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aul S tarr, executive director of the
Cascade AIDS Project, on the front lines
of AIDS work since 1986, striving to maintain
the quiet at the center of the storm.
"At first you come here [to work at CAP]
and you have so much energy, and you really
want to help. People don’t come to work here
unless they’re really doing it from their gut.
"Then you start seeing your job expanding
around you, you start seeing all the incredible
needs that are there. You go through a period
where it’s too much, it’s overwhelming.
There’s a lot of guilt, sometimes, about not
being able to meet the needs that you see.
“And then, hopefully, you get to a point
where you kind of pull back and begin to
accept your own limitations. You begin to
understand that Cascade AIDS Project can’t
take care of AIDS in Portland. It can cJio
pieces of it; you can take care of pieces of
people’s needs. But you won’t be able to heal
it; you won’t be able to cure it. You won’t be
able to stop people from dying.
“...One reason I wanted the job [was] to
see if there’s some way to do it, to be in a
leadership role in the middle of the incredible
turmoil that this disease creates and maintain
a real sense of integrity and purpose and
peace, all at the same time.”
me, the challenge is to understand not only the
project, but the community. To be out there,
to meet people, to find out what people want.
“For the first time in our lives, my partner
and I have decided to live exactly as we
choose, and that includes being here in
Portland. That includes working in a position
like this. That includes making some breaks.
But I think they’re healthy ones.”
P
A A A
ohn Baker, chair of Oregon’s Right to
Privacy Political Action Committee,
approaching the issues with an eye for
balance, working to nudge electoral politics in
gay positive directions, bit by bit.
“A lot of people will disagree with me, but
I think that Ballot Measure 8 was almost a
win rather than a loss. We gained so much —
an opportunity to be able to tell people in the
state who lesbians and gays are and what we
want out of life, which is obviously the same
things everybody else wants. A chance to live
our lives safely and securely and as enjoyably
as possible.
“Now we can do a dinner and raise
$50,000. I think that indicates that people are
very supportive of what we do and what the
gay rights movement means.... Years ago
people thought that a bunch of left-wing
crazies and socialists were staffing the gay
rights movement. I ’m sure there were such
people. Most of us are probably to the left of
George Bush. But basically, we have been
very, very responsible in the last 15 years.
People realize that. T hat’s why we can do a
benefit and get 700 people to attend.”
J
V V V
aren H arding, owner of the Cup and
Saucer Cafe, creating a neighborhood
oasis, learning the challenges of the business
by meeting them, taking time (on the good
days) to sniff the coffee.
“We didn’t do breakfast at first. We did
only scrambled eggs for breakfast on the
weekends. There were nothing but problems.
I don’t even remember what we thought we
were doing. We didn’t have a hood. We
didn’t have a grill. The first winter, the whole
cafe froze. The windows froze, the pipes
onna Russell Red Wing, facing the
froze in nine places and we had to close for
challenges of leading the Lesbian
four days.
“I don’t know everything there is to know
Community Project, trying to boost visibility,
treasuring the existence of LCP.
about a feminist way of doing things. I know
I don’t let people call my wait people
“I think that this organization exists and is
‘waitresses.’ I know that when the women in
accessible to all lesbians is important. In a
city like Worcester [Mass., where she lived
my cafe are given a bad time on a sexual
level, I confront it and I allow them to
previously] certainly there were support
confront it. I don’t say, ‘Now, just be quiet.’
services, but there is no place folks can come
“Most o f the time lately, even through the
anytime they want and meet other folks or sit
hard things, I love my cafe. I love it. It’s got
around and read or talk. The fact that LCP
a long way to go, but I think about how bored
exists is the most important piece of all.
“I do think that visibility in the community
I would be if everything ever felt done...I hate
being away from die place. It’s my favorite
is going to be a real challenge. Enlarging and
expanding what we can offer to people. For
place to be in the morning.”
K
D
a Verne Lewis, business woman bending
the rules, crafting her store. Crone Magic,
in her image o f the world, in which the things
that are meant to happen, do happen, in which
signals and signs come to those who keep
their eyes open.
“I like the fact that [my job] doesn’t feel
like work. When I come to Crone Magic, it
feels like a natural part of what I ’m supposed
to do in this life cycle. I enjoy meeting the
different people who come to the store.
Someone will walk in the door and say, ‘I
don’t know why I ’m here, but I ’m supposed
to be here for a reason. ’ Or people will say,
‘I ’ve lived in this neighborhood for five years
and I never saw your shop. For some reason,
today I saw it and came in.’
“When things get low, for some
miraculous reason, new artisans come in here
with artwork that will boost sales, or a large
order will come in. Each time I reach a crisis,
I know that because the universe takes care of
what is healthy and needed, something occurs
in the cycle.
“I pass that on a lot of times to other
women. The law of prosperity is to
concentrate on the doing and the thought, to
put the money aside for the time being. If it’s
supposed to happen, then it will. When you
start hitting obstacles, it means you’re on the
wrong path, that you should switch and try a
different approach.”
L
ohn Forsgren, Art/AIDS coordinator,
designer, working to make inroads
through art, raising consciousness along with
funds.
“There was some criticism of the 1989
Art/AIDS benefit because we didn’t use the
word ‘gay,’ that somehow we avoided the
issue of gay people being affected or
involved. We weren’t trying to avoid. We
were trying to involve other people.
“As far as Art/AIDS goes, the attitude had
been that it is gay people who are sick, so
only gay people should be involved. A
woman I was talking to asked me, ‘Isn't this
really the gay community’s job to do this?’
“And my response is, ‘Don’t deny me the
rest of who I am.’ I am a gay person but I ’m
also a son, and a lover, and I am a
professional and a friend.
“All of those things are a part of who I am,
just as they’re a part of who everybody else
is.... Don’t deny me the rest of who I am if
you’re not gay. Don’t deny the human bond
between us.”
J
liff Jones formerly education
coordinator for the Cascade AIDS
Project, now an advocate for Legal Aid,
working to change the practices of oppression
outside, heal the scars of oppression inside.
“I see the white gay community self-
absorbed by AIDS. People of color within the
gay community are the most disenfranchised
related to AIDS. There’s not a mandate that
one can rely on that there will be broad-based,
culturally sensitive HIV education and
services.
“Racism is a human issue. There are
challenges for people of color and for white
people. When I talk about racism I want to
talk in a way that’s empowering, that makes
people say, aha, I understand that, I want to do
something about that. Rather than in a way
that makes people heavier , more hopeless,
more helpless.
“My perspective about humans is that the
thing that holds us back most is the way
oppression has been internalized. The way, as
gay men and lesbians, we go around thinking
that we’re not good. We haven’t cleaned up
how we were hurt.”
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