As a gay Jewish white South African, I belong to quite a lot of minority groups. You constantly have to question who you are, what you are and whether you have the courage to be who you are.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'm always very proud of belonging to three minorities: gay, Jewish, white South African.
I'm used to being in the minority. I'm a left-handed gay Jew. I've never felt, automatically, a member of any majority.
As a woman, as a Jew, as a lesbian, as a labor leader in a time of great anti-union animus, I know that other people project their biases on me. But it is nothing like the experience of our African-American brothers and sisters, especially black and brown men and boys.
I'm the little half-black, half-Jewish girl who was odd and awkward. I try to be myself.
I don't want to be a race-transcending leader. I want to be deeply understood as a man, as African- American, as a Christian, all that I am.
I don't carry myself as a black person but as a woman that belongs to everybody. After all, it's the general public that made me - not any one particular group. So I don't think of myself as belonging to any particular group and never have.
I myself am mixed race - my mother is Korean, and my father is an American Jew - so I've always felt other.
I now realize that I am a gay man before anything else. Other gays may think they're a Jew first, or black, or a banker, but I'm gay.
People identify with me - everyone does - African American women, Caucasian women, they all identify with me because I'm ethnic.
I have a very diverse crowd from old, young, black, white, straight, gay. It's a little bit of everybody.