Sabrina Sojourner topped off a week of programs for National Coming Out Week with her speech “Race, Gender and Coming Out,” to an audience of nearly 60 people in the Memorial Union Thursday night.

Sojourner, an openly lesbian African American and a U.S. Congressional Shadow Representative from the District of Columbia, was the keynote speaker for Coming Out 1997 at Iowa State.

Jason Gross, vice president of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Ally Alliance, introduced Sojourner. Gross said the theme of Coming Out 1997 was “to show LGBTA students that support does exist for them.”

“Whether you live on a homophobic floor or have a homophobic professor, there is support for you,” Gross said. “You don’t have to face harassment.”

Sojourner said the time she spent in Washington, D.C. with the National Organization for Women and as an activist was “an incredible journey I’ve been privileged to be a part of.” She has been active in the “progressive movement” for 25 years.

Sojourner wished the crowd “Happy Coming Out Day,” and addressed several issues related to coming out.

“The whole concept of coming out, being visible — what is the relationship between racism, sexism and other kinds of oppression?” Sojourner said.

Sojourner said she doesn’t use the term “homophobia.” She labeled the oppression of other sexual orientations “heterosexism.”

“Homophobia is a psychological condition,” she said. “Heterosexism is the institutional preference and assumption that everyone is heterosexual.”

Sojourner said the condition of homophobia arises from “heterosexism.”

“[It’s] the feeling that a man is too effeminate, or a woman is ‘too butch looking’— whatever that means,” she said. “These people are assumed to be homosexual, whether that’s true or not. And these people are thought to be endangering the people who are heterosexual.”

Sojourner spoke about the recently passed “Defense of Marriage Act,” which prevents Hawaii from legally recognizing same-sex marriages.

Congress is “crazy if they think that the Defense Act will keep people from filing suits [to get married],” she said.

Sojourner said she has faith Hawaii will become the first state in the nation where gay marriages are acknowledged. “I know a lot of people who are going to be booking their trips to Hawaii,” she said.

She said one reason the U.S. still does not accept different races and sexual orientations is because “the moderate- to-left people need to take responsibility for our not being there.”

“The key issue is the same for all of those who are oppressed,” Sojourner said. “And the key issue is oppression. Pain is pain. It doesn’t matter if you’re being teased because you’re gay, because of the way your eyes are shaped, because of your accent. When someone is being vicious to you, it hurts, and it’s scary.”

Sojourner described herself as an activist for diversity and multiculturalism and said one of the first steps to diversity is to “settle what we’re going to call ‘white people.'”

Sojourner spoke at length about early American history, and how the United States was set up by “people who claimed ‘white skin privilege.'”

The conflicting values of early leaders like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson are part of the reason for the “schizophrenia” the United States still faces, she said.

Sojourner said the debate over the American majority’s identity is beginning to change; however, she said she “is not interested in having that type of power over anyone.”

Until everyone can have an honest discussion about past mistakes, discrimination will persist, she said.

“I’m not looking for white people to feel guilty,” Sojourner said. “What I want to do is openly embrace who we are.”

Sojourner’s dreams and ideas for the future include a society where “more money is spent on public education than on bombs and building jails,” where the society is committed to ending poverty, and where “social justice is the norm, not the exception.”

She urged the audience not to put up with tasteless and off-color jokes and comments. She said when one “decides to discriminate, one says, ‘I am holding the door open to oppression.'”

Sojouner told the audience to expect to wait for total acceptance of their sexual orientations.

“The reality is that we all have to wait [for our rights,]” Sojourner said. “But if we would cooperate more, we would wait less.”

Many audience members said they agreed with Sojourner’s ideas.

“I thought a lot of her points were absolutely true, in that different groups that are being depressed have to work together, or we’re not going to get anywhere,” Curt Lund, a freshman in graphic design, said.

Others appreciated the sheer optimism in her speech.

“What I found really exciting is [her theme that] now is the time for us to be happy,” said Sine Anahita, coordinator for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered Student Services. “I liked the ‘seize the day’ mentality. My thoughts are, ‘Our time is now.'”