COMING UP! Gay Olympiad I

New College • Lesbian/Gay Comedy Nife • Hot Letters C O M IN G U P ! August, 1982 Largest Lesbian/Gay Circulation in the Bay Area FREE Gay Olympiad I by John Glldertleeve and Unda Wardlaw It's 11:15 Sunday morning at the McAteer High School track atop Twin Peaks. A track team is warming up in the persistent summer fog. Everyone is paired up. sitting so that partner faces partner. Soles of feet touch, hands clasp. Cooperative stretching exer cises begin, A closer look reveals a black woman paired with a white man, an Asian woman with a white man, a white woman with a black man. Obviously this is not a traditional athletic workout. But that's part of what the Gay Olympic Games are all about: helping to explode traditions that are unhealthy and divisive. f "The most important thing about the Games is the destruction of 'ism's' like ageism, sexism, and racism," says Dr. Tom Wadded, chair of the Gay Olympic Games He speaks thoughtfully and calmly amid the barely Castro Street Fair! ’82 contained chaos of the Games offices. Phones ring, questions are shouted across the room, people rush in and out in a manner The Politics of Hope: that produces a longing for the relative calm of. say, the floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange during a panic. "The second most important An Interview with Ricky Sherover-Marcuse Olympic Women's Volleyball Team thing," Waddell continues, “is the recreational aspect of competition. That's a major de by Aurora Levins Morales with other whites in doing anti-racism work... community, which I prefer to call the gay the men and women on the team have parture from the traditional Olympic Games population. So we got thinking. What's Ricky Sherover-Marcuse has been doing and out of a commitment to take seriously become increasingly sensitive to one another. and certainly from commercial sport as we going to bring them all together?' And we workshops on "Unlearning Racism" in the that one has to organize one's own com 'There'sa learning process occurring between know it in the United States because there came up with the idea of sport...If people Bay Area fo r several years. After attending munity That doesn't mean that you can only men and women." she continues. "If the men the emphasis has always been on winning, aren't into exercise and competition, most three of her one-time workshop sessions and organize in your own community, but to do inadvertently use sexist terminology, we which is accomplished by beating someone people are at least into spectating." participating in an ongoing class. I decided work among your own is the real challenge women are quick to point it out.” But that can else. We like to win. too. but winning in the The thread that runs through Waddell's to interview Ricky for Coming Up!. Ricky's of political practice...instead of looking for be a two-way street. "I sometimes use the Gay Olympic Games means self-fulfillment." conversation can be found in the words of approach to working with what she calls someone else's com munity to practice on. term gay boys' in an affectionate way." she Why, then, use the word "Olympics"? Wad athletes and volunteers as well. Yet it's "non-target" people (in the case of racism, Coming Up!: I know your work has been grins. "Some of the men don't like that. We dell points out that "The Gay Games" obvious that these are not echoes, but white people) is particularly unique, and pretty controversial. What are some of the learn from one another by working together." wouldn't fu lly convey the scope and serious expressions of feelings either previously held highly controversial. Guilt, she asserts, is not misconceptions you feel that people have The cohesiveness Is obvious as the team ness of the undertaking. "|The word 'Olym or arrived at independently through exper a m otivation to change. If you start from the about your work? (continued on page 3) pics') describes what it is. but it doesn't iencing the reality of the Games. assumption that no one consciously chooses Ricky: Well, one is that when I say "racism describe how it is. The how is participation, Carmen Morrison is a young black woman to behave oppressively, and that on some hurts everyone" some people understand me friendship, cooperation and bringing a lot of who tried out fo r the U.S. Olympic track and level, everyone resisted being conditioned to be saying that racism oppresses everyone, people together. Look around at the divi field team in 1976. She sees the relationship Coming Up! wants into that behavior, you have a starting point that there's no difference between the direct siveness in the gay community: the men and between men and women now trying out for for change. White people can then allow targets of racism and the people I call "non- the women don't talk to each other, a lot of the the San Francisco Gay Olympic Games track themselves to feel the pain and anger of how target." By saying that white people are hurt you & you & you... political, religious, and social groups don't team as one that was initially good, and is racism hurt them personally, and can see by racism. I'm not denying the social power talk to each other: it's all these disparate now even better. Remember last month when we reported concretely what they have to gain by giving it groups in what we loosely call the gay "A lot of women didn't get Involved because that we'd love more com m unity involvement? up- they thought it would be mostly a male thing, Well, here's your chance! We desperately The workshops are a combination of and they never checked It out." she says. "I need people to volunteer so that our new presentations by Ricky of the basic assump saw it as a great chance for the world to look Volunteercoordinator. Regina Gabrelle.can tions underlying her work, and then practical at us as athletes." According to Morrision. coordinate our volunteer program. We need se$sions in which several individuals stand bodies and fun-loving personalities to volun up in front of the group to do emotional teer fo r a m ultitude of jobs here. Aside from "work" on some aspect of the issue where every-day type tasks, we are working vigor they're "stuck." Drawing from her experience ously on The 2nd Great Coming Up! Raffle. with co-counseling and from her own process Justice for Harriet Davis So. if you would like to work in an interesting, of “ un-learning." Ricky poses questions or energy-filled, rewarding job and gain expe asks the person to repeat statements that Harriette L. Davis is a 27-year-old black woman, and the mother of two small children, rience frorfi a working newspaper, give Reg challenge the incorrect information we've ina a call at 641-7903. or...come on down to received about ourselves and others. Be ages 10 and 6. In May. 1981, she shot and killed Henry Hayes, a man who systematically the Coming Up! Terrific Tuesday potluck. cause the original process of being mis Here's your chance to meet with the staff of informed was a painful one, she believes and continually abused, beat and dominated her for eight years of her life. Now, over a Coming Up! and get involved with the mak change can't take place on a purely intel ing o f the paper. year after her arrest and after a six-week- lectual level. This month's Terrific Tuesday potluck Coming Up!: How do you describe your long trial, the sexist and racist legal system has decided that she is what we know she is doesn't happen until Thursday, the 5th, (at work? the Coming Up! office. 867 Valencia Street, Ricky: Well, first of all, the focus o f my work not. a crim inal. She stands convicted of manslaughter (mans laughter). at 6:30pm) to give all of you some extra time is social change. It's not about "having an to plan to come. But from now on. every first Harriette faces a possible state prison term experience" or "getting in touch with your Tuesday after Coming Up! gets out. we'll feelings" or "sharing" or even "feeling better of eight years—ironic in light of the eight years of punishment she suffered at the have a potluck in our wonderful new office to about yourself". This work grew out of years celebrate and meet everyone who's worked o f grappling with the problem of why white hands of Hayes. However, she's eligible for probation If she wins probation. Harriette on the issue and to welcome new volunteers. people have been so ineffective in dealing So make us and yourself happy and come on will be allowed to remain in the community and continue to live with and care for her two down to our Terrific Tuesday potluck (on Thursday). See you there! children. She plans to attend school and Info on Kaposi's Sarcoma participate in group or individual counseling Kaposi's Sarcoma, Pneumocystis Carinii fo r herself and her children, as well as to to the Judge has passed, but your atten Pneumonia and other acquired immune continue her effort to help other battered dance at her sentencing hearing is more than women and educate the com munity as to the deficiency diseases have become a topic for Gay Community News Bums welcome.

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