if your pride builds a stage with only stairs,
then you’ve built a monument to yourself,
not a gathering for all of us.

if your pride stalks protestors with plain-clothes cops,
then your rainbow is stitched with surveillance,
not solidarity.

if your pride stuffs small community groups
between two corporate giants in glittered trucks,
then your parade is just advertising,
not uprising.

if your pride mouths the word “accessible”
while telling disabled people to stay home,
then your pride is a locked door with a neon sign.

your pride is not liberation,
it’s theater.
it’s smoke and mirrors.
it’s applause you wrote for yourself.

if your pride refuses to call
for the end of wars,
for the end of genocide,
then your silence is louder than any marching band.

if your pride bows to corporate money
while shoving aside the activists who lit this fire,
then your pride is profit,
not protest.

this pride is yours.
your stage. your spotlight. your sponsors.

not ours.
not the people’s.
not the ones who bled so you could wave that flag.

because if your pride is not for the most vulnerable,
it is not pride at all.

Shane 4/9/2025 11:00 am