"I’m a brick. I’m made of earth. I’m heavy, rarely decorated, strong, and useful.
You can build a wall with bricks and protect everything that you love. You can build a house with bricks and withstand centuries of abuse from wind and rain. Modern LGBT pride started when police raided the Stonewall Inn in New York City and (the details are likely apocryphal here) a trans woman threw the first brick at the cops.
The two most commonly nominated contenders for “threw the first brick” are Marsha P. Johnson, a Black woman, and Sylvia Rivera, who was Puerto Rican. I don’t want to go back in time and apply our modern versions of slang to them. I don’t want to classify them one way or the other. But modern pride began when someone threw a brick at the cops. How could I possibly take “brick” as an insult?"
