By Dee Jae Cox
Walls crumble and heroes die, laying flowers at the graves and marching in celebration of a fire that cannot be extinguished. Honoring those who stand on the precipice of change and sometimes take the fall.
Raise the flags high, watch them unfurl against the winds. March in lockstep. Celebrating the colors of the rainbow.
RED is for Life
Inside an Orlando nightclub, hate and homophobia kill 49 people, wound 58 more and the moment passes with tolerance for an intolerable tragedy. Ban books, burn rainbow flags and forbid the word ‘gay,’ to be spoken. Thoughts and prayers.
Clouds burst and rain falls like shards of glass cutting deep. Festering wounds infect young and old alike. Diversity is frightening and fear encourages violence. Death the only outcome.
Still, we march.
ORANGE is for Healing
A Greenwich Village respite from the tyranny of oppression. A long-smoldering rebellion as screams echo in protest of the abuse. And in the early June morning, a militant wave of unapologetic defiance erupts.
Inside the San Francisco City Hall, hate blasts from the barrel of a .38 Smith and Wesson. Death to a man who leads with integrity, but refuses the status quo. The twisted defense, a consumption of too many twinkies.
YELLOW is the Sunlight
In Hattiesburg, Mississippi a seventeen-year-old girl is sexually assaulted by a man whose intent is to instill fear and submission, while a preacher drowns her in his sin, screaming that she is forsaken and will burn in hell. Her death an acceptable consequence of her refusal to comply with the norm of heterosexuality.
BLUE is Serenity
Crucify him on a fence in Laramie. Torture him until the blood pooling at his feet makes him unrecognizable. He offends with his weakness and frailty. His effeminate ways an affront to real men. Leave him to suffer, dying is a slow agonizing crawl.
Tear down the statues of stone, pound them until they crumble. Allow no diversity to seep into the mindset of a nation gone mad with hatred for anyone who does not reflect the man in the mirror.
Erect arches and monuments to those whose words drip with contempt, malice and disgust. Equity and diversity, a bitter taste on the tongues of the weak minded.
Men who believed themselves to once be kings, long to reclaim their thrones. Smite the women, minorities and homosexuals who neglect to read the instruction manual and will therefore be subjugated in a Holy War. Someone else must be to blame, standing tall on the backs of those deemed less worthy provides the necessary height to reach heaven’s gate.
Guns and God are a soothing salve to a wounded soul. They provide a false sense of power in lieu of critical thinking. Eve, committed the original sin when she sought knowledge.
Lillith, cast out when she did not allow subjugation to be her destiny. Rejecting the confines and limitations imposed by men disguised as Gods. Are they born this way? Do the teachings of the uneducated radicalize the mind?
GREEN is for Nature
The forest trail descends into the back country of Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park. Thick ferns cradle two young lovers whose bodies are desecrated. Their lives ended in violence and rage. Lesbian martyrs to some, vile sinners to others. Their deaths accepted as a norm. Women are killed for being women. Lesbians killed for offending men.
PURPLE for Our Spirit
Bar the bathroom doors! As you were born, so must you remain until death. Change is an abomination to those who fear difference. Deny care and the right to exist. Preach intolerance. Only those who hate with righteousness may proceed.
Crusaders singing hymns, while dancing in the blood of their own crimes and sins.
When sunlight enters water droplets in the air, light is refracted into wavelengths resulting in an infinite spectrum of colors, sometimes called a rainbow. Pride celebrations represent this infinite spectrum of diversity.
