Pride

I remain puzzled about people taking 'pride in being xyz', or about people saying, 'proud to be xyz'. Some of these pride taking activities are obviously not unreasonable and they are indeed understandable. These types of activities pertain to be people taking pride in things that they can take credit for. Say Usain Bolt has reason to be proud of his world record demonstrating that he currently runs faster in circles than other people who also would like to run faster in circle than anyone else in the world. Bolt can't reasonably take credit for bodily features that permit him to compete, provided he trains properly. He can take pride in training very hard and disciplined in order to do the circle run faster than anyone else in the world. So, my view is that pride taking requires some conscious deliberate activity on our part aimed at achieving a certain thing that we would like to achieve. When we have achieved this thing, we take pride in that achievement.

So, here's my puzzlement then. Lots of people take pride in things that they couldn't help one way or another. People take pride in being of one skin color or another, they take pride in being gay, disabled, tall, short etc etc. None of these things, surely, lend themselves to pride taking activities. After all, if you're black you are black you are black, and nothing (save some idiotic skin bleaching exercises) is going to change that. If you're tall, you're tall, you're tall, and nothing  (save some idiotic leg cutting exercises) is going to change this. Same for sexual orientation. Given that most, if not all, people do not make a considered choice to be asexual, heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual or whatever sexual, how can any of us sensibly take pride in being of a particular sexual orientation? At best we can take pride in making a considered choice to be good about who we are as opposed to being in denial.

One of my facebook friends said that she is proud of the Egyptian revolutionaries that are bent on kicking their dictator out. Now, how can she be proud of something that she had no hand in? Makes little sense, or does it? Have the people in Egypt who took risks during this revolution have every reason to take pride in their bravery. Arguably they have a case to be proud. Has someone who cheered them on from a comfy living room in Canada (supporting them on facebook or tweeting busily revolutionary slogans) reason to take pride in anything that has been achieved in Egypt? Surely not.

Over to you, would we not be better off if people stopped taking pride in things that they can't reasonably take credit for? Perhaps I have missed something in the concept of pride, so do not hesitate to comment and get back at me if you think so.

Thousands and a million spectators at Toronto Gay Pride

Hey, I had a great weekend! I went to join in the fun that's Toronto's gay pride party (and march) this last weekend. Great stuff, lots of stages with non-stop events, and security asking for my ID to check my age (trust me, when you are about to turn mid-40s you do appreciate that someone is kind enough to check whether you've reached maturity).

Well, the march was ... long, very long, something like 4 hours (my mid-40s feet started hurting eventually), and ... ummm ... somewhat boring. Compared to the in-your-face kinkiness that Sydney and Berlin tend to offer to the (very much suspecting) public, this was a sedate affair, all in all. The occasional naked marcher popped up, even some leather folks, as well as a naked pre-op transsexual. And that was that. In any case, it's been a great great show that these volunteers put on. I am truly grateful for the time people put in in order to make this a memorable gay pride. This being the mainstream event that it is, even my bank had its own little float, as had other banks, radio and TV stations, the armed forces, firefighters, huge contingents of the Liberal, NDP and Green parties (kindly the Conservatives decided not to show up - this should conserve its Western prairies votes quite nicely - well done Mr Harper!), as well as the police, nurses and the list goes on and on and on. Mind you, even the hotel where I was staying, the downtown Hilton had its own contingent in the march. Good on them! There were even gay Christians like Catholics, Anglicans and assorted other Christian sects (they should really have another look at their God's bible, my hunch is that they just might have missed something there...)

The guy leading the march was a Jamaican gay activist (probably looking for asylum in Canada, seeing how militantly homophobic that creepy little island state is). No doubt this has been a very smart choice as it keeps reminding people how terrible the situation for gay people in even reasonably close-by places is. You'd find in the local Toronto papers suggestions that Canadian tourists should boycott Caribbean tourist destinations that do not protect the human rights of their gay citizens. Great idea!

Of course, gay events and alcohol go well together, so the main sponsor of much of this seems to have been the producer of a drink called xyz ice or something. No idea what it is, but whoever they were, they certainly splashed out, trying to persuade the partying crowd to buy their 7$ a pop drink. No doubt there were hidden stickers saying 'drink responsibly'. And you know what, people even party responsibly in Canada. I saw very very few people who were seriously over their limit. All in all, it's been a family friendly event (and I don't necessarily mean gay families, but any kinds of families). Nice one!

Oh ye, about the heading of this blog entry, check out this link... CTV, the media sponsor of this year's pride kinda couldn't decide how many people lined the streets to cheer on the marchers. The title says 'thousands of spectators', in the articles it says 'a million spectators'. I do accept that many thousands eventually translate into a million (and potentially more than that), but it's odd nonetheless.

On that note, glad I went. I even bumped into a colleague from Toronto Uni. Small world.