District of Columbia
Taste of Pride serves community, cuisine ahead of WorldPride
Capital Pride Alliance partners with local restaurants to celebrate LGBTQ culture, support small businesses, and raise funds for the Pride365 Fund.
With WorldPride set to kick off next month, bringing an estimated two million visitors to D.C., the city’s LGBTQ and restaurant communities are preparing for an unprecedented celebration.
Capital Pride Alliance, the nonprofit organization behind D.C.’s Pride events, is uniting the city’s LGBTQ and culinary communities to raise money for the Pride365 Fund through a program called Taste of Pride.
Taste of Pride partners with local restaurants across the District to generate funds for the Pride365 Fund, which, in turn, supports local LGBTQ organizations.
The Washington Blade sat down with Brandon Bayton, Special Projects & Influencer Manager for Capital Pride, to discuss how Taste of Pride is giving everyone the chance to support the LGBTQ community while enjoying incredible local cuisine.
“D.C. has become really known as sort of a foodie city,” said Bayton. “The restaurants that are participating are really stepping up to show their support for the LGBTQ community-especially in these troubling times right now. For them to step up and say, ‘Hey, we support you,’ it’s an opportunity for us to share them with our community and say, ‘We can support you too.’”
For Bayton, who is also the lead planner and producer for Taste of Pride, these restaurants’ open commitment to being safe spaces for the LGBTQ community serves three key purposes. The first is that they create a sense of belonging.
“By these restaurants participating, there is visibility,” he said. “They’re saying the LGBTQ community is here. They are patrons. We respect them and we support them. That, first and foremost, is one.” The participating restaurants are also given a sticker to display in their window that proves they are an official restaurant of Taste of Pride.
The second key aspect, Bayton explained, is that these restaurants are financially supporting an organization that directly benefits Washington’s LGBTQ community. To participate, restaurants must contribute at least $250 to Capital Pride, which serves as a donation to the Pride365 Fund.
“These restaurants are supporting us financially too,” Bayton said. “They are pretty much donating. There are tiers, and those tiers are donations to the Pride365 Fund-which is Capital Pride’s fundraising arm. That fund supports not just Capital Pride, but our sister organizations too, where we do grants and loans. We can disperse funds to SMYAL or the DC LGBTQ Center. Some of the funds that we’ve been raising go into the completion of the LGBTQ Center. It’s a fund that really supports the community.”
Lastly, Taste of Pride provides a platform for restaurants to showcase not only their food but also the queer history of their neighborhoods.
“The third thing is some of these restaurants are doing actual events, from drag events to poetry readings and hosting artists,” Bayton said. “Annie’s is a participant that’s going to be part of the Dupont Circle/17th Street Taste of Pride weekend in June, and they’re hosting a book launch for an author. His name is Erik Piepenburg, and he has featured Annie’s and other LGBTQ establishments in his book, “Dining Out.” The Watergate [Hotel] has four events that they’re doing. The Union Market community is doing special events for its Taste of Pride. It has been a win-win for everyone.”
So far, Taste of Pride has hosted two events: a kickoff event at Hook Hall and a weekend event with the Georgetown Business Improvement District (BID). If those events were any indication, Bayton said, this year’s Taste of Pride is shaping up to be both delicious and fabulous.
“We had a great panel of chefs,” he said about the January kickoff party. “We had David Hagedorn, Rob Heim from Shaw’s Tavern, these guys who call themselves Pirate Ventures. And we had Chef Angela Rose, who not only is a member of the [LGBTQ] community but also leads the Go-Go Museum’s café.”
The event also showcased two local drag artists.
“We had two performers-Frieda Poussáy and Dior Couture, a definite rising star in D.C. It was a night of food, camaraderie, networking, and friends getting together. It was a nice community event.”
Taste of Pride will continue throughout the city, with different Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) hosting culinary-focused weekends from now until July 31. Participating neighborhoods include NoMa, Dupont Circle, Golden Triangle, Capitol Hill, the Capitol Riverfront, and more.
This weekend, Adams Morgan will take center stage, serving up its own Taste of Pride. From the famous pupusas at El Tamarindo to the juicy burgers at Lucky Buns, these iconic and top-rated AdMo restaurants will not only be selling delicious food and raising money for the LGBTQ community, but they’ll also be “sharing a story — one of diversity, inclusion, and Pride.”
When asked how people should get involved in the Taste of Pride events, Bayton explained that Capital Pride found an app to “try to take the heavy lifting off of the restaurants by creating a specialized portal and employing an app.”
“One of the things is to download your Bandwango pass, because that gives you access to all the neighborhood groups as they come online,” he said.
Additionally, Bayton said posting a photo on social media is a great way to bring awareness to local restaurants supporting the LGBTQ community.
“When you go into the restaurants, take a picture, tag them, show your support for them,” he said.
This is not the first year Taste of Pride has taken place, Bayton told the Blade. It began in 2021 to support struggling local businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic but has since evolved into what it is today.
Bayton also shared his hopes for the future of Taste of Pride and for it to be recognized as much as a foodie event as a fundraising opportunity.
“My vision for Taste of Pride is that it becomes a staple of Capital Pride, not just something we do around Pride weekend. It becomes something that is ongoing. I would like to see it grow to become a major event, similar to the Pink Tie Party or Chefs for Equality, but always with the goal of interacting with the community and the allies of our community.”
That goal, he said, is impossible to achieve without food.
“I think we connect over food,” Bayton said. “When people sit down and they have dinner, it’s that time that provides an opportunity to allow us to connect with one another. Food serves as a key bridge.”
District of Columbia
Hands Off the Arts to form ‘human chain’ around Kennedy Center
Drag performer Tara Hoot among event organizers
An organization called Hands Off the Arts has announced it is holding a protest on Friday, Sept. 18, in which between 400 and 800 participants are expected to create a “human chain” around the Kennedy Center to voice their strong objection to President Donald Trump’s call for possibly demolishing the Kennedy Center.
“Hands Off the Arts is organizing a rally Sept. 18 against the president’s defacing of JFK’s memorial, his removal and censorship of art, and the threat to demolish the center if he can’t remake the site in his image,” a statement released by the group says.
The statement says the event will start with a rally at 6:30 p.m. on the Kennedy Center steps and culminate with a “human chain” around the building. “There will be musical performances, testimonials from current and former employees, along with other special guest speakers,” it says
A separate announcement by the group says longtime D.C. drag performer Tara Hoot, who has performed at the Kennedy Center in past years, was among the organizers of the Sept. 18 protest.
The planned protest follows Trump’s decision last year to use his authority to replace the existing members of the Kennedy Center’s board of directors with new members loyal to him. Over the objection of longtime Kennedy Center supporters, the Trump-appointed board changed the name of the center, at Trump’s request, from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
But following the threat of legal action by opponents who pointed out that the name change could not be legally made unless approved by Congress, the name change was cancelled, with Trump saying he would take steps to restore it later.
The Washington Post, meanwhile, reports in a Sept. 13 news story that because of negative publicity related to Trump’s actions, the Kennedy Center was facing “fiscal collapse” and possible bankruptcy and could be forced to shut down as early as this week.
According to the Post report, a 57-page document presented to the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees says the center was facing a financial and structural building crisis, with the recent collapse of part of the building’s inside ceiling, indicating the building was unsafe for employees and the public. Among other things, the document says the Kennedy Center may not be able to make payroll or pay for routine maintenance “within a matter of weeks,” the Post reports.
Some LGBTQ advocates were among those who joined others in boycotting the Kennedy Center to express their objections to Trump’s actions, including a statement by Trump that he objected to the Kennedy Center’s practice of hosting drag performances.
The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington has been among the LGBTQ performing arts groups and artists that have performed at the Kennedy Center.
“With the future still very much uncertain, now more than ever, the Center needs you to stand up for freedom of expression and against authoritarian overreach into arts and culture institutions,” the Hands Off the Arts group says in its announcement of the Hands Around the Kennedy Center protest.
“You have the opportunity to make a difference — show up with Hands Off the Arts and show your power as part of Hands Around the Kennedy Center,” it says.
A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
District of Columbia
Blade welcomes fall intern
Alexis McLean is student at University of North Florida
The Washington Blade this week welcomed Alexis McLean as its fall intern.
Alexis is studying political science at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Fla. She is interning with the Blade as part of a continued partnership with the Washington Center.
“I am looking forward to spending my time in the fall with the Washington Blade, as this is a new experience for me,” said Alexis. “I have not experienced any journalist jobs in the past so this would be my first time, and I am excited to better my writing and communications skills with this internship.”
Alexis’s internship with the Blade ends in early December.
District of Columbia
‘People don’t see me. They see a trend’
New popularity of all things Asian warps view of multiple cultures
As I was growing up, my parents often shared stories about how they were bullied when they were my age, just for being Asian. My mom is Cambodian and my dad is “Wasian,” Chinese and white. Students teased them for their looks, their homemade lunches, and treated their traditional holidays as jokes.
I once asked my mom when I was little if she could pack me dumpling leftovers for lunch. “Yes,” she said with a surprised look, adding, “I would have never wanted to bring dumplings to school when I was your age because I would always get bullied for them. I’m glad times have changed.”
At the time, I was confused. Whenever I brought a homemade Asian dish to school for lunch, I was happy to hear intriguing and curious questions from the other kids. It felt good to have my meal be popular and different from the Lunchables everyone else had.
Though times have changed, racism still continues. It just has a new face. Today, social media pretends to flatter our cultures in an insincere way trying to gain popularity just for clicks. Think anything from K-pop to Japan’s surge in international tourism. Even Starbucks has added drinks with the flavor of ube yam, native to the Philippines, onto its menu.
I feel that now when people see me, they don’t see me, they see a trend.
For years, Asian people have been portrayed as foreign or exotic. The new embrace of foods and fashion at first felt good. Asians have never been represented as much as they’ve deserved.
But this new popularity warps what non-Asians see. Instead of the blunt and direct racism my parents faced, everything now is a gray area, more discreetly hidden behind some TikTok video. It actually normalizes racism and stereotypes.
Whitewashing my culture
As a 15-year-old Asian American who lives in D.C., I’ve always been one of the few Asian kids in school; my high school today counts less than 2 percent of students as being of Asian descent. I remember always being called “that one Asian girl” or some slur a kid learned from their parents. Every time I search for something related to Asian culture, such as a recipe or maybe a holiday, it’s always the same thing: some white person whitewashing my culture.
Social media is the main culprit, of course. I realized this when I entered high school and got a phone and was introduced to the internet. That is when I realized how messed up the new stereotypes around Asians are.
One pattern I started to notice was people wanting to be Asian just because it was popular. It was hurtful, patronizing, and annoying. They made assumptions about our race and then only found us “cool” because we were trending. How can people go from hating us or finding us weird, to then only liking us because we’re popular?
There was a trend going around on TikTok called “race change to another” or RCTA. It is this trend of people manifesting certain physical traits to change their appearance in order to change races. According to journalist Emi Tran, writing then as an intern for NBC Digital, the trend started when a white woman wanted to be Japanese. The woman began posting TikTok videos of herself wishing for different features such as monolids. Tran wrote in that 2023 article that “the overwhelming majority of the RCTA community wants to be East Asian.”
People also look up to K-pop culture, idolizing the pop groups pulled together by big entertainment companies. Most people expect all Koreans to be K-pop fans. Korean friends are asked about K-pop all the time even though they are not into the South Korean music genre.
Although I am not South Korean — I am half Cambodian and Chinese — I still get asked, almost like I’m expected, “You’re really into this group, right?” or “Can you tell me how to pronounce this member’s name?”
I was asked even worse questions during COVID-19. Suddenly, discrimination and violence were increasing specifically toward Asians everywhere. Suddenly, almost everyone was blaming Chinese people for spreading and causing COVID-19.
I remember going to school for one of the last times before quarantine had started and hearing kids whisper, “Oh, she’s going to give us the Coronavirus.” President Donald Trump had publicly posted his opinions about the situation on social media, blaming China for the pandemic, even calling it the “Chinese Virus” or the “Wuhan Virus.” According to NPR, anti-Asian hate crimes in U.S. cities surged 149 percent that year.
The topic of Asians in the media has always been complicated. One moment people can hate us for being weird and different and the next we’re suddenly popular and cool for the same reasons.
I feel conflicted on whether I should feel happy that we’re being represented or angry that it’s all for the wrong reason and has the wrong effects.
Lily Brugman is a sophomore at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, one of Youthcast Media Group’s journalism class partners. She worked with YMG volunteer and Professor Emerita in journalism at American University Amy Eisman on this piece.
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