When the musical Parade (through June 8 at the Orpheum Theatre) premiered in 1998, it came at the tail-end of a tumultuous decade that everyone revisions as innocuous. Despite what reruns of Friends might have you believe, those of us who were alive in the ‘90s (particularly, those of us from marginalized groups) recall every great stride of the Clinton era being tempered with an equal-if-not-greater setback. The ‘90s were the decade when every Pedro Zamora coming out of the closet was followed by a Matthew Shepard left for dead on a fence; when all the strides made by Black folks in pop culture were countered by the Rodney King beatings, three strikes laws, and the OJ Simpson trial to counter the “unified America” narrative. No matter how much I love rewatching Living Single, it won’t era

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