the first gay parades. That Stonewall story brought back my youth. I loved remembering that era. We paved the way back then on a lot of movements. Be glad you can feel that beautiful pride in who you are and well...I don't know what to say about the whole "slur" culture out there. It must be the young ones demanding respect in their own way.
Pride is a good thing.