This. I think it’s kinda ridiculous to be proud of something you haven’t done anything for. I’ll much rather be proud of the thing I did than about shit like where I’m born or as what I’m born.
The only time I would say that doesn’t apply is when you’re part of a traditionally marginalized group. Black pride, or queer pride or indigenous pride all make sense to me. Because it’s a collective pride thing more than an individual pride thing.
And in that case I think it’s best to think of the pride as coming from the action of resilience. When the term gay pride first appeared it was controversial but the argument was that society had been telling us to be ashamed for so long and we weren’t going to take it anymore and in fact we’ll be proud to be queer instead. And I maintain that if queer phobia had stopped before I grew up it would definitely be very emotionally different, because there’s also the pride of just being different from the norm. You can see that in stuff like in people who are proud to be a redhead or people who are proud of the area they come from but aren’t anymore (I’m planning to move out west and I’m already noticing myself get more Midwestern in anticipation).
This. I think it’s kinda ridiculous to be proud of something you haven’t done anything for. I’ll much rather be proud of the thing I did than about shit like where I’m born or as what I’m born.
The only time I would say that doesn’t apply is when you’re part of a traditionally marginalized group. Black pride, or queer pride or indigenous pride all make sense to me. Because it’s a collective pride thing more than an individual pride thing.
And in that case I think it’s best to think of the pride as coming from the action of resilience. When the term gay pride first appeared it was controversial but the argument was that society had been telling us to be ashamed for so long and we weren’t going to take it anymore and in fact we’ll be proud to be queer instead. And I maintain that if queer phobia had stopped before I grew up it would definitely be very emotionally different, because there’s also the pride of just being different from the norm. You can see that in stuff like in people who are proud to be a redhead or people who are proud of the area they come from but aren’t anymore (I’m planning to move out west and I’m already noticing myself get more Midwestern in anticipation).