A photo report on Anchorage's "True Diversity" dinner.

This is cross-posted from GLBT, but it's kind of a "feel-good story," so I'm going to share it with everybody.

Some of you may remember that I posted last summer about the attempt by the Anchorage Assembly to pass a GLBT antidiscrimination ordinance. Public testimony was taken week after week, with the vote being prolonged by the anti-ordinance members of the assembly until after the newly elected conservative mayor could be sworn in. Despite the fact that the ordinance passed the assembly by one vote, as expected, the new mayor, Dan Sullivan, vetoed the ordinance.

Flash forward to the present. September is "Celebrate Diversity" month in Anchorage, and in years past a "diversity dinner" has been held at the end of the month with awards and performances by people from across the spectrum of Anchorage's very diverse population. Well, this year, Dan Sullivan decided instead to hold a "unity" dinner, not to celebrate our diversity, but (allegedly) to celebrate our "oneness" as a community. To add insult to injury, the "unity" dinner was to be held in the Hilton Hotel, the one hotel in Anchorage presently being picketed by the mostly minority workers at the hotel who are protesting unfair treatment by management AND the featured speaker was to be Lynn Swann, whose expenses were being paid by the state Republican party and who would be appearing at other Republican events while he is here.

Naturally, this whole arrangement didn't sit well with our Progressive bloggers and other local progressive groups, so rather than protest the "unity" dinner, in short order they arranged a "True Diversity" dinner to be held at the same time, last night, but a couple of blocks away. The True Diversity dinner was a rousing success, with all the tickets sold out beforehand, and a great time was had by all. Here are a few photos from the event.

We started out with some singing and dancing by a young Inupiat dance group.





Assemblywoman Elvi Gray-Jackson worked tirelessly throughout the summer for the ordinance.


Congressional candidate in 2006 and 2008 and my very dear friend Diane Benson spoke of the struggles of Native Alaskans to achieve equality. Diane's documentary on civil rights in Alaska premiered at the American Indian museum in DC a couple of days ago and will be shown on PBS sometime in November.


I do not recall this woman's name, but she is pastor of a spiritual center here, and she spoke movingly of the difference between "tolerance," "acceptance" and "appreciation" of our differences. She was a fantastic speaker.


Followed by the keynote speaker, Shannyn Moore, fresh from her appearance earlier in the day on Countdown with Lawrence O'Donnell.


Shannyn and Ms. Daphne from Mad Myrna's, Anchorage's premier gay bar.


Democratic candidate for governor, Bob Poe, presents an award


Assemblywoman Sheila Selkregg accepts an award for print excellence on behalf of her daughter Julia O'Malley who writes a column for the Anchorage Daily News.


Mel Green accepts her award in the field of "excellence in online media" for her blog Henkimaa http://www.henkimaa.com/ which is probably the best place to go for background on this whole issue.


A speaker whose name I didn't get from the Alaska ACLU


I also didn't get this lady's name, but I just love the photo. :)


Bob Poe sharing photos with a couple of nationally-known local "anonymous bloggers."
Edited at request of poster - Lithos, DU Moderator

Shannyn


And even Senator Begich stopped by following his health care town hall.

where I can find out and amend the post. I should have taken a notebook, but I didn't have a purse with me. :)

Gryphen at The Immoral Minority has a good post about this event here: http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2009/09/senators-diversity-and-famous-authors.html

The minister in photo 5 is Marquita Pierre, and the ACLU woman who won the "Excellence in Outreach" award is Tiffany McLane.

I still don't know who that third woman is, though.

Mary Elizabeth Rider

I hope you and your daughter are feeling better. We missed seeing you last night. :)

:bounce:

K&R

... great photos!

:kick: & REC'D!

Senator Begich looks like he's having a good time :beer: :beer: :beer:

He came in kind of late, but had nice words for everyone. I didn't make it to the health care forum but people who did were muttering things like "Damn teabaggers..." under their breath. It must have been a pretty spirited event.

Are you getting out to see Max Blumenthal any time this weekend?

no shortage of idiots around these parts.

And no, I won't be seeing Blumenthal. Let me know how it goes :p

"She" is super cool. Awesome pics Blue, wish I could have been there. Jealous.

She and Shannyn were hilarious together.

K and R

What fantastic photos!

Someone identified the young black woman but got the spelling of her name wrong: that's Tiffany McClain, who was the workhorse at Equality Works http://www.equalityworks.org/ who did a lot of the organizing & outreach behind the fight for the Anchorage equal rights ordinance. Equality Works is a coalition of Anchorage organizations, but Tiffany's salary was paid for by Alaska ACLU. She did great.

The woman in blue was M.E. Rider, who amongst other things has been running (with Jill Ramsey) Grrlzlist, an important events-announcement & networking list for the Anchorage women's (read: lesbian & bi women) community. Grrlzlist was also one of the sponsors of the True Diversity Dinner, along with Alaska Commons (John Aronno), SOSAnchorage.net (Heather Aronno), Floridana Alaskiana v2.5 (Janson Jones), Bent Alaska (Alaska LGBT blog which covers events & issues both in Anchorage & statewide), Immoral Minority, and my own blog, Henkimaa.com. M.E. was accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award for Vic Fischer and Jane Angvik, who couldn't be present: they're two important people from Alaska's founding as a state & Anchorage's creation as a unified municipality -- among other things.

There are a number of posts from Alaska progressive bloggers that have talked about the True Diversity Dinner so far -- I have yet to write much about it (I had a busy weekend), but I did post my own photos at http://www.henkimaa.com/2009/09/26/true-diversity-dinner-slideshow/. See also Janson's photos at Floridana Alaskiana v2.5 -- http://floridana.typepad.com/weblog/ -- and Bent Alaska's summary account of the evening at http://www.bentalaska.com/2009/09/no-unity-without-equality-diversity.html

I'll be posting a compilation linking to everything I can find about the dinner (including this post) when I get a chance in the next coupla days.

Mel Green
Henkimaa.com
proud recipient of the "Individual Excellence in Online Media" award (the person in the orange sweatshirt)

By the way, the dance troupe is Yup'ik, not Inupiat. They're called Masingka Singers and Dancers -- you can see a YouTube of them in Anchorage earlier this year at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_84sSglOKk

:hi:

This was such a marvelous event, and I do hope that it continues from year to year -- at least until we get another mayor who appreciates TRUE diversity. I think the dinner and awards ceremony was the best form of protest.

:thumbsup: to you for all you do.

And as for the photos, I was lucky to be sitting up front with Tony and Diane so my view was perfect. :)

Congrats.