Politicians and Pride

This past Saturday I went with some friends to the annual Tampa Bay Pride parade over in Ybor City. I actually haven’t been to one in quite some time and had a great time. It was a very nice day, and I saw a lot of friends I haven’t seen in a while. I was taking some video and photos, mostly as an excuse to try out my new Samsung S10 (which did great by the way).

The parade was led off by a couple of Grand Masters of course, but then came all the candidates (Tampa is having municipal election runoffs) and local office holders. They kept coming and coming, and finally when the first actual float came by I looked at my watch, and it had taken nearly 25 minutes for all the pols to get by.

It occurred to me that way back when I went to my first pride parade in Durham, North Carolina many years back, there might be one or two officeholders or candidates willing to appear in a pride parade. Now, most realize they can’t afford to miss one of these. Sure, we had a couple of Hillsborough County Commissioners like Stacey White, not show, but Stacey’s a handmaid to the religious right. Millionaire businessman and mayoral candidate David Straz was also a “No Show.” He’d paid a high school band to be there and march behind a banner, but I didn’t see him. I know it seems like normal today to have them show up, but I just realized what a long way we’d come.

In the meantime, if you’d like a look at some of the video I captured that day, the youtube link is below.