Politics of identity

Lauri Irving remembers her first visit to the SF State campus clearly.

"I asked this woman where the bookstore was," Irving said. "For a little while she didn't say anything. Then she finally looked at me and said, 'I'm straight.'"

"So I looked right back at her, and told her I was happy for her, but could she please tell me where the bookstore was located?"

With that incident in mind, Irving decided to visit the gay and lesbian coalition on campus. "The first meeting I went to, there were about 20 white men and myself," Irving said. "I could tell right off that there were going to be problems."

For Irving, who got involved with politics during the Fall 1991 student government elections, the problems were just beginning.

That semester, the Pan African Student Union (PASU), the Women's Coalition, and the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Alliance would often butt heads. Irving belonged to all three groups. As an African American lesbian, Irving felt herself being pulled every which way.

"At PASU there was a question of how black I was, and at the Women's Coalition, the prevailing atmosphere was a Santa Cruz touchy-feely thing," said Irving. "Kind of like if we all sat around and hugged each other, all the differences we had would disappear."

The elections for student body president that fall featured two African American candidates: a straight man endorsed by PASU, and a lesbian endorsed by both the gay and women's coalitions.

"It got real ugly," Irving said. "The Women's Coalition was strongly behind their candidate. And PASU was equally adamant that their candidates be elected. So I was trotted as a hired gun to negotiate between the two groups. Basically, I got the job because a lot of the women in the coalition didn't want to appear too aggressive or too dykey. With me that wasn't a concern."

Eventually, the elections dissolved into acrimonious name-calling sessions, and the candidate from the Women's Coalition dropped out.

But the divisiveness of campus politics paled in comparison to the ugly wars Irving found when she entered San Francisco city politics.

Irving is a member of Lesbians and Gays of African Descent for Democratic Action. The group promotes issues of concern to both the African American and gay communities in the city.

Alonzo Reese, LGADDA co-chair, said the club was formed out of the Harvey Milk Gay Democratic Club, one of the most prominent political organizations in the city.

"At the time LGADDA was formed, the Milk club was literally disintegrating," Reese said. "There were all sorts of back room deals going on -- memberships were being bought and sold, and morale was at an all-time low."

Byron McQuarters, one of LGADDA's founders and SF State alumnus, said when LGADDA left the Milk club, it had become riddled with corruption.

"Jean Harris (new president of the Milk club) started stacking the club with new members," McQuarters said. The club's executive board went from eight people, half of whom were African American, to about 25 people, only one of whom was a person of color, he said.

After one particularly heated exchange involving the club's endorsements for the 1991 mayoral campaign, a board member called McQuarters at his house and used a racial slur to describe him, McQuarters said.

The board member eventually resigned over the incident and the club rebuilt itself, but the damage was done.

Since its inception in 1992, LGADDA hasn't hesitated to get involved in controversial issues or butt heads with well-known politicians.

The first piece of legislation Mayor Frank Jordan signed into law was the card-check law, sponsored by LGADDA. The law prohibited bars from asking patrons for more than one piece of identification, a practice McQuarters said was used by several bars in the Castro when dealing with people of color.

LGADDA first received heavy media coverage during the summer of 1993. That June, a week before the Gay Pride celebration, the Reverend Eugene Lumpkin, an African American member of the city's Human Rights Commission, called homosexuality "an abomination." Lumpkin also said he believed a biblical passage that said homosexuals should be stoned to death.

The city became a circus. Protesters marched. Local ministers of all denominations and ethnicities gathered to support Lumpkin. Charges of racism and homophobia were recklessly bandied about.

LGADDA was in an awkward position. The gay community urged LGADDA to step forward and take the lead in forcing Lumpkin to resign. And the black community was wondering where LGADDA's loyalties lie.

According to McQuarters, the issue was homophobia, not race. "All of a sudden, we (LGADDA) were asked to represent the gay community. I can't remember the last time that happened."

"But it wasn't a matter of race. It was a matter of homophobia. The man had to go, period. And we took the lead not because it was a black thing, but because our rights were threatened as gays and lesbians."

Lumpkin was eventually forced to resign, but the episode underscored the tension between LGADDA and the lone African American member of the board of supervisors, Willie Kennedy.

Kennedy had alienated the gay community by supporting Bank of America. The bank provided funding for the Boy Scouts, an organization that excludes gays. Kennedy had several members of LGADDA on her campaign staff, and they felt betrayed. That feeling grew stronger with her steadfast refusal to hear LGADDA's viewpoint concerning Lumpkin, and hit bottom when Kennedy spoke out against the appointment of Gwenn Craig, an African American lesbian, to the Elections Task Force.

"I want somebody who is black through and through," Kennedy was quoted as saying in newspapers at the time, although she later voted for Craig.

Ron Hypolite, a member of LGADDA, confronted Kennedy at a rally for Willie Brown.

"I asked her if she really believed that we were less black, and at what point do we become more black? I told her that I am black through and through. Every time I look in the mirror, I see a black person," Hypolite said.

"Every time a detective follows me around a department store, I know it's not because I'm gay," Reese added.

Supervisor Kennedy told the Gater she had to represent many constituents, and that "I can't dance to everyone's tunes all at once. I'm with the gay community 95 percent of the time. Just because I'm not with them 5 percent of the time does not make me anti-gay."

If LGADDA had troubles with Supervisor Kennedy, it also had troubles with other politicians, many of whom saw the club primarily as gay.

According to McQuarters, many politicians who seek LGADDA's support are oblivious to the fact that they are an African American organization.

McQuarters said one politician who has trouble seeing their concerns as African Americans is Carole Migden.

"When Migden ran for the Board of Supervisors, she wanted our endorsement," McQuarters said. "So we asked her what she had done recently for the black community. She thought for a long time, and finally said that she supported putting a new roof on the Ella Hill Hutch Community Center." (The Western Addition Cultural Center that sponsors education programs and Midnight Basketball).

"We didn't think that was enough, and didn't give her the endorsement," McQuarters said. McQuarters said relations between Migden and LGADDA deteriorated further when Migden requested extra security for a Board of Supervisors meeting last year in Bayview, a predominantly African American community. "That drove the point home," said McQuarters.

Migden was unavailable for comment at press time.

LGADDA, currently working in conjunction with other African American groups to protest the proposed Bayview power plant, sees itself as a rising force in city politics.

"All the candidates for mayor sought our support, and all the candidates had to respond to our questions," McQuarters said.

McQuarters joked that LGADDA was known as the "little club with the longest list of questions."

In an extremely close vote, the club endorsed Wille Brown for mayor over Roberta Achtenberg. According to L.J. Irving, Achtenberg is extremely well liked in the club, and is viewed as having "a lot of substance," but the vote went to Brown "because nobody can side-step, stare down, or ignore Willie Brown when it comes to getting funding for the city."

The members of LGADDA believe that any candidate seeking their support should be knowledgeable about HIV in both the black and gay communities, the Three Strikes law (and its ramifications in the black community), domestic partner rights and police brutality.

McQuarters said LGADDA is about "being black, gay, and proud. We're here, and we're not going away."

Irving put it another way. "For me, LGADDA is a way to come home. All my life, I've had to unlearn expectations of feeling at home. But my heart and spirit need to be with my own. And when it comes down to being with my own, that means being an African American."

[ Golden Gater Online October 5, 1995 ]

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