Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple;

The Pride flag flutters exactly as a flag should on a San Francisco afternoon in June;

The fingers of each of its stripes caress the blue sky

It waves with the triumphant spirit of possibility which, for many of us, is the reason we came to San Francisco–and for nearly all of us, is the reason we stay;

But this particular flag overlooks Market Street;

To its right is the headquarters of Twitter and the tech workers who have flooded the City as part of the the tech boom of the “New” San Francisco;

To its left are a group of homeless men and women.  Three of them have lived on this patch of curb since I moved here in 2009.  They are as “Old” San Francisco as it gets;

The flag floats over the battle lines between these groups, between the privileged rich and the poor whose San Francisco dream has been reduced to sleeping on a piece of urine-soaked pavement;

But the flag calls us all to something better;

If any City can negotiate the conflicts of inequality, it is this one; which raised itself up from the ashes of a quake and fire unprecedented in American history;

The flag hopes;

And as a result, so do we

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