It’s Polk Pride Week 2025. I always appreciate this time of year as a time to regather some joy and build community. But I have to say that this year feels unsettlingly different.

Peaceful protests are being met with violent backlash from our current administration. It simultaneously stirs up the courage to be bolder, louder, and more persistent about protecting the vulnerable, alongside the anxiety of wondering how things will go this week.

Lies are shaping our shared reality and I feel angry as truth, democracy, and empathy are stolen away from us, from history, from science, from human beings who are not “illegals” or “aliens” but who are the indigenous peoples of these colonized lands.

People are being disappeared, starved, tortured, killed, all around the world. With great sadness and a feeling of helplessness, I watch the news unfold about Gaza, about the Madleen crew, about humanitarian crises in too many places that we don’t even know about unless we spend countless hours researching, sinking ourselves into a deep hole of despair.

And on Saturday, the day we are celebrating Pride in the Park, a military parade is to take place in Washington DC. It’s scary. It’s meant to scare us.

But we will be together. And we can rise up. This is our country and we will not let fascism take over. Don’t be afraid to call it what it is. It couldn’t be more obvious. This isn’t about Democrat vs. Republican. This is about being an American and practicing the freedom given to us by our Constitution—the Constitution that our government officials swore to uphold and protect. They are failing.

We need the joy of Pride Week to fuel us like never before—the rainbows, the stickers, the glitter blessings, the music, the community, the party. And then, on what has also been deemed “No Kings Day,” we will protest.

Be Brave. Be safe. Take good care of yourself. But show up and let’s support each other. Reach out if you need to—to me or someone else. Together we can figure out what each of us is called to do in this moment.