Dear Linda Demarco &  Board Members, 

For the past two months, the reaction to the community calling you out for yet another racist, sexist, transphobic, or white-centered incident is all too familiar: you say you will do better, then you retreat to your bunker and wait for the firestorm to die. We are not going away, and we demand to be heard.

Instead of engaging in meaningful dialogue with the community and other grassroot organizations, you threaten the community with legal action. No organization owns PRIDE, it’s a movement. 

It is outrageous that you claim to own “Black Pride” as a six person board without any members who identify as Black. After over 80% of your volunteer work force resigned and the outcry for racial justice from the LGBTQ+ community, the frivolity of your legal threat not only misses the bigger picture, but refuses to confront it. 

As a community member, I demand that you: 

• Listen to and be responsive to the multiple and diverse voices, interests, and needs of the entire Greater Boston LGBTQ+ community.

• Operate with a democratic governance structure that includes power sharing and checks and balances

• Have leadership that represents the diversity of the Greater Boston LGBTQ+ community, especially with * respect to race, ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic class. 

• Honor the Stonewall Riots and the history of Pride by explicitly and intentionally centering on issues of social justice, especially as they affect the most disadvantaged in our community.

• Do not accept donations from corporations and businesses that engage in unjust and/or exploitative business practices or labor practices, environmentally harmful practices (especially as they affect people of color and the poor), and/or violations of privacy and property rights. 

• Work collaboratively with other social justice organizations to promote deep structural social, cultural, political, and legal change using an intersectional lens. 

• Develop an alternative system for providing safety and crowd control at Pride events, especially the Parade and Festival, thereby minimizing police presence.

• Organize a parade that centers on community members and organizations and not corporations and businesses

We demand these changes; anything less is a disservice to Pride and our community.