Honoring our community is a serious responsibility

Benny’s Beat | Benny Cartwright

Sometimes when I get an idea for a column that I’m excited about, I’ll tease it on my personal social media in an effort to hear people’s initial thoughts on it, which may help formulate my thoughts better, and also give readers something to look forward to.

I’ve been thinking about the topic I’ll be focusing on today for a few weeks, and when I teased it on my personal Facebook page, quite a few individuals who I deeply respect asked me to reconsider writing this column.

I was upset at the time that I made my social media post and I alluded to using this space to “spill the tea” and “call out BS.” From my post, these individuals thought that I meant I’d be “naming names” and stooping to the level of some folks who have upset me. While my social media post was a bit spicy, it was never my intention to “name names” or write in a way that is out of character for me … so I will continue with this column as planned.

Over the last two years, Rick Cervantes and I have created the “Hillcrest Honors,” a program intended to spotlight the many amazing people, businesses, organizations, and events that make the Hillcrest neighborhood such a dynamic, wonderful place. I hesitate to call it an “awards program” as we don’t consider these to be awards in the classic sense, where someone is being recognized as the “best” or “winning” something. The goal is simply to spotlight those who stand out.

We started this at the end of 2022, over happy hour; we thought it would be really fantastic to highlight those people, businesses, organizations, and events that make the neighborhood so great on Rick’s @HillcrestSanDiego Instagram account.

The account has become an important source of news and community building for the neighborhood, recently surpassing 20,000 followers. Through the “Stories” feature on Instagram, we put out the call for people to send in who stands out to them in a variety of categories (like Fabulous Bartender, Fabulous Community Organization, Fabulous Restaurant, etc.). They had 24-hours to submit what I guess we would call a “nomination.”

From those suggestions, and a variety of other factors like people who made news coverage, people who created new things for the community, and more, we posted our “standouts” for the year.

Most of the categories had “Fabulous” in the name in an effort to go along with the neighborhood’s “Fabulous Hillcrest” branding, while not using a term like “Best” (i.e., Fabulous Bartender instead of Best Bartender). And in most categories, we honored multiple individuals or organizations, as there are just so many great ones in this neighborhood.

Shortly after posting them, and seeing the neighborhood excitement, we thought it only made sense to have a party to celebrate the honorees. Unlike other awards celebrations we’ve seen in the community, everyone came to this party knowing who the honorees were. All honors were announced in advance, no tickets were sold, and it was a big, wonderful celebration that felt like we were one big community family.

Naturally, we decided to do it again this year for 2023, with a little more organization and focus, and opened up a one-week nomination period for community members to suggest people, organizations, businesses, and events to us that stood out to them. These “nominations” didn’t necessarily equal an honor, but they were heavily weighted as each nomination required a brief statement, rather than just listing names. There was no voting, and while a small group of friends who are incredibly active in the community served as an “advisory committee” to us, Rick and I made the final decisions. And we are so proud of the 137 people, businesses, organizations, and events that are part of the 2023 class of Hillcrest Honors. They all standout and shine in their own way.

While the general community reception to our honors program has been fantastic, there have been a few really negative voices that have put a damper on our spirits. To address some of the questions that these mean-spirited individuals presented in their posts or comments, I will address them below, as our goal with the Hillcrest Honors program has always been to be transparent about what we are doing.

• “Who are these guys to sit there and hand out awards to the community?”

Well, we’re Benny and Rick. I’ve been in Hillcrest my entire life, and Rick has been in the neighborhood for 17 years. We’ve been actively involved in the community for a combined 42 years and keep ourselves informed on neighborhood happenings. We patronize our neighborhood establishments, have gotten to know the movers and shakers, and give back whenever we can. And with that, we decided we wanted to spotlight the neighborhood we love … and we just did it! Anyone can start an awards program or any other sort of media organization or whatever they want – the key is getting community buy-in. In general, our community loves and trusts us, and their positive reaction to our program tells us that our hard work on this is valued.

• “How come so-and-so wasn’t honored this year?”

There could be a number of reasons or no reason at all. Maybe we have just never crossed paths and are unaware of them. Maybe we are aware of them but their name didn’t come up in any community nominations and we didn’t see a particular reason they stood out. We encourage everyone who wants to stand out to tag the @hillcrestsandiego Instagram account, send announcements about your events/activities to this paper, get involved, join me for a drink or coffee and let’s get to know each other!

• “What is this, high school?”

No, it’s not. But comments like these sure sound like it. One of the main reasons we find it so important to honor folks in a neighborhood like Hillcrest is because so many of us come from backgrounds where we weren’t able to be honored. Where we didn’t stand out, or stood out for the wrong reasons and were bullied for it. While this honors program is not specifically an LGBTQ program, we recognize the heavy tie-in the LGBTQ community has with Hillcrest and it’s so important to lift up LGBTQ voices! That’s why you’re reading this paper, after all!

There is also a relatively new account on Instagram, which was launched just about the time we announced this year’s honorees, that has been particularly brutal. It supposedly accepts “anonymous” comments and then re-posts them. At least five of the posts have been directly related to Rick or I, saying some really nasty things about us and the honors.

While we are well aware that we’re not doing it right unless we’re pissing someone off, I’d be lying if I said some of those comments don’t hurt. Especially the ones directly criticizing our program, as we have put hours of our own time into making this the most positive thing it can be.

I personally know what it feels like to be part of a community and not recognized, especially when you’re an active participant. In fact, just this past summer, I was nominated by a couple of friends for the “50 LGBTQ Leaders of Influence” honor that was presented during Pride season by the San Diego Business Journal and the San Diego Equality Business Association. Given all the work and time I’ve contributed to the community, I thought for sure I’d be on the list, which was filled with many of my peers. It wasn’t my time, I suppose, but I proudly cheered on the other honorees.

And I have received more than a few messages from community members just asking why they were not honored this year. I empathize with them — which is why I always share what our process looks like, so they aren’t spending the next year wondering if they were left out for this reason or that. The reasons are different for everyone, but like I remind them, we hope to do this for many years to come, so if someone didn’t get selected this year, they may very well be on our minds for next year.

Also, in these first few years, we aren’t going to do any repeats, so that we can honor as many as possible. If someone was honored last year and you’re wondering why that fabulous person isn’t on the list this year, that’s exactly why – they’ve already been honored for their fabulousness. Don’t forget about the previous year’s honorees!

Rick and I take the responsibility that we’ve created for ourselves with the Hillcrest Honors very seriously. We want to make our community the best it can be and celebrate all the people and places that are so great about it.

We are so lucky to be in a space where a large portion of our community respects and trusts us enough to coordinate this program (and the many other activities we host throughout the year), and we find it to be something of value to Hillcrest.

We are not going to let the few folks who had poor things to say about our efforts hold us back, and we’ve done what we personally need to do to remove their energy from our lives (be it blocking on social media, or cutting them out of our social circles). But it is a reminder to everyone that behind every community effort, there’s usually just a small group of people who work very hard, for no compensation, because they care. Keep that in mind the next time you have criticism!

Congrats to all of this year’s honorees, who will be listed in next month’s edition, and a celebratory event will be held on Monday, Feb. 5, for honorees and their guests. Invited attendees will receive information about the party via email in the next week.

–Benny Cartwright is a longtime activist and community leader. Reach him at [email protected]. Follow him on Instagram @BennyC80. 

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