This past weekend, primarily Sat. from 6a till midnight was perhaps one of the most concentrated roller coasters I have been on in quite some time. I was able to make the 6:30a standby flight to the bay area, scheduled to arrive at exactly 9:30a, just in time to participate in and meet my honor as a speaker at a Powerful Women International Conference. Although it was attended by a modest number of attendees, the degree and caliber of the speakers and people there was truly humbling. With the focus being the empowerment of women and me the only male and one of the primary speakers I felt excited and a little anxious in my ability to build trust and help create a safe space where people felt comfortable to let their guards down and connect.
During moments though, I'll admit, I did feel the impetus to "look good" and present myself more successfully or more intelligently than I may be. In those moments, I tried to listen more keenly and bring my focus back to the richness and depth of the attendees' lives. There were some truly inspirational women there, for sure, from having overcome divorce, being a single parent while working full time and going to law school at the age of 50, to grappling with feeding their creative, spiritual side while trying to be planted in the monetary reality of day to day living they simply blew me away.
Later that day, late evening, I went to have some drinks with a friend at a bar in Castro. Castro is the center for those who prescribe to alternative lifestyles in San Francisco and my friend, who's gay, brought me to a few bars to check out the local scene so to speak. Shortly thereafter, as I left the bar momentarily and walked around the corner to take a phone call, I suddenly found myself witnessing a small protest in the middle of the street.
I'll have to admit that this is the first time I have ever been so up close to a protest. This may sound naive and perhaps even cynical, but I tend to be more a supporter of mobilizing media and spreading the viral word about the cause hopefully inspiring people to learn more about it and support it if they feel moved. Stopping traffic, with a number of drivers growing angrier and angrier by the minute doesn't seem (to me) to be the most effective route of activism. Moments later, realizing I had no clue where I was, witnessing what was going on, I called my friend to let him know where I was. He met me a few mins later at the Walgreens around the corner, but still in view of the demonstration.
Apparently the protest was in honor of Tyli'a Mack, a 21 yr. old member of the transgendered community who was brutally stabbed to death just a few days in Washington D.C. She and a friend were headed towards the Transgendered Health Empowerment Clinic (THE) when a man who had shared some words with them earlier at a store waited for the right time to make his attack. Mack died 30 mins after reaching Howard University Hospital and her friend survived after suffering several wounds.
I'll be honest, I am fairly ignorant about the dynamics of the transgendered community. In fact, it is only recently that I have explored nuances of the gay/lesbian world with friends who have forgiven my naiveté. If it is one thing that has been profoundly reinforced is that people are people and they are beautiful no matter what package they come in; and I don't have to understand them or even know them to respect and honor their right to live.
21 yrs old - to be walking down the street with a friend, and being attacked by a person I apparently angered who feels the need to pull out a knife push it through my body until he is content with endeavor only to do it several more times until his content turns into satisfaction. What would be going through my mind? What would flash through it? What would flash through your's?
I thought about all this as my friend told me about how this protest was a testimony of the work he and other activists had done not only in the field but also in the board room through policy writing (for the past four years, he has bene on the council of HIV prevention and creating awareness for and with the GLBT community). With our arms around each other and tears tricking down my cheeks as I thought about the life of a perfect stranger taken for no reason - I realized the power of protest.
Had the forty something people not been in there chanting and holding their protest in the heart of the Castro district, I would have been sharing a few laughs over drinks ignorant that a fellow human being had their life taken simply for choosing to be different.
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