An earthquake in Haiti. The Taliban takes over Kabul. New variants of Covid are surging. RWNJ politicians are passing laws that forbid low-cost common sense public health measures. Voter suppression and gerrymandering are threatening our democracy. The world is on fire. God only knows how many millions of Americans still genuinely believe the Big Lie. Sometimes we so need a break from all the bad news.
And there sometimes is good news. Even good news that surprises us.
As the person who chairs our Social Justice Committee in our Congregational Church, I was in charge of our church’s participation in the Fargo-Moorhead Pride event, which happened over this past weekend. Why, you might ask, do we have Pride here in August instead of June, when Pride is celebrated in most other places? I was told that it was because the really gung-ho Pride celebrators travel to all the “big” events elsewhere in June, but still wanted to have a smaller, local celebration. One upside of this is that a lot of Pride “stuff” goes on sale in August. And August is one of the few months here when the weather is usually decent.
Here in Fargo-Moorhead, Pride weekend resembles a combination of Halloween (people dress up), Mardi Gras (we have a parade where we throw candy into the crowds) and Fourth of July (without the fireworks). The park and parade are family-friendly events—where we see a lot of kids and pets—along with rainbow garb and glitter. There has never been an “incident” at a Pride event here.
On the dark side, I tend to pay (perhaps too much so) attention to the DHS domestic terrorist reports. At least one Moorhead resident has been charged in the January 6th insurrection. One bit of news reported “chatter” that something bad was going to happen “sometime in mid-August,” perhaps in conjunction with the anticipated Trump “reinstatement.” The generalized DHS alert I had expired on August 13th. Because I was concerned about potential “trouble” that might impact our Pride volunteers, I contacted the local FBI office in Fargo. I explained that our church would be participating in Pride and was inquiring whether there were any specific local “alerts” for either the event or the date.
A very friendly FBI agent was sympathetic to my concerns. He informed me that (1) Pride events have not been targets of domestic terrorists, (2) they had “trip wires” set up for which they were trained to act quickly, (3) they had a procedure to alert all local law enforcement if they received evidence of terrorist activity (i.e., the best thing to do if there was trouble was to call 911). He also gave me the number to call if you “see something, say something,” which is 1-763-569-8000. This is not the same number to call (1-800-225-5324, or 1-800-Call FBI) to report information about known involvement in the January 6th insurrection.
I thanked him for working to keep all of us safe. At the end of the call, he told me to “have fun at Pride.” Even five years ago, I never would have imagined an FBI agent in Fargo, ND wishing someone a Happy Pride! So…probably the biggest “danger” we had to worry about was Covid. Fortunately, the main events—a booth at the park on Saturday and a parade on Sunday—are outdoors.
Pride was indeed very well attended this year. Notwithstanding ongoing Covid concerns, it seemed like there was a lot of “pent up demand” from missing all the fun in 2020. Our church was one of the first to be involved with Pride over a decade ago, and now other churches are regularly involved. It is always refreshing to see Christian symbols expressing messages of love and acceptance, instead of how we often see them used by the radical right. I could go on about the whole “messaging” thing, but today is about good news…
One of our volunteers at the park told me about the earthquake in Haiti. I remarked that one of the blessings from being at Pride all weekend was not hearing the news. The message being that maybe we should “unplug” from the bad news every once in a while, regardless of whether we do so because we are involved in some other activity or not.
At the event in the park, in addition to the group of us churches, there were a number of “get out the vote” and “fight voter suppression” groups.
Local colleges and Universities (mainly the ones on the MN side):
The Cass County Sheriff and Fargo Police also put in a supportive appearance:
As in Prides past, there were plenty of pets, either dressed up or dyed for Pride:
On Sunday, downtown Fargo was lined with cheering folks who came out to support Pride. Yes, we were throwing candy, but some of our volunteers say they are still moved every time we turn a corner and are greeted by a cheering crowd full of color and waving flags.
A working ice cream truck brought up the rear:
If this is happening in ruby red North Dakota, it may be a sign of hope for the rest of us.