PRIDE should not come with a cover charge.
In the town in which I live, because of a hatchet attack at the Gay men’s bar, the Lesbian bar opened its arms to those who could just not return to that bar which eventually closed. The result was that the city now has one “Gay Bar”. The closest bar out of town is a good drive if you want to go to one in the state, or a longer drive if you want the choices offered by the adjoining state.
PRIDE is something we celebrate because we earned the right to be proud either in our collective histories, proud of those from whose work we all benefit now, proud of ourselves for navigating the attempted religio-political boundaries of our Creator endowed and Constitutional rights, enumerated or won, proud for having been one of those who brought about the changes, and proud of those with whom we worked to make the world better for our Community.
Many have paid a price for pride with their experiences from the past and what they are dealing with now. It cost homes, jobs, families, social standing, and lives through virus or killings.
The local LGBT support organization is holding a Pride festival in June, PRIDE Month, followed by an after celebration at the ONE Gay bar.
This is an opportunity, even for those who no longer frequent the bars, and some who just cannot afford going to bars, to meet up with friends and share community, to be among ourselves as a family of strangers celebrating our lives and, frankly, our survival.
However, there will be a cover charge at the one bar, not for a reasonable $5, the price of one mixed well drink, from everyone who shows up anytime between 4pm and 2am, but $10 just to get in to celebrate pride or you can go to the other bars in town and be all proud and stuff among Straight crowds celebrating PRIDE quietly in a place where it is just not done.
Like we used to have to do and people in closed minded places still do.
Celebrating PRIDE in New Bedford will cost you 10 bucks, the price of two mixed well drinks, to get in with your purchased drinks at everyday prices.
Five bucks would be bad enough since there are no alternative venues to celebrate PRIDE except at home or at small gatherings, not community wide ones, but 10?
I have and others already have paid a price to be PROUD.
In some cases, it was a huge price.
It is wrong to so blatantly charge for PRIDE and exclude those who are unable to fork over the extra money.
Much has been learned from those who kept us down.
We discourage those we find might not fit our sanitized version of the Gay Community from inclusion by stressing the “Family Friendly” nature of events, the buzz words for “do not be too openly Gay and, please, business casual clothing only”, and are now creating a hurdle for some members of the Community, obviously those we tend to turn our noses up at who we would rather not have around, the ones who need to eat in the kitchen.
If you can afford to, you can celebrate pride and we will reap the Benjamin’s.
We Gays always seem ripe for the picking even by our own.
The trope, often used in the past in the attempt to dismiss the needs of the Gay Community as only being the wants of those seeking a privileged standing, was that Gays, being single and with some sharing expenses while being roommates, had disposable income that we were freer to spend than the Heterosexuals who were married and had real responsibilities and, so, we should not whine about the our treatment while hiding our advantage and promoting our Gay Mafia Elitism while demanding better and special treatment.
There were, in the minds and actions of the comfortable majority in the country, no poor Gay people and even the unemployed had Daddies who supported them.
Why were we complaining when our kind had it so good?
This led to exploitation back when Gay bars were illegal or at best clandestine as, in order to buy drinks with friends, you had to pay the price the bar demanded, no matter how outrageous, or go nowhere else.
As harmless as some may now see this trope, in its day, it had an effect, and not a positive one.
Have we accepted this stereotype and are comfortable dismissing the less fortunate in our community?
This is nothing to be proud of.
There are a lot of poor and low income Gay people and they have a right to participate in their communities for safety and, well, community, not be barred from participation because they cannot afford admission, even if, like the people I know in other bars, they are present without drinking because Community does not require that.
I have lived in communities that had bars that had cover charges as a rule and some on certain occasion, like fund raisers, but there were those bars that did not have cover charges ever so anyone could get in.
Truth be told, upon my arrival in Oklahoma city, I was not in a good place but one of uncertainty with money playing a part in that. There was a bar without a cover charge but a daily beer bust and, initially after I figured out how to play the cups, many times I had one without paying. For that reason, when things changed, I tipped generously with each full-priced drink and spent a particular amount each visit even if it meant I dumped the remains of the last drink out in a urinal to appear to have drunk it before returning the glass to the bartender.
Under the circumstance at the time, having a place for community saved me, gave me a chance to reqroup and then go on and accomplish what I now have to pay an admission fee to be Proud of.
It could have gone the other way.
A few years later, I was told by the owner, Larry Crosby, that he had been watching me and did notice that when I had the coins I spent generously and his bet paid off as the bar became a second home and I surely made up for any debt owed with the number of drinks I bought with the accompanying tips over eighteen years.
I knew people who would come in there and, unable to buy a drink, rather than ask someone to treat them, socially flitted from person to person and group to group like the host of the party enjoying the safety and community even if their stay was a “dry” one.
The thing was that there were alternatives when choosing a bar, and if a cover-less bar held a fund raiser, there was a choice in whether or not to attend and whether or not to voluntarily make a donation, and if your cash was low, you could still socialize among your own at another location.
It is wrong to so blatantly charge for PRIDE.
it is exclusionary.
Anyone, even the homeless Gay man or woman should be able to celebrate pride. It is one month a year, but realistically for many it is just a one day event before going back into any existing closet, but now one they can only participate in if they have the price to pay.
I suppose there will be some thrill for some as, while sitting on the patio enjoying PRIDE and community, they can watch those surprised by the steep cover charge walk away knowing there goes one more member of the Great Unwashed who will not force his way into such an illustrious and PROUD gathering.
Poor and low-income Gay people should learn that they have no PRIDE to celebrate if they cannot afford the cover charge.
If commercial companies can milk the Gay Community with beer cans and other crap with rainbows thrown onto them because the assumption is the Gay attraction to rainbows is irresistible and purchase is unavoidable, why not have a Gay Community support organization do the same thing with a trapped and alternative-less audience and get some money too.
We are all rich, after all.
Cows, even cash ones, do have more than one giving teat.
Exploitation and extortion are acceptable, apparently, if we do it to ourselves.
I paid for what I am proud of, I will NOT pay to celebrate my life.
Neither should anyone else on PRIDE Day
I paid as I lived it.
As did so many others who do not have the cover charge.
This is NOT a source of PRIDE.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
