Unless I am singing in a pew, I am never not aware of my blackness. I think about race constantly and assume that others do as well. After all, race and gender are the first two things people notice upon meeting a stranger. I am often the primary contributor of melanin to the spaces I occupy. For this reason, I have repeatedly been singled out by law enforcement to be harassed and threatened in various modes. Because of my many negative experiences with police, their presence always makes me feel uneasy and fearful. My friend, T, and I started planning for last summer’s LA Pride Weekend months before it happened. We Facetimed while I was still in St. Louis to discuss his outfit (he’s colorblind and needs help with matching). We exchanged links via Facebook message for t-shirts to buy that would perfectly fill the gaps in the closets we had just barely exited. We arranged with his mom for me to spend Saturday night at her house so I could avoid having to tell my parents I was skipping church in the morning to go to the parade with a bunch of “perverts.” Friday and Saturday night went pretty much as planned. We drove to West Hollywood on Friday night and danced our little gay hearts out. On Saturday, we went to barbecue send off party for a high school friend about to join the Peace Corps. At the party, we talked with our friend’s younger sister, J, and told them about our pride plans. Being only twenty years old, J had never been to the bars in WeHo, but was clearly interested and very jealous of us getting to go exist and celebrate among other queer folk. T and I eventually left the party and headed to West Hollywood for another night of dancing in the bars. The streets were even more crowded than a usual Saturday night. We met up with some friends at the music festival and were surrounded by EDM music and queer people from teenagers to people perhaps in their 60s. I do not know if I have ever witnessed so much PDA, but this was so clearly a safe space for so many who rarely occupy safe spaces so the feeling of beauty at the time was overwhelming. Tired from being on our feet all night, T and I went back to his place for the night. On the way back we remembered how excited J seemed about Pride so we decided to kidnap them in the morning on our way to the parade. Before heading to bed, we talked to T’s mom for a few minutes. She told us about a shooting in Florida that was on the news. Sad, but shootings happen all the time; can’t let them get you down. By the time I woke up in the morning, my entire newsfeed was filled with statuses about the shooting. The biggest terrorist attack since 9/11, they said. 50 dead, another 50 or so wounded. My sister and multiple friends had texted me not to go to the parade. They were worried about another attack on the homos. I didn’t say anything to T about it. If anything, I felt like now I needed to go to the parade; I needed to show that I embraced my identity no matter what violent threat might oppose me; I didn’t want to encourage any fear in my friend that might stop us from going. When we showed up at J’s house, they were still sleeping, but had the hugest grin upon waking up to see us there for them. While we waited for them to get ready, J’s brother made us traditional matte and their mom talked to us about how glad she was that we were getting her daughter “out.” Parents can know their children so well without knowing them oftentimes. The three of us took a 35 minute bus ride to avoid what would have been a parking nightmare. On the way, T took a bunch of selfies preserving in memory our quality pride-themed outfits. I wore my hair in an afro that day, I wanted to embrace my true self, the self that God created. My shirt, which I had purchased weeks before, read “Love Wins” and featured a rainbow-striped United States. “God is Love and Love wins,” is what I kept reciting to myself and remembering as I read new texts from my sister about how a man was arrested blocks from our home on his way to plant explosives at the LA Pride parade. I will fear no evil for my God is with me. If anything, it was more important that we be there. To my friends on the bus with me, my face displayed nothing but a smile filled with excitement. They needed this day to celebrate their identities and I couldn’t ruin it for them. I knew that. The parade was on Santa Monica Boulevard, a street upon which T and I have spent many a late night. It was completely different. It was completely transformed. People filled the rainbow-paved streets. Floats cruised down the road, escorted by brightly dressed dancers. Firefighters and policemen walked along the double yellow line holding the hands of their same-sex lovers. They were real people, smiling and waving. There were National Guard Humvees manned by men with big guns and instead of being paralyzed in fright like I normally would, they provided me with a calm sense that everything would be alright, since I knew that in that instance, I was identifiably queer, an attendee, someone they were there to protect. I must also note that because of nerve damage, I am unable to stand for more than a few minutes at a time without getting very lightheaded and possibly passing out. I did not experience the parade in the company of the friends I came with. Instead, I experienced it waist-high, sitting on a red curb, sometimes with wheel-chair bound parade goers and service dogs. We had our own little disabled section. People don’t look down when you’re below them and that provided me a sort of invisibility. There was my own zone and a safeness as my body was not defined by a powerful stance and was thus deweaponized. I was afforded the chance to retreat into my own thoughts, to marvel at the parade and reflect on the grandness of it all. That day, in that moment, I was able to occupy my many identities safely, but not only that. I was able to celebrate and given reason to celebrate my many identities as well. For this day, I will always be grateful.