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It's a funny thing. When I sit here pounding away at the old Macintosh I never really know if anyone is going to read what i write, and I certainly can't predict what they will think of it.

But when I finished my last column on Maddy Hirshfield's candidacy for fifth district supervisor, I thought, "How innocuous. Here's the old hippie writing about the importance of electoral politics. Will all my radical buddies imagine that I am turning into a mound of oatmeal?"

Imagine my surprise to discover that someone who apparently read that column responded with a letter to the Free Press accusing me of politics that make Conan the Barbarian look like Little Orphan Annie.

To say the letter writer missed the thrust of my column—that it is important for minority groups to fight for their fair share of the political pie in order to make the world a better place for all of us—is an understatement.

However, the issue the letter writer brings up, the question of separatist politics, versus coalition politics, does deserve a more thorough discussion.

By separatist politics, I mean groups like the national Organization for Women, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or the Latino Democratic Club. These are organizations where people who have some essential qualities, like race or gender, in common work, together to promote their common interests .

Important work happens in these groups, both for the individuals who are forging their personal identities, and for the group as a whole. Sometimes things that change the entire nation, or the world at large have their origins in these groups, like the Civil Rights Act and the labor movement.

For some people working within their racial, gender or sexual orientation groups is the devotion of a lifetime. But for others, this is only a first step. They seek to move beyond the narrow confines of the their own group to forge alliances with other groups and individuals. Once they have empowered themselves and their group, by raising the level of your own well-being, they feel it's time to move forward. That's where coalition politics kicks in.

And for some political awareness works in the reverse. They start out doing something more universal, like environmental work or anti-nuke agitating, and came eventually to the realization that they need to focus their efforts a little closer to home.

If you want to change the system, if you want to change the world, so that we can all share the wealth and get rid of the "us and them" mentality, then you have to be willing to work alongside people who are not just like you, but who want the same things you do. The simple, inescapable truth is that it takes large numbers of people to make meaningful change, otherwise it's just Don Quixote tilting at windmills.

And I know it can be done, because, as a newspaper reporter, I am privileged to interview and observe every day groups of diverse people getting together to promote their common concerns.

That's what's so exciting about the drive to save the county's Community Hospital. The group that is fighting to keep the hospital public is a multi-cultural mix of Black, White, Asian, Latino/Latina, Gay/Lesbian, straight, doctors, maintenance workers—you name it. I only hope they maintain their network when the fight is over, so the community doesn't have to go back to square one the next time an issue like this appears. They could even work together in a pro-active way, imagine that!

Sometimes coalition politics happens in more subtle ways. For example, the Community Baptist Church in Santa Rosa sponsors breakfast forums at 7 pm one Sunday each month. The forum committee invites leaders from the broader community, candidates running for office, and others, to address various issues in a question and answer format.

It's a casual but well organized affair, were everyone is welcome to sit around eating grits and eggs and participate in the exchange of ideas.

The second Sunday in November the group hosted a candidates forum for the fifth supervisorial district. In walks Maddy, first-time candidate and Jewish lesbian from New York with long blonde hair and no political machine behind her. The other four candidates are white males, all on the middle to left of the political spectrum, and all with personal wealth and/or strong political backing.

But politically astute minority people, who have dealt with discrimination all their lives, have good bullshit detectors, and the political movers and shakers of the Community Baptist Church understood that Maddy was genuinely someone who "was coming from the heart." That's what Maddy told me the following day.

Maddy says they invited her to come to church services so she can meet with church members, many of whom live in the fifth district, She said that in a conversation after the forum one man said to her, "You don't know what it's like to walk into a room full of white people and be the only one who's black."

Then he paused for a moment, remembered that she is the only woman among a handful of male candidates, and said. "But of course, you do know how it feels."

Maddy also told me that some long-time environmental activists have expressed interest in her candidacy, partly because they admire the strength of character it takes to run as an open lesbian.

I dwell on these incidents because I think it is important to recognize that being openly and proudly who you are, and demanding that those in your own group get a fair shake, is not a detriment to working effectively within the larger community. If you approach coalition work with the recognition that everybody's "special" interests are important, and that everybody wants equal opportunity and respect for being who they are, then strong identification with a particular minority group can only enhance your work in the world.

This is not an either/or situation, this is really about this and that too, and even some more of the other kind, and let's all go for it together with our heads held high. If we're all in this together, then how can we lose?