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Saturday 28th August: Manchester Pride Weekend 2021

Town made me feel like I’d wondered into a rainbow and pride flag explosion, and I was definitely here for it. It was a joy for me to see hundreds of people out and able to be themselves, especially when you remember that we live in a world where that’s not always the case for everyone.

Me, being the way I am, somehow found a handful of protesters gathering in solidarity for the Afghanistan refugee situation that’s currently happening. All I’m going to say is that I think it’s appalling the fact that the people who are fleeing their homeland due to terrorism are basically being treated as inhuman.

The internal struggle I constantly have of being proud to be British is always raging. The British Empire has a history of sticking it’s flag in places it doesn’t belong and telling the people who belong there that they don’t as well as telling it’s own people who to love and what to do. I was constantly reminded that although homosexually was made legal in the UK in 1967 it really wasn’t until 2013 that many of the homosexuality laws stopped being enforced in subtle and aggressive ways (since many loopholes could and would be found with the 1967 law by its enforcers).

There are things I love about being British but the more I delve into my history the more I’m gritting my teeth. I know that there are places and people who are doing their best to challenge it and hold Britain accountable for its past actions and unfortunately I don’t have the energy to deal with that battle so I’m very content to sit on the side-lines of this battle despite knowing that it’ll have a monumental impact on my life. It’s easier for me to proudly be a black women and an ally to what me and a dear friend of mine lovingly call the “alphabet mafia”  than it is for me to call myself British……I say while sipping my Tetley out of a gigantic Union Jack mug. 

I do love our music, art, comedy and satire. I grew up on Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton, Roger Hargreaves and Harry Potter so it was a steady imaginative diet of the magical, fantastical and humorous, blended with a soundtrack of Queen, The Police, Holst, Muse and The Spice Girls….so yes, there are still quite a lot of things that personally make me feel very proud and honoured to be British, but I still struggle with it and I realize now as I type this why. It’s due to my inability to know how to handle the British government’s treatment of other human beings. I just can’t handle the disrespect and that’s why it hurts. And I know it’s not just my government that’s like this but probably every government around the world that’s like that and what it essentially boils down to is that the government doesn’t really care about the people it governs or the planet because it’s not a persons voice that makes the loudest noise but how much they can pay to have it heard.

I refuse to end this post on a political or bitter note so here’s a little ray of sunshine for the cynical, jaded people who gave up a long time ago: Kindness costs nothing, respect takes less than a second to impart, and love should never be something you have to ask for in order to receive it and if you can’t get them all from someone else I’m sending you a whole load of pandacorn cuddles filled with them because they are extremely fluffy and cuddly. And if you are someone who doesn't like hugs they will happily sit in the corner and sing you your favourite song. 

 Some of the pictures accompanying this post feature some of the beautiful things I saw on my outing and because I'm secretly a magenpie (as Gerald Darrell used to call them as a child) that gets distracted by shiny things I completely forgot to ask the gorgeous women in black and green what their names were. 




















 

 

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