Category Archives for family

What Year is This Again?

The news from Philadelphia today — specifically from the Valley Swim Club — is not very pretty: Pool Boots Kids Who Might “Change the Complexion”:

“When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool,” Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. “The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately.”

Minorities not allowed? Really?

My girl went to a summer camp last week here in San Francisco. She was nervous about fitting in but the people were all great, and it turned out to be a great experience for her. I can just imagine the heartache and confusion she would have endured if others got up and left right when she walked in — if (so-called) authority figures told her she was not allowed.

Be sure to watch the video at the news link above. I wish I could take all of these kids and give them a great big hug… or at least a place to swim.

Watch news coverage below.

GO Equality California!

One of the biggest and most painful complaints levied against the No On Prop 8 campaign is that the campaign failed to use images of real gay people and their families in the official ads.

As sad as Prop 8’s passage was, what a sea-change there’s been since then. After so much pain and real harm by its passage, we’ve had a national dialog like never before. With now five states on the side of marriage equality, “the arc of  moral history” appears to continue to bend towards justice — even as we speak.

And we’ve learned — a lot.  And shared — a lot.  Equality California, in a major evolution in campaign messaging, has just announced that they are featuring *real live gay people* and their families in their newest ads.  They listened and they got it.

Thank you Equality California, and come on everyone: Take a look at last. Don’t be afraid to find out there’s more in common between “your lifestyle” and “my lifestyle” than you might have thought.

Read more about Equality California’s campaign at http://www.eqca.org/winmarriageback.

Quick Stop on Planet Earth

The great Harriet Rasaka left the world yesterday at nearly 97 years of age. We passed by this fact during our stopover in Ashland and then later for lunch in Eugene, on our way up to Portland.

Even at 97 years old, death is unplanned. Those of us who can be are flexible, dropping or taking our work with us on the homing path back to the place of services — the place of saying good-bye. But good-bye feels so incomplete. I still see Harriet in my dad’s car, borrowed again for this trip, in the parking lot at Fred Meyer’s with the door ajar. How we laughed when the police called my dad, thinking that she was stealing the car.

I see her reading “One Fine Day” on the couch in Seattle to her great-grandchild Lucy. The same book my mom used to read to me.

I wear the shirt she gave me for my birthday just this year. I see her in the picture Leanne took just a couple weeks ago — sharp as ever, beating Leanne at tri-ominos.

I wish I could see her more and I wish I could have known her for more of her incredible life, but mostly I wish I could see what she’s seeing now, in the unique way she experiences it through her own self, as she continues her journey after being incredible and much loved during her stay on Planet Earth.

Love You Harriet.