S. Samuel
NBA player Jason Collins is proving his recent big reveal of being a homosexual man is not a publicity stunt by attending his first-ever gay pride parade.
According to reports, the event took place in Massachusetts Saturday (June 8).
America’s first openly gay athlete NBA player Jason Collins walked in his first gay pride parade on Saturday, RumorFix is reporting. The athlete marched in Boston’s Gay Pride Parade with Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy III, who was Jason’s roommate at Stanford University. After coming out in April, Jason wore the appropriate T-shirt — one in rainbow colors that simply read “#BeTrue.” The gay hero was joined by thousands of marchers including politicians Barney Frank and Lauren Birchfield. This parade is especially significant to the 34-year-old, who wrote in an article for Sports Illustrated that the decision to go public came when Kennedy marched in last year’s parade and Collins didn’t feel that he could join him. (RumorFix)
Collins publicly came out in an exclusive Sports Illustrated feature a couple months ago.
“I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay. I didn’t set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I’m happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn’t the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, “I’m different.” If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I’m raising my hand. My journey of self-discovery and self-acknowledgement began in my hometown of Los Angeles and has taken me through two state high school championships, the NCAA Final Four and the Elite Eight, and nine playoffs in 12 NBA seasons.” (Sports Illustrated)
Following the announcement, rap stars like T.I. and Lil Wayne embraced the news.
“What it does for sports? It’s opening a lot of doors and it’s showing that it’s a fair world out there,” Wayne told MTV News on Saturday morning (May 4) when we sat with him in Miami at a launch party for his new Spectre by Supra sneaker, the Chimera. “Just to see how many people came to his support and things like that, that’s a pretty fair world out there. Be you.” (MTV)
New York rapper A$AP Rocky also touched up on the topic and Collins’ comments a few weeks ago.
“That’s his business,” Rocky said in an interview. “I respect men more for coming out. People joke on Frank Ocean a lot but at least he’s not out here fronting. It’s a lot of people, a lot of motherf*ckers be out here, they be the closet motherf*ckers, you know? I don’t respect them. I respect gay men who identify it and who are out with it. I don’t have a problem with gay people at all. So it’s like, that’s his business. It don’t concern me. Number one, I barely get to watch basketball like that as it is. Number two, I don’t even know who this n*gga is that you talking about. Dead a**. He probably has ten times more money than me but I don’t know who he is. We got the Frank Ocean of the NBA now who came out and did what he had to do. Shout-outs to him.” (KYSDC)
