Conversations with Nicole
By Nicole Murray-Ramirez
Editor’s note: The following are Nicole’s full remarks at the 16th annual Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast, which took place May 25. They are offered here in place of his normal column. Watch live-stream video of the entire breakfast via @HillcrestSanDiego’s Instagram account: HMDB Video Part One | HMDB Video Part Two
Good morning, San Diego! Buenos días mi comadres y compadres!
First, I want to acknowledge the land we stand on, that of the First Nation; our American Indian Native brothers and sisters, who since the beginning of time have acknowledged our LGBTQ community as “two spirited.”
The month of May is a very special month. It is also “Military Appreciation Month” and we in San Diego have always been proud of our veterans and active-duty personnel. Would you please stand so we can acknowledge your service to our great nation.
May is also “Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month,” and as I always say, “Our Golden State is turning brown because of the growing population of our proud API and Latino communities.”
And yes, the month of May is also “Jewish American Heritage Month,” and as you know, this morning’s honoree Harvey Milk came from a proud Jewish family.
Having worked with Harvey Milk in the 1970s during the homophobic campaigns of Anita Bryant and John Briggs, so many times, people ask me “What do you think Harvey Milk would be like today?”
Well, you see, Harvey Milk and I came from the homophobic times of the Gene McCarthys of the 1950s. Yes, we came from the times of, not until 1976 in California, at just a stroke of a pen and the signatures of either your parents or a judge, homosexual Americans were committed to mental hospitals and subjected to electric shock treatment and lobotomies.
We come from a time when my friend the late Rev. George Walker Smith called San Diego the “Mississippi of the West.” Black and brown people were not allowed or welcomed in certain neighborhoods in San Diego and also, Jews were not allowed nor welcomed.
Indeed, I know that Harvey Milk would want me to talk to you this morning about the growing hate, division, and yes, violence that is engulfing our nation.
The hate and antisemitic wave that is now engulfing our nation has been rising in historic numbers long before Oct. 7, including here in San Diego with even antisemitic flyers being plastered around neighborhoods.
Harvey Milk would say to you all today, stand up for the Jewish community, and people who stood up for the Black civil rights movement of the 1960s, who stood up for the Mexican and Filipino farm workers of the 1970s, and who have stood up and been a great part of the LGBTQ civil rights movement since the McCarthy and Anita Bryant eras.
I say to our American Jewish sisters and brothers, you are not alone. We stand with you!
And I thank the City and County Human Relations Commissions who supported my motion to finally establish a Holocaust museum in San Diego County. And thank you Supervisor Nora Vargas and Mayor Todd Gloria for your support of this long overdue campaign.
If Harvey Milk were alive today, he would stand up and speak out against those trying to take away the right of women to control their own bodies.
He would stand up for our undocumented, and for asylum seekers and dreamers.
And yes, he would stand up against the rising hate crimes against the Asian Pacific Islander community and the Muslim community.
You see, Harvey Milk was a bridge builder and always supported the causes of other communities.
And if Harvey Milk were alive today, he would weep for America, where our churches, temples, and mosques are no longer safe.
An America where parents no longer feel their children are safe in their schools. An America where Black mothers and fathers have to give that important reality talk to their sons.
An America where Homeland Security and the FBI issued a warning last week about possible violence with our country’s Pride events being targeted.
A San Diego where a few days ago, three gay bars were shot at in Hillcrest and gay employees were injured.
In closing, you might be asking, “What are the answers to all of these growing problems and hatred?”
I say to you all today, you are the answer.
Make a hate crime against any community a hate crime against all of us.
Make other communities and peoples’ problems and causes become your problems and causes.
For you see my Black and brown brothers and sisters, my Asian and Jewish communities; the ultra-extreme radical right, they are coming for all of us.
And only by truly caring and being there for each other and building stronger bridges to each other can America become the nation it was destined to be.
In the words of the great philosopher Voltaire: “Everyone is guilty of all the good they did not do.”
So, let’s all leave here today and not only do some good for others, but make some good trouble.
Thank you and God bless.
–Nicole Murray Ramirez is a lifelong Latino and LGBT activist and advocate, a longtime city commissioner, and is the Queen Mother of the International Imperial Court of the Americas. He can be reached at [email protected].
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