It’s even more important right now, as Black businesses face bigger losses and steeper hurdles to recovery in the COVID-19 pandemic. Year-round, supporting Black-owned small businesses is a way of challenging structural economic racism. But don’t forget that your shopping dollars can do work, too. Supporting the movement for Black lives can mean anything from taking to the streets to educating yourself and others about racism and white supremacy to donating money to bail funds and civil rights groups.
Our solidarity is the true expression of queer community: this is Pride month. Alicia Garza, a queer Black woman, helped found the movement, and the struggle against police brutality is unapologetically Black, queer, and feminist. There’s no queer liberation without Black liberation, and that’s at the very heart of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. White and non-Black queer and trans people: this is our fight too. It’s more important than ever for all queer people to stand up for Black lives. The next year, and every year since, LGBTQ+ people around the country have commemorated the Stonewall Riots with gay pride parades. Bar patrons and bystanders scuffled with police for almost three hours, with Stormé DeLarverie throwing the first punch, and a movement was born. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera leading the charge. When the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969, queer New Yorkers fought back, with Marsha P. It was led by Black and Latinx queer and trans folks. But this year, as we take to the streets to protest police brutality, white supremacy, and stand up for all Black lives, we might be closer to commemorating Pride’s radical roots than we have been in years: the first Pride event was a police riot. Pride parades are usually massive events with fabulous drag queens, well-oiled physiques, and rainbows plastered with corporate logos.
The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade, just three recent victims of police brutality and anti-Black racism, have brought the #BlackLivesMatter movement back to the forefront of our everyday lives. But it’s not just COVID-19 that’s impacting the way we show up and out in the name of gay pride-it’s white supremacy. Sure, the coronavirus pandemic has led to the cancellation of Pride parades in dozens of communities. "We love getting to join our communities across the country to celebrate all the things we believe in and stand for - diversity, equality and individuality." (Prices vary, T-Mobile.It’s June, but this is no ordinary Pride month. "T-Mobile wouldn't be the company we are without the diversity of our amazing team and that's why we're going BIG with our commitment to Pride–and everything it stands for–again this year!" said T-Mobile CEO John Legere. The "Un-carrier" is also sponsoring more than 60 Prides nationwide, including WorldPride in New York.
(T-Mobile customers can also text "GLSEN" to 20222 to donate $5 directly.) Throughout June, the company is also partnering with PopSockets on a special Pride Poptivism PopGrip, with $2.50 from each sale being donated to GLSEN. For each entry tagged #UnlimitedPride, $1 will be donated to GLSEN, up to $10,000. T-Mobile is also encouraging users to post moments that changed their lives as a member of or ally to the LGBT community on the storytelling platform Wattpad. For every photo of the rings posted with #ArianaWithUs, T-Mobile will donate $1 to HRC, with a goal of up to $200,000 total. Participants can record their own messages of love and inclusion and post them social media. T-Mobile is teaming up with pop diva Ariana Grande to celebrate Pride and given back to the LGBT community: On June 14 and 15, Grande's "7 Rings" art installation will be transformed into an immersive "Pride Walk" outside her shows at Brooklyn Barclays Center.