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What JMP is Doing for Pride Month

arati_mejdal

Happy Pride Month!

Pride Month (or simply Pride) is a monthlong annual celebration in June honoring the LGBTQ+ community. We not only recognize the tremendous impact the LGBTQ+ community has had and continues to have on the history and culture of the US and around the world, but we also remember the catalyst for the gay rights movement, the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan.

History of Pride Month

On June 28, 1969, riots broke out in Greenwich Village in New York City when police raided a gay club, the Stonewall Inn. The following year, on June 28, 1970, the first Pride parade to Central Park was organized to observe the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The Pride parade later expanded to other cities and countries around the world into what is known today as Pride Month.

What Pride means at SAS

The celebration of Pride Month fits well with SAS core values. The Pride 2021 site explains it beautifully: “For SAS, Pride Month is about celebrating our uniqueness and being yourself no matter what our identities may be, because, as innovators, we rely on our creativity and differences to develop great software. We believe cultivating diversity in our workforce helps bring all qualities together, inspiring innovative solutions that serve our global customers’ business needs.”

The SAS LGBTQ+ Pride Employee Inclusion Group has several activities planned for Pride Month this year, and we encourage everyone at JMP to take part.

A recent InsideSAS article has details, including helpful information on how you can be an ally.

Here are some events happening companywide:

Monthlong: T-shirt design contest
June 4: Parents of Transgender Children Support Group
June 7: Pride EIG Discussion on Mental Well-Being and the Pandemic
June 23: Happy hour – join SAS PRIDE on Teams or email Andrea Horn to get the invite
June 24: Parenting PRIDE Discussion Group

See all the activities on the Pride 2021 page on SharePoint. You can also check out the Yammer page for SAS Pride.

How is JMP celebrating?

For starters, we are participating in the companywide activities. JMP employees are members of the SAS LGBTQ+ Pride Employee Inclusion Group, both as folks who identify as LGBTQ+ and as allies.

JMP is also celebrating Pride Month on Instagram and elsewhere on social media by turning our JMP icons rainbow-colored for the month of June. You'll find these icons below.

Facebook LinkedIn Instagram Twitter Twitter

In addition, two of our creative and industrious interns, Ria Madan and Kevin O’Donnell, are working on Instagram stories and posts throughout the month. This is where we could use your help!

How YOU can take part

We invite anyone at JMP who celebrates Pride Month to record a short video (no more than 30 seconds) explaining what Pride means to you or take a picture of yourself holding a sign with one word that sums it up. SAS is doing something similar for the picture (see below). Your video or picture could be featured on the JMP Instagram account! Email Ria, Kevin or Arati if you’d like to contribute a video or selfie.

Also, we’d love to hear in the comments right here: How are you celebrating Pride Month? What does Pride mean to you? Do you have an idea for how JMP can help make our world more inclusive and equitable for the LGBTQ+ community?

Comments

Diana_Levey

Thank you for putting together this great story, Arati, with helpful links and ways to participate.

I believe that in this month -- and every month -- we should be inclusive, we should embrace our differences, and we should stand up for those who are not able to stand up for themselves. It is a time to be kind to one another and to ourselves.

Here's the photo I'm posting on social media...

ashley_prince

Thank you, Arati for this article. Celebrating Pride Month as a company and a division is so important, bringing corporate and individual values of acceptance and compassion in alignment. Both at home and in the workplace, individuals should have the freedom to be their authentic selves without fear, judgment, or apology. I love that JMP celebrates diversity, and honors the LGBTQ+ community who has worked tirelessly to defend equality, representation, and basic human rights. Proud to be an ally.

tina_dubois

It's so important that we surround ourselves with people who don't look like us, both to expand our own world view and to become a strong ally for those groups that may not have a place at the same tables we do. In 2019, I became a proud member of Free Mom Hugs (www.freemomhugs.org), an organization that supports the LGBTQIA+ community all over the US by participating in events as allies. The activities I've participated in have ranged from being a witness at a beautiful lesbian wedding, to providing protection from protestors attempting to disrupt young children from attending a Drag Queen Story Hour, to simply giving hugs at local PRIDE events. We can show up in many ways to demonstrate our support, and I'm eager to see how other JMPers are walking the walk!!

anne_milley

Yes! Thank you for posting this, Arati, and thank you for sharing great comments, Diana, Ashley, and Tina. Diversity is truly a gift.

krystalbarnes2

Always here as an ally to empower those whose voices aren’t heard as loudly, and ensure that people of all genders and orientations feel that they can celebrate who they are without fear. Always live your BEST authentic life!

Love is Love.

Thank you Arati and supporting colleagues!

arati_mejdal

Thank you to @Diana_Levey, @ashley_prince, @tina_dubois, @anne_milley and @krystalbarnes2 for your wonderful comments and support! I invite all of you (Anne has already done this) and everyone who reads this article to take a picture of yourself holding a homemade sign that answers this question: "What does Pride Month mean to you?" I'm working on one! We will use the pics in Instagram posts during Pride Month.

andrealhorn

Wonderful article and we LOVE all the support!

arati_mejdal

Thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment, @andrealhorn! (Andrea Horn is the current Chair of the SAS Pride EIG.)

ashley_tannert

LOVE

arati_mejdal

Thank you @ashley_tannert for telling us what Pride Month means to you! Would you be so kind as to take a pic of yourself holding a homemade sign saying LOVE? I bet you have some colored markers or crayons or paints at your house?

ashley_tannert

@arati_mejdal

To me, pride means the people I love most in my life can live, celebrate, be exactly who they were born to be & most importantly LOVE freely!

Sent you a pic

Janice_LeBeau

Love is Love! Be yourself! Be PROUD of who you are!

Sending a pic

Maggie-SAS

Thank you @arati_mejdal and JMPers for your support of Pride Month! Please join in on our events including sharing pictures of your family for our photo gallery - https://inside.sas.com/news/2021/06/08/its-pride-month-show-us-your-family-in-color/

arati_mejdal

Hi @Maggie-SAS! Thanks for joining our conversation over here at InsideJMP -- and for sharing that link to the family photo gallery!

DamianCarville

Arati and team - thanks for putting all of this together, it is excellent. I imagine you have probably heard this, but there is a great Hidden Brain episode on the RAPID (in relative terms) acceptance of gay rights in the US - "There's more and more rapid change in attitudes towards gay rights in the past thirty years in the United States than there ever has been in recorded attitudes in the United States on any issue." Here is a link to the podcast - https://www.npr.org/2019/04/03/709567750/radically-normal-how-gay-rights-activists-changed-the-minds-of-their-opponents

Juliette_Plager

Thanks @arati_mejdal and team! Also, I love the rainbow JMP icons. I'm finding the LinkedIn version is big & I think I'm positioning it wrong. Any tips? : )

arati_mejdal

@Juliette_Plager The icons are for our corporate social media accounts. What you're seeing here in the story are screen grabs of our official presences on LinkedIn, FB, Twitter and Instagram -- with rainbow icons.

arati_mejdal

@DamianCarville Thanks for the link to the Hidden Brain episode!