Pride Community Services Organization (PCSO) of Lexington, Kentucky, which includes the Lexington Pride Festival, is saddened and sickened by the continued murders and injustices inflicted by the police upon Black, brown, and indigenous individuals and communities.At the core of our organization, we seek to create safe and inclusive spaces where all LGBTQ+ people are celebrated and supported, especially our Black, brown, and indigenous siblings. We cannot let these injustices pass by without condemning the way that the murders of Breonna Taylor (Louisville, Kentucky), George Floyd (Minneapolis, Minnesota), and Tony McDade (Tallahassee, Florida) are effects of police violence and structural inequalities like white supremacy.
The month of June is Pride month which celebrates LGBTQ+ people. This year marks the 51st anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City. The riots consisted of several nights of street protests, property destruction, and occupation and is often marked as one of the events that kicked off the Gay Liberation Movement. Most importantly, Black and brown drag queens, gay and lesbian folx, and trans and gender non-conforming folx were at the center of the Stonewall riots. They were fighting back against the same police violence that continues to harm, silence, and threaten the survival of Black and brown people to this day. Quite simply, police violence and incarceration is an LGBTQ+ issue that disproportionately affects LGBTQ+ people of color.
The PCSO hopes that this month in particular you take pride in the actions you make – in whatever way you are able – towards fighting anti-Blackness, homophobia, transphobia, and white supremacy. We must hold individuals, organizations, and institutions accountable for their actions that perpetuate harm upon communities of color. We support the calls to action that seek to dismantle the systems of oppression (sexism, classism, ableism, nationalism, racism, cisgenderism, ageism, to name a few) to prevent this from happening again. As an organization, we plan to continue to listen to, learn from, and collaborate with communities of color to ensure that we are speaking up and out in ways that are wanted and needed.
We also plan to take direct action in working against racism by financially supporting efforts on the front lines of anti-racism organizing in our community. We have initially made a donation of $250 from our unrestricted operating funds to support The Lexington Bail Fund created by Black organizers at Lexington Housing Justice Collective to support people arrested at direct actions in Lexington. We will also compile a list of other local organizations led by people of color and share it in our email and social media communities to encourage others to donate funds to make change.
PCSO’s other direct actions will include anti-racism programming and education for our staff, volunteers, board members, and the community. Finally, we will continue to review our organization and programs, policies and procedures, and ways of operating toward eliminating racism and to increasing diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging. We acknowledge that we still have work to do to become an anti-racist organization, that the work needed is not just tied to current events bringing racism to the forefront, and that our actions to this end will be ongoing.
In solidarity,
Pride Communities Services Organization
