The Contemporary Jewish Museum has proclaimed this Sunday, July 24th, “Hand Holding Day.” Now, that’s an unusual title for a show, so here’s a bit of the background.
Last Tuesday (July 17), a security guard (who turned out to be a temporary employee) asked two women in the museum to stop holding hands. Ironically, they were viewing the exhibit on Gertrude Stein – an exhibit that not only celebrates Ms. Stein’s life and work, but also emphasizes her lifelong partnership with Alice B. Toklas and their circle of gay friends.
As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, the guard told the couple that they couldn’t hold hands in the museum. The two women started to argue with him. After a small crowd began to form around them, the guard attempted to escort the couple out the door.
"And they said, 'No, we are not leaving and we want to talk to somebody in authority right now,'" an eyewitness explained. "The idea that in 2011, in San Francisco, at the Jewish Museum, this guard could be that out of touch was shocking."
The two women later met with the head of security, who issued a verbal apology to the couple. Darryl Carr, director of marketing and communications, later explained that the museum does not employ its own guards, instead outsourcing to an outside agency, Guardsmark.
The museum asked the guard to leave the museum and wrote a letter to the agency, expressing their dissatisfaction and reiterating that the museum has a zero tolerance policy regarding any expression of prejudice or racism in action, word or deed.
That particular guard will never work for the museum again and the agency will be instituting sensitivity training for their personnel.
The CJM not only talks the talk, it walks the walk by encouraging visitors to come and feel free to stroll hand in hand through the galleries and to celebrate the LGBT families in our community. *For love is what matters, not the gender, not the race, religion, creed or color.
There is a full day of activities scheduled, including art making, tours, performances by the SF Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band, the Voices Lesbian Choral Ensemble, and Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco. Later on, there will be a special performance by actress Laura Sheppard entitled Paris Portraits: Stories of Picasso, Matisse, Gertrude Stein and their Circle, her one-woman show based on the new memoir of Gertrude Stein by Harriet Levy from Heyday Books.
"We are excited about welcoming everyone to the Museum for a day of celebration," says CJM Director and CEO Connie Wolf. "When we learned that a contract security officer was not in alignment with the Museum's values and policies, he was immediately removed from the Museum and reprimanded.
"The Museum is dedicated to engaging all visitors in the diversity of culture, history, art, and ideas. Sunday at the Museum will be an extraordinary opportunity to share in the diversity of people, ideas, and community."
Sunday, July 24, 2011, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
http://www.thecjm.org/
*The LGBT Family Morning of Stein takes place 9 a.m. to noon and is appropriate for young children (preschool through nine years old) and their families. All families are welcome, and youth 18 and under are always free.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/19/BA7N1KBVVI.DTL
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