Howdy, peeps. Tomorrow is New York City's gay pride parade, and I'm sorry that I can't be there. This year is particularly pride-full because it's the 40th anniversary of what those of us familiar with GLBTQ history call Stonewall. I blogged about this last year around National Coming Out Day (which is October 11, for the record). Here's some 411 from that blog, to get everyone caught up on what Stonewall is and why Pride usually falls in June:

Let's do a little history lesson, since I'm one a' them historian types.

[from my blog here, dated October 12, 2008]
All right, some folks might not know much about the history of the gay and lesbian rights movement in this country. I'm going to call it the GLBTQ movement, which is the more modern acronym. Back in the day--1970s, e.g., you might've heard "gay rights" or "homosexual rights." So when you read interviews and documents from that era, you'll see language like that, and you probably won't see acronyms. Those evolved with the movement.

Dateline, 28 June 1969. Greenwich Village, New York City, Stonewall Inn. The Stonewall was a gay bar in the Village and remember, during the 1960s (and before), people who identified as gay, lesbian, bi, or transgendered lived life on the down-low, because there were no anti-discrimination clauses in place anywhere and you could lose your job, family, house, reputation if someone found out you were gay. Police regularly crashed bars they suspected were meeting places for gay people, and regularly arrested people there for things like "public indecency"--e.g. dancing with someone of the same sex, or, if you were a drag queen, dressing in inappropriate clothing for your gender. And yes, there were (and still are) laws on the books about wearing things that are considered "girl clothes" and "boy clothes." That's another discussion.

Now, if you were arrested at one of these raids, your picture, name, and address would probably end up in the paper along with where you were arrested and what the charge was. So you go to work Monday hoping nobody actually read the paper, but when you get to the office, your desk is already cleaned off and security walks you down to the lobby. So try getting another job in that town. Wanna know more about this? Check out Before Stonewall, a documentary that'll show you what life was like before the GLBTQ rights movement.

But things started to change in the wake of what we who know our history call "Stonewall." That night--the 28th of June 1969--ignited a public spark. Now, there's no real rhyme or reason as to why some events prove to be touchstones in the crucible of history. Sometimes, something happens and its effects outlive the people who were originally involved, and influence spreads, and succeeding generations pick up on it and it becomes part of a tapestry we all weave. Stonewall was such an event. On that night, for whatever reasons, things didn't go like they usually did.

Police had planned a raid on the Stonewall Inn that night. Undercover officers (both female and male) were already inside the bar, and plainclothes and uniformed officers entered at 1.28 AM. It was a Saturday, and over 200 people were inside. In a standard police raid like that on a gay bar, the police generally lined people up and checked IDs. The female undercover officers would take patrons dressed as women into the bathroom to verify their sex. Complaints spread through the crowd about police officers bullying lesbians and "feeling them up inappropriately."

So early on in this raid, things weren't going as planned. It got worse, as the police waited for paddy wagons to confiscate liquor. The people whose IDs had been verified were forced to leave the premises, but again, in those strange turns of events when something happens that you're not expecting, they didn't leave. A crowd started to gather in the parking lot, and as police forcibly removed patrons from the bar, witnesses described a scene in which those patrons forced from the bar "camped it up" and taunted the officers with exaggerated "gay gestures" and "salutes.

And then a woman you might have referred to as a "New York stone butch" was hauled out of the Inn, but she didn't go quietly. Though handcuffed, she fought the police until clubbed in the head when she complained that the cuffs were too tight. This woman, who remains unidentified, apparently then exhorted the crowd: "Why don't you guys do something?" And at that point, the crowd did. Already tense, the crowd surged forward, the police tried to restrain some, people got knocked down, and chaos ensued. Some of the police had to barricade themselves in the bar as 500-600 people gathered outside.

The Tactical Police Force of NYPD arrived to quell the situation and free their colleagues, but these queers were not going to go quietly into the night. Patrons of the bar would not allow themselves to be forced into the paddy wagons, and many transvestites fought furiously while the crowd taunted the TPF with chanting and more "camping". And then an impromptu chorus line formed, facing down a phalanx of TPF officers, until the TPF responded with billy clubs. By 4.00 AM the rioting had stopped, but the next night, it started again, with a thousand people gathering outside Stonewall and spilling down Christopher Street. More activity continued Monday and Tuesday, and national media started to pick up the story about how a bunch of homosexuals had challenged the New York Police. The Village Voice ran a story on Wednesday about the "fag follies" on Sunday and that night, another mob marched down Christopher Street, threatening to burn the Voice offices for the slur.


(source: Timeout.com)

And word got out. For whatever reasons, that night at the Stonewall was the spark that ignited a whole new type of protest, in which people weren't willing to go quietly, to disperse, or to do peaceful picket lines. Stonewall marked a definitive shift in GLBTQ consciousness, and you could see it maybe in the generations, with the older, perhaps more staid Mattachine Society decrying what had happened at Stonewall, and younger people who had been at Stonewall or who were privy to what had happened there, embracing a more visible and, yes, violent response to police--and, by extension, societal--oppression. (check here and here for a start on more info about the Stonewall riots)

All rightie. So there you go, in case you were unfamiliar with the roots of "Pride" and why it's important in GLBTQ history and also American history. It's one of those moments, when a group of people decide they've had enough, and they stand up against something they perceive as unjust and unfair. In this country, there's a history of groups of people doing just that.

So this is the 40th anniversary of that "We've Had Enough" moment at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. And that's why there are GLBTQ pride festivals and parades in June. Because we're commemorating that moment, and we're taking an important step in our lives--being out and visible. Being in attendance at a Pride festival means you're willing to be "out." You're willing to be "seen." And for some people, that can be a dangerous thing. Pride festivals are supposed to make people feel okay to be visible, since there are so many who participate. But for some, it's still a danger. To all of you who are able to attend the NY Pride parade, you GO! And to everyone who's been able to attend a Pride event this year--whether you identify as GLBTQ or not--thanks. And thank you especially to everyone on that night 40 years ago who had enough.

I'm now going to segue to something unrelated (or perhaps not) and offer an RIP to Farrah Fawcett, who succumbed Thursday morning (the 25th) to cancer. She was a strong, creative force in the world (don't believe me? Google her sculptures and see what you think), whose physical beauty influenced generations of young men and women (that poster? 12 million copies sold. It's the highest-selling poster in history.) but who ultimately proved that her beauty went much, much deeper. She chose her own path through show business, taking roles after her one season on Charlie's Angels that challenged her acting chops (Burning Bed, Small Sacrifices, and Extremities e.g.) but also made us see her as a multi-faceted performer and perhaps wonder about the woman beneath all that. From her very public relationship issues and her on-off-on connection to actor Ryan O'Neill, I think we got a sense of a woman who was so much more than her "bombshell" image, and who, in the final months of her battle with cancer, filmed her experiences with the disease (Farrah's Story). Unflinching, unapologetic about how cancer was affecting her physically, spiritually, and emotionally, Ms. Fawcett let us into her life, to see her as ultimately, a brave human being in the face of a horrific disease.

Click here to see some interview clips. Click here to see her interviewed on the BBC with regard to the 1986 movie Extremities. And here's the trailer for Extremities:

link

And another RIP--though many people won't agree--to recording artist Michael Jackson, who also died on Thursday the 25th. The sense is that he went into cardiac arrest, which most often presages a heart attack, but if you've followed his tumultuous life and career since the early 1990s, then you know that it could be practically anything.

I'm not going to address the strange, tragic, and even sordid turns Mr. Jackson's life took during the 1990s. For those of us who were even peripherally interested in his life and career, there are all kinds of issues he battled and all kinds of issues in his family situation and all kinds of issues, period. I'm not here to change opinions. I'm here to address the Michael Jackson of the 1970s and 1980s. I came of age in the 1980s, and because of my own life and my own internal issues, I turned to music as an escape and Michael Jackson's music was part of the soundtrack of my life, from his 1979 album Off the Wall to his 1983 blockbuster Thriller, which sold some 50 million albums worldwide. That hadn't been done before and it hasn't been done since.

Whatever you may think of Jackson the man, Jackson the performer and songmaster changed the course of music history, with his choreographic fusion of old Broadway musicals with new, emerging dance/hip-hop/R&B/rock/pop. Jackson changed the way we think about and visualize music through his videos, which were often mini-movies and dance extravaganzas. He wrote most of his own songs and did most of his own choreography for all of his stage performances and videos. It was Jackson and his videos that forced MTV to start playing more African American artists' videos, and it was Jackson's work that left its mark on generations of subsequent artists who mimicked his musical and video style.

His music--an amalgam of pop, rock, Motown, dance, hip-hop, R&B, and often traces of jazz and sixties-era ballads--transcended race and even gender, as apparently he tried to do, and it exacted a heavy physical and emotional toll. As talented as he was, as brilliant a showman and performer he was, somewhere along the way, he got lost. THAT Michael Jackson is not the one I associate with the man who changed music. So I offer a tribute to Mr. Jackson in that spirit. Music. Here is the performance of "Billie Jean" at the 25th Motown anniversary show in 1983. It's when he took his signature "Moonwalk" public and as contributing editor for Rolling Stone Touré says, that was a moment that changed the way we thought about dance and music. And this is how I remember Jackson.

link

All right, friends. Many thanks for pulling up a log at the Junction. Hope your weekend is mucho faboo!

shake yer groove thangs and

keep it real, yo.