June is Pride Month
Today, I had the pleasure of providing opening remarks for our Special Emphasis Program event in recognition of Pride Month. As a Supervisor and Manager, I need to understand and embrace the strategic advantage our Nation gains by leveraging diversity and creating an inclusive environment within our workforce where everyone is valued.
Pride Month is celebrated every June and is an opportunity to recognize that we still have a long way to go in equitable treatment for all in many parts of our country. Embracing other people’s choices does not take away from who you are. Instead, our collective freedoms are linked because we all suffer when one group’s dignity and equality are threatened.
Harvey Milk’s story intrigued me because I moved to San Francisco in 1980, on the back end of his 1978 assassination and the subsequent trial of the accused, Dan White. This traumatic event was still very fresh in the city. I had difficulty understanding why someone would be killed for choosing how they wanted to live.
San Francisco was a city that embraced all lifestyles. There were many cultures, and each “district,” including the Castro district, which was Harvey Milk’s district, had something fascinating and different to experience. It seemed to be a city of acceptance, so I loved living there. At times, I felt like a weed living within a colorful bed of wildflowers.
The rainbow flag, also known as the gay pride flag, symbolizes the diversity and the spectrum of human sexuality and gender for the LGBTQIA+ community. What I found interesting is that the six colors have a symbolic meaning:
Red = Life
Orange = Healing
Yellow = Sunlight
Green = Nature
Blue = Serenity
Violet = Spirit
I didn’t know this before, and now that I do, when I see the Pride flag, I will better understand its symbolism and that it represents all genders and races and stands for “the rainbow of humanity.”.
Sometimes we must welcome some discomfort to grow, and educating ourselves about our history is very important. I did quite a bit of research before today’s event, and there’s a reason why San Francisco is the LGBTQ capital of the world. I encourage you to do the same, and hopefully, you’ll find it as interesting as I did.
A quote from Harvey Milk is, “It takes no compromise to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no survey to remove repression.”
We are all on a personal journey and respect that not everyone’s journey is alike. Enjoy your journey, and let everyone else enjoy theirs.