Editor’s Note: This article is part of “Uncharted,” a series about the world we’re leaving behind, and the one being remade by the pandemic.June is Pride month, and in a normal year, Pride means crowds. Parades make for colorful, moving pageants that can go for miles. Spectators swarm sidewalks in rainbow clothes or glitter-coated clothes or a distinct lack of clothes.
When a security officer named Julius Locklear grabbed Johnniqua Charles earlier this year outside of a South Carolina strip club, the confrontation became a concert. In a video filmed on the scene, Charles repeatedly asks why Locklear is holding her without reason. Then, with a wiggle and a shimmy, she starts singing, “You about to lose yo job, because you’re detaining me for nothing!” At one point, she tells the camera to make sure to “get this dance.