My Spirit in Revolutions: In the Time of COVID - Carmen Flores, July Featured Artist
Black Lives Matter March in Downtown Los Angeles, June 2020
C.L Flores, also known as SeaFlo_G, is a multi-medium artist, writer, and community organizer dedicated to creating and holding safe creative spaces for QTPOC (Queer Trans People Of Color) folks.
Born and raised in Hawthorne, CA, C. tells the non-binary Xican stories through writing, photographing, filming and painting authentic interpretations of everyday life in Los Angeles. Flores’s vision focuses on today's immigrant families and first generation non-binary Latino-Americans.
Flores volunteering at the November 2019 Mar Vista Music & Art Walk.
My Spirit in Revolutions: Celebrating Pride in the Time of COVID
By C.L Flores
JULY 2020
I can't tell you how hard it is to partake of this current society's idea of fun or celebration. It is now the summer of 2020, and nothing that I had in my planner looks like it will manifest into reality this year. Instead, my planner has converted into a day by day battle for normalcy.
Typically, around the end of May, I would begin to talk to my Rainbow friends and family about our plans for Pride all around California. What outfits we were gonna wear, which celebrations to attend, whether we wanted to uber or book an Airbnb because of how hard we were gonna party. Over the years, I became more aware of its “acceptance” in this country's Corporate eyes and saw that our identities, struggles and colors had become an easy marketing campaign for capital gain. Despite this, it never took away from my excitement of these large gatherings with a community that has fought long and hard to be present, proud and louder than ever!
This year, the LAST thing on my mind was Pride 2020 in any city in California for several reasons. The COVID epidemic has turned this country and the system upholding it on its head and has humbled me, and many folks, in treasuring those years I would march in the West Hollywood parade with my friends. This doesn’t include participating in everyday city nightlife things, like being super sweaty on a dance floor in Downtown L.A with my amix@s, eating in a restaurant without restrictions or going to an art museum.
Acting as a catalyst for what is now known as a continuing revolution from the Civil Rights era, COVID-19 has unveiled the inconsistencies and injustices in this country as the oldest tinder, now fueling the fire of the Black Lives Matter Movement nationwide. Otherwise known as the Movement for Black Lives, Pride Month became the month of fighting all levels of oppression for another group that has been marginalized, discriminated and underhanded for hundreds of years, including those who also identity on LGBTQIA+ Spectrum. I couldn't see myself being active in any other life-risking battle than the one for equality in the present. What better way to celebrate than dismantling systematic oppression and defunding the police?
The U.S Pride Celebration in itself began as a riot at Stonewall in 1969, and after the incidents with George Floyd and his murder at the hands of the authorities, I found myself, my spirit, reeling in the many issues stacked up on my plate of work to do and questioned what my capacity and role was to be in this revolution. My mental stability was rocked, as it was rooted in this country's dirt and generational traumas placed on my lineage and heritage and felt I wasn’t going to be able to do anything. Despite this moment, I had friends joining in, from the Rainbow family and beyond, and felt supported by my community, as I was able to also support them in return. I don't believe I will ever want to go back to how life used to be again. I felt beyond proud to have a hard communal cry marching the streets of Los Angeles with all the folks who would’ve marched with me in Long Beach and realized that Pride never went away. If anything, it got WAY bigger, and was a dialogue built with intersectionality in mind.
I wanna say that it was hard and saddening to celebrate Pride month from home or in another light, but that would not be my truth. In this current state of our country, and unraveling of the long time systematic racist policies and cultural upkeeping of white lives, benefiting the 1%, I am all for celebrating Juneteenth over Pride, or fighting for Black Trans Lives. I can wait for next year to be out there and celebrate in a big gay fashion. Hopefully, with us no longer needing to remind cis white gay community members that ALL Black Lives Matter. That their White Claws and short shorts can still be present in the current march happening in West Hollywood for another marginalized community. With that, I will gladly take my rainbow flag, my “Fuck White Supremacy” sign, my COVID mask and keep marching until the change is done.
Cuerpos Cafes para todas las Vidas Negras.
Learn more about Carmen Flores / SeaFlo G
Clyf Studios - https://clyfstudios.wixsite.com/clyf
Created by C.L Flores in 2017, C.Lyf Studios is a public artistic space for collaborative work and political movement. Organizing and promoting different mediums of art and events for the people, by the people.
March to Defund the LAPD, Los Angeles, CA, June 2020
March to Defund the LAPD, Los Angeles, CA, June 2020