WHAT IS PRIDE, Exactly?

WHAT IS PRIDE, Exactly?
Is it a barrage of marketing, business networking, cruising, one-uping, empty interchanges, gossip, who's with who, quick glances and judgments about each other?
Is that what we are PROUD of?
Entertainment offered to a a very creative and supportive group of Artistic and discriminating GAY people in the form of Drag Queens, Female Impersonators - Lipsinking? Same Old-Same Old... are we all so hypnotized by it all that we really don't care as long as there is D&A, Abs and Pecs?
Is that what were PROUD of?
Can we think outside of the "BOX"?
Was a day years ago, when having a major Icon in town for a benefit the following evening may have warranted a SPECIAL visit to promote PRIDE... I heard K.D. Lang was wonderful, for the 1 hour she sang at the benefit, She is truly amazing by my recolection of my partner and I crying tears of love and joy at a concert we attended 2 years ago.
Where is the sensitivity of the common shared struggle to simply BE who we are?
This is what we can be collectively PROUD of...