You’ll be able to’t spell “rainbow” with out “rain.”
Regardless of less-than-ideal climate, Brooklyn Satisfaction Day kicked off and not using a hitch this previous Saturday, June 14, with its annual celebration convening native queer group members and allies for family-friendly festivities in a 14-block stretch alongside Park Slope’s Fifth Avenue.
Starting at midday and carrying on properly after the solar had set, the volunteer-run occasion consisted of a daytime road pageant and twilight parade that later remodeled right into a full-out block occasion (no pun supposed), as per custom. It gathered a plethora of native artists and efficiency teams, cultural organizations, neighborhood companies, well being advocacy teams, and metropolis politicians, who shielded themselves from the wet climate with plastic ponchos, umbrellas, tents, and rubber boots.
There was an undercurrent of urgency to this 12 months’s queer celebration, because it got here amid President Donald Trump’s incessant assaults on LGBTQ+ rights. This grave feeling was echoed in anti-Trump indicators held by festival-goers arriving from the “No Kings” protests that have been concurrently happening throughout the East River in midtown Manhattan.
“I assume as a result of rights are being revoked, issues are feeling extra treasured now …. This [event] feels extra sacred this 12 months as a result of it feels fleeting,” Max Bell, a Brooklyn resident and ACT UP member, advised Hyperallergic.
Whereas rainbow-washed company advertising gimmicks could possibly be seen throughout the pageant, native organizations and activist teams additionally took the chance to teach, protest, and fundraise. In the course of the wet road, a Well being Division employee distributed free condoms to lift consciousness about sexual well being. At a desk close to a efficiency stage, Socialist Various members bought buttons, broadsides, and attire decrying Trump’s assaults on trans communities. Different cubicles bought posters evaluating Trump and Elon Musk to clowns and displayed indicators opposing disgraced former governor and present mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo.
The Satisfaction occasion additionally introduced collectively native artists of all media. At Dyke March’s desk, organizers screenprinted clothes prematurely of the group’s annual protest procession later this month; the group additionally distributed zines titled after this 12 months’s march theme, “Dykes Say No To Facism.” At one other desk, Brooklyn Inventive Reuse, a nonprofit that collects and repurposes artwork supplies, raised funds for its forthcoming bodily location by promoting gently used provides, together with quilt squares, buttons, stitching supplies, and paints.
In entrance of the Ripped Bodice bookstore, Queens-based trans artist Ash Craig arrange an impromptu Satisfaction-themed face-painting stand, providing his providers to pageant attendees free of charge. He had determined solely final minute to attend, as he was not sure if the climate would maintain.
“ [The amount of] individuals out right here within the rain reveals how a lot individuals really want the queer pleasure proper now,” Craig advised Hyperallergic.
