Photos by Gareth Gooch
My first thought as I gingerly limned the edge of a thronging Castro Saturday afternoon was, “Who makes all these rainbow California and US flags, an do people just have them hanging out somewhere in their house?” But while many radical-minded people are more relieved than ecstatic to have Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the White House, no one could deny the elated spirit that had overtaken San Francisco’s traditional party neighborhood, with horns honking, very gay signs waving, and those prismatic banners a-flyin’.
Every single person I saw was masked and at least a tiny bubble of distance was achieved, as the BAAAHS bus cranked up its sound system for disco hits and organizer Alex U. Inn rallied the crowd. It was a fabulous SF moment, no matter how left you lean, on a gorgeous autumn day. Now let’s see if that other dude concedes.
“Patriotic fervor,” chestnuts from the canon of settler colonialism.