Vol. 182: The trouble with Pride Months

What, exactly, are you proud of?

Are you proud of your sexual orientation?

I certainly am. It was a tough choice, let me tell you. Not to mention the rigorous entrance exam and the brutal physical. But as I look back on it now, choosing my sexual identity may have been the most important decision I ever made— even more important than picking my race or ethnicity. Next to those earth-shaking decisions, selecting a lifelong spouse was a piece of cake.

But seriously…

These ruminations were prompted, as they are each June, by the global observance of Gay Pride Month, a celebration that has appropriated the word pride so effectively that its mere mention connotes homosexuality in the minds of everyone who encounters it, gay or straight.

There was a time when people took pride in individual or group achievements, as opposed to Nature’s achievements. That changed in 1968 when the songwriter James Brown came up with the funk anthem, “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud,” which exhorted Black people to boldly celebrate their heritage, reject white supremacist beauty standards, and loudly reclaim their identity with swagger rather than whispering it in shame. Good ideas, all. February was designated “Black History Month” eight years later.

“Disability Pride Month” has been observed annually in July since 1990, when the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law. Disability Pride describes itself as a response and counteraction against ableism and social stigma— a concept that has roots in the same valid social theory that supports LGBT Pride and Black Pride.

Jesse James and Emily Dickinson

And then there are redheads, like me, who’ve been oppressed and stigmatized since Biblical times. We got into the pride act in 1977 by organizing Redheads Are Special People. Which we are. How else would you describe folks who comprise only about 2% of the world’s population and some 4% of Americans, yet have produced 15% of U.S. presidents, not to mention some of the world’s great overachievers?

Can anyone imagine American history without Christopher Columbus, George Washington, or Thomas Jefferson? Statecraft without William the Conqueror, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, or Winston Churchill? Literature without Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, George Bernard Shaw, or Sinclair Lewis? Music without Vivaldi, Paderewski, or Beverly Sills? Sports without Red Grange, Don Budge, or Red Schoendienst? Crime without Jesse James or Lizzie Borden?

In his 1943 book The Hero in History, the philosopher Sidney Hook suggested that only a handful of people have personally altered the course of world history, and of the half-dozen examples he cited, three— Oliver Cromwell, Napoleon, and Lenin— were redheads.

I didn’t make any of these redhead pride lists. So I’ll settle for pride by association.

Let’s be honest here. You used to think I was a jerk, right? But now, after reading about the exploits of my proud fellow redheads, you see me in a whole new light, yes?

And that’s just the beginning. Did I mention that I’m also right-handed? Do you know how many righties signed the Magna Carta?

‘A proud sponsor of…’

To be sure, it’s no shame to be Black, gay, disabled, or redhaired. And when you belong to a group that’s been marginalized for centuries, you may be forgiven for bending over backwards in the opposite direction. On the other hand, last week I received a flyer from the Philadelphia Water Department proclaiming, “We’re proud to protect your water.” Maybe there’s a better word than proud?

When I consult my thesaurus, proud yields synonyms few of us would be proud of, like arrogance, conceit, smugness, self-importance, egotism, vanity, immodesty, and superiority. The Biblical notion of “pride goeth before a fall” means, essentially, that if you’re too conceited or self-important, something will happen to make you look foolish. So why has the Pride label become so ubiquitous?

The corporate strategist Kim Skildum-Reid argues that the words “Proud sponsor of” constitute “the most worthless phrase in sponsorship.” She says it may as well read “Boring sponsor of” or “Unsophisticated sponsor of” or “Lazy sponsor of.” I’m inclined to agree.

Stonewall and abortions

Gay Pride Month— now expanded to “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Pride Month”— originally commemorated the Stonewall uprising of 1969: six days of protests and riots against police harassment of patrons at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. At the time, the Stonewall was one of New York’s most popular gay bars, but homosexuality was still a crime in New York. Indeed, as late as 1966 it was illegal for New York bars to serve alcohol to gay customers. (How was a bartender supposed to know who was gay? Did law schools offer a course?)

The Stonewall revolt changed the landscape of homosexual society virtually overnight. Previously, gays had been perceived as helpless victims; after Stonewall, they were citizens actively asserting their rights. Now, that’s something to be proud of. Or should I say inspired by?

The same might be said for Shout Your Abortion, a recent movement that seeks to normalize abortion by encouraging women to speak up “loudly and proudly” about their abortions. At least these women are commemorating their own actions, as opposed to their membership in some natural or ancestral clan. But they raise another question: Which is worse— people who claim abortion is murder, or those who say it’s cause for celebration? Or does a reasonable answer lie somewhere in between?

Clarence Darrow meets the Proud Boys

In 2016 the Pride label was appropriated by the neo-fascist Proud Boys, many of whose top leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy for taking part in the U.S. Capitol attack of January 6, 2021. What, exactly, are these Proud Boys proud of? The group self-describes as “proud Western chauvinists,” by which they mean white nationalism, misogyny, traditional masculinity, and Western culture, not to mention anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ+, and antisemitic. To put it another way: The Proud Boys’ pride stems not from anything they have achieved, but from their harebrained perception of an imaginary culture they yearn to attach themselves to.

They remind me of the fellow who, more than a century ago, chastised Clarence Darrow for remarks about racial equality that threaten “the purity of the white race.” Darrow, the great attorney for underdogs, paused thoughtfully for a moment, then replied: “The white race is the biggest group of sons of bitches that ever walked the Earth. I may belong to it, but I don’t boast about it. I apologize for it.”

Why Sid Caesar faded

In a recent essay for AARP Magazine about Sid Caesar, TV’s comic genius of the 1950s, the critic David Margolick argued that, as television expanded from its urban base into the hinterlands, Caesar proved “too rigid, and too proud, to repurpose himself”— a rare case of a thoughtful use of the word proud. But in his final paragraph, Margolick slipped back into today’s lazier use: Caesar’s work, he wrote, “still stands proudly— enduringly— on its own.”

The solution to our pride problem seems obvious. Let’s take one of the few remaining unassigned non-Pride months on the calendar and create a “Language Debasement Month.” Until then, I’ll give the last word on this subject to my late grandfather, Marc Rottenberg. “We Hungarians are a proud people!” Marc used to say. Then he would pause and add, “But I’ve never figured out what we have to be proud of.”

Enjoy Dan Rottenberg’s newest book, The Price We Paid: An Oral History of Penn’s Struggle to Join the Ivy League, 1950-55. You can also visit his website at www.danrottenberg.com