WaPo: Anti-Latino/a and Anti-LGBT Hate Crimes Spiral Upward Together
Washington, DC – The Washington Post reports in a late-breaking story that incidents of bias-related crimes against Latino/a people and LGBT people are rising sharply on seemingly parallel tracks, according to FBI findings. In a June 16 article entitled “Hate Crimes Rise as Immigration Debate Heats Up,” Spencer Hsu, reporter for WaPo, writes that officials are concerned about the abrupt rise in violent crimes against both groups: “The FBI reported in October that the number of [total] hate crime incidents dropped in 2007 by about 1 percent, to 7,624. But violence against Latinos and gay people bucked the trend. The number of hate crimes directed at gay men and lesbians increased about 6 percent, from 1,195 to 1,265, the FBI reported.” It should be noted that the actual rise in hate crimes against LGBT people is actually in excess of 28% in the last year, according to the more comprehensive statistics reported by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. Shrill voices in the media and organization of xenophobic hate groups on the internet are contributing to this alarming trend. Most recently, as Mariela Rosario writes for http://www.latina.com, Minutemen stand accused of the murder of a Latino immigrant family. In a May 30th home invasion attack just now being shared widely in the national media, three members of the anti-immigrant group Minutemen American Defense (MAD) allegedly burst into the Arivaca, AZ house of Raul Junior Flores, 29, and his 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia, and shot them dead. Flores’ wife using a shotgun returned fire, repelling the attackers, and wounding one of them. Shawna Forde, 41, Jason Eugene Bush, 34, and Albert Robert Glaxiola, 42, stand accused of the crime. The stated mission of the Minutemen American Defense is summed up in Forde’s own words, “We will expose and report what we know and find, we will recruit the serious and train the revolutionist, time for words have passed the time for bravery and conviction are now.” The Pima County (AZ) Sheriff’s Department is still investigating. The murder of Flores and his young daughter has sparked outrage among Latino/a rights groups. As The Unfinished Lives Project has previously reported in numerous stories over several months, the tragic
Romel and Diego Sucuzhañay at Brooklyn DA's Press Conference
victimization of Latino and Latina folk, gay, bi, transgender and straight often converges in a terrible way. José Sucuzhañay, and his brother, Romel, Ecuadorans visiting the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, NY were brutally assaulted on the night of December 7, 2008. Hakim Scott, 25, and Keith Phoenix, 28, beat the Sucuzhañay brothers with a beer bottle and an aluminum ball bat shouting slurs at them for their ethnicity and their perceived sexual orientation. The savage attack was apparently motivated by a toxic combined hatred of Latino immigrants and gay people. The brothers, huddled together against the cold, were walking arm-in-arm from a party. Ironically, José, who died from his wounds, and his brother Romel, are both heterosexual. José leaves behind a 10-year-old son, Brian, and a 5-year-old daughter, Joanna, who is living with Down Syndrome. As an attorney for the Sucuzhañay family told the New York Post, “The family has suffered tremendously. It was a brutal murder.” Scott and Phoenix have been indicted for second-degree murder as a hate crime by the Brooklyn District Attorney, and await trial. Often set at odds by “common wisdom” and the media, the Latino/a immigrant community and the LGBT community share a truly common need for unity in the face of irrational hatred of “the other.” The Ecuadoran media covered the crime widely, putting an important face on anti-LGBT hate crimes in the United States.
Ohio Hate Murder Revisited After Six Years: Justice for Gregory Beauchamp
Jerry Jones, 28, indicted for 2002 New Year's Eve Murder of Gregory Beauchamp
On New Year’s Eve 2002, a dark blue Cadillac pulled up to the corner of West Liberty and Vine Streets in Cincinnati beside two cross-dressed friends as they walked to a party. Taunts erupted from the car at the two homosexual men, “Fuckin’ faggot-assed bitches!” Then somebody in the Caddy pulled a trigger, and Gregory Beauchamp, 21, fell fatally wounded in the chest. He was pronounced dead on the scene.
Hate Murder Victim Gregory Beauchamp, 21, wanted to be a fashion designer.
Now, thanks to the work of the Cincinnati Cold Case Unit, Jerry Jones, 28, has been indicted for Beauchamp’s murder. Jones was already in custody at a Dayton, Ohio detention facility on unrelated charges. In 2003, though he had been arrested for killing Beauchamp, the grand jury failed to indict him. The years have not dimmed the pain Beauchamp’s friends still feel for his loss. His friend Dontae refuses to forgive Jones: “This is so sad what they did to Gregory. I miss him so much! The guy who took his life don’t think how much he meant to us. He took my best friend [away from me] that night.”
Curtis Johnson holds photo of his friend, Gregory Beauchamp. (Steven Heppich photo)
Gregory Beauchamp was the 65th homicide of the year in Cincinnati, and the last one for 2002. Curtis Johnson remembers the night as if it were yesterday. He told the Cincinnati Enquirer that he was on his way to meet Beauchamp at the party. “He just died in the street–it’s just terrible. I just want people to know he’s more than just the 65th victim. He loved clothes, music, he could sew. He was just a good person. Being black and gay in Cincinnati is tough.”
Beauchamp’s brutal murder sparked a movement in Cincinnati that culminated in the passage of a municipal hate crime statute. Now his friends may get to see justice done for the gentle man who loved to wear women’s clothing and dreamed of studying fashion design in California.
Father of Alleged Boy Murderer Found Dead
William McInerney found dead March 18, 2009 (photo courtesy of Gay American Heroes Foundation)
William McInerney, 45, father of 15-year-old murder defendant, Brandon McInerney, was found dead this morning at his home in Silver Strand, CA. Dr. Joyce Frank, Ventura County Assistant Medical Examiner who conducted the autopsy, said that the elder McInerney died from a blunt-force head trauma. The death has been ruled an accident. McInerney was said to have a history of alcoholism.
McInerney was found dead on the floor in his living room by a friend who was to take him to his son’s preliminary hearing in Superior Court. Brandon McInerney is charged with the shooting death of openly gay Lawrence “Larry” King, 15-years-old, in their morning computer class at E.O. Green Middle School in Oxnard on February 12, 2008. Young McInerney allegedly approached King from behind, and shot him in the head with his grandfather’s pistol. King’s murder has become the most widely covered anti-LGBT murder since Matthew Shepard’s death in October 1998. McInerney had allegedly harassed King for months about his feminine self-presentation.
Lawrence "Larry" King
Controversy about whether Brandon, a youth fascinated by Nazi symbols and paraphernalia, was to be tried as a juvenile or an adult has raged ever since the shooting. The younger McInerney was 14 at the time he allegedly shot King. According to California law, he is to be tried as an adult, with a possible sentence of 51 years in prison if found guilty.
Brandon McInerney
The judge conducting the hearing postponed proceedings at the news of William McInerney’s death. The family has announced a private funeral ceremony. The Unfinished Lives Project issues our condolences to the McInerney family.
Has the “War” Against LGBTs Ceased in Fort Lauderdale?
A kinder, gentler Ft. Lauderdale may be in the cards, as John P. “Jack” Seller takes over as Mayor after 18 years of an anti-gay administration. Ex-mayor Jim Naugle scapegoated the LGBT community for a non-existent sex and crime problem in public toilets along the city’s fabled gay-friendly beaches. Enraged at Naugle’s homophobic rhetoric and his enlistment of right wing church groups in a “war” against “immorality,” LGBT opponents of Naugle launched a “Flush Naugle” campaign, parodying the mayor’s effort to get $250k robo-toilets installed on the beaches.
Robo-Toilet Mayor Naugle Proposed to Address Non-Existent Gay Crime Wave on the Beaches
Naugle’s “war” claimed victims, most notably Simmie L. Williams, Jr., a 17-year-old trans person, known on the Sistrunk Avenue strip where he died as “Chris,” or “Beyoncé.” Two assailants shot him to death on the night of February 22, 2008, and as yet are not apprehended. Homophobia has a crooked arm. No straight line of cause and effect need link Naugle’s diatribes against the LGBT community to Simmie Williams’ murder, but the mayor’s irresponsible rhetoric set the stage for violence against queer folk in Broward County to escalate.
Simmie Williams died in the street wearing a dress, a casualty in a “war” he didn’t even know he was enlisted to fight. Mayor Seller, who has just taken office, has his work cut out for him. Shall it be, “Come Bask in the Sun,” in Fort Lauderdale, or “Come Bash in the Sun”? At the Unfinished Lives Project, we know which one we vote for.
~ Stephen V. Sprinkle, Director, The Unfinished Lives Project
Memphis Nocturne
Like Dallas, Memphis, Tennessee, cannot shake the reputation for violence. The assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in April 1968 will always haunt the city that bills itself “The Home of the Blues/The Birthplace of Rock n’ Roll.”
Four savage attacks against transgender women of color in Memphis reinforce the reputation Memphians would rather forget, and focus the attention of the nation on the terrible price transgender Americans pay for being true to themselves. Tiffany Berry, 21-years-old, was shot three times in the chest by a man who “did not like the way she had touched him.” Berry’s February 16, 2006, murder was a grim prelude to the murders of 20-year-old Ebony Whitaker on July 1, 2008, and 43-year-old Duanna Johnson on November 9, 2008. Johnson made national headlines when her beating by two Memphis Police Officers was captured on a jailhouse video camera earlier in the year. At the time of her murder, Johnson was pursuing a $1.3 million lawsuit against the Memphis Police Department. All three hate crime murder victims were African American transwomen. On Christmas Eve 2008, yet another African American transwoman, Leeneshia Edwards, was shot in the jaw, side and back in a near-fatal attack.
Anti-transgender violence is on the rise throughout the United States. Attacks like these could happen in any city in the country. Ironically, Memphis is served by a liberal Jewish congressman with a 100% rating by the Human Rights Campaign, and the police department is submitting to sensitivity training by LGBT experts. Yet Memphis bears a special responsibility for extending and protecting civil rights.
In March 1968, Memphis garbage workers began carrying placards bearing “I AM A MAN” to underscore their humanity in the struggle for dignity and living wages. After Dr. King’s assassination, that slogan became famous throughout the world, signifying the determination of black people to win their freedom. Four decades later, with the election of America’s first black president, a newer version of that slogan needs to be invented to highlight the struggle of transgender people of color who face violence and indignities of every kind: “I AM A HUMAN BEING.”
Dr. King wrote in his famous Letter From A Birmingham Jail, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” Gay, Bi, Lesbian, Trans or Straight, the freedom and security of all of us depends on the freedom and security of any of us. That makes all of us, on the eve of a new presidency offering hope, inextricably involved with what is happening to our trans sisters in the streets of Memphis.
Advocacy group calls for investigation of transgender woman’s murder
Lateisha Green
The Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF) is urging the Syracuse (New York) Police Department and Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office to investigate the likely hate crime motivation in the murder of Lateisha Green, a 22-year-old African American transgender woman.
On the evening of November 14, Green and her brother, Mark Cannon, were sitting in a car preparing to leave a party when they were shot with a .22 caliber rifle. A single bullet grazed Cannon’s arm and then penetrated Green’s chest, severing her aorta.
According to Chief of Police Gary Miguel, the murder suspect, 20-year-old Dwight DeLee, retrieved the .22 caliber rifle when he heard other people at the party “making profane and vulgar comments in regards to the sexual preference” of Green and her brother. “Our suspect took a rifle and shot and killed this person, also wounding his brother, for the sole reason he didn’t care for the sexual preference of our victim,” says Miguel.
“Transgender people face discrimination and violence in communities across the country,” says TLDEF executive director Michael Silverman. “Lateisha’s senseless death demonstrates the increased risk of violence transgender people face.”
Gary Miguel adds, “Isn’t that sad? Isn’t that a sad situation that that’s the sole reason why?”
Sources:
“Syracuse Trans Murder Called Hate Crime.”
“Transgender Advocacy Group Calls Upon Authorities to Fully Investigate Transgender Woman’s Death”
“Local transsexual’s death draws state Human Rights officials to Syracuse”
NCAVP warns of national increase in anti-transgender violence
One day before the Transgender Day of Remembrance, a new NCAVP press release warns about a nationwide increase in severe violence perpetrated against transgender persons.
New York – As the Transgender Day of Remembrance approaches, a day when victims of anti-transgender bias are mourned around the globe, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) has documented increases in severe violence directed at transgender communities across the country, especially against transgender women of color.
- Latiesha Green, 22, was shot on November 14 in Syracuse, New York.
- Duanna Johnson, 43, was shot in Memphis, Tennessee, on November 8.
- Aimee Wilcoxson, 34, was found dead in her apartment on November 3 in Aurora, Colorado, just outside of Denver.
Some of these brutal acts of violence occurred in the same communities that continue to mourn the murders of two transgender people of color earlier this year: Ebony Whitaker, 20, murdered in June also in Tennessee and Angie Zapata, 18, murdered in July also in Colorado.
Organizations such as International Transgender Day of Remembrance and Remembering Our Dead that have helped to initiate Transgender Day of Remembrance (held this year on November 20) also track anti-trans murders. They documented 29 anti-trans murders in 2008, a 65% increase over 2007.
NCAVP wishes to express our sadness and outrage about this ongoing, horrific violence. We stand in solidarity with transgender communities in Tennessee, Syracuse, and Colorado, the victims and survivors, and their loved ones.
Mixed Criminal / Legal System Responses
Memphis
Ms. Johnson’s murder comes on the heels of Memphis Police Department’s brutal beating of Ms. Johnson in February 2008. The following Police security camera footage of the beating has been widely circulated since June (warning: clip contains disturbing material):
[YouTube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N1Bvlbh_ws”%5D
The Memphis Police Department had been attempting to settle a law suit that Ms. Johnson had filed for the beating she endured while in custody. Former officers Bridges McRae and James Swain were fired only after the video was released, but it is not yet clear whether or not any criminal charges will be filed.
Local community members have speculated that anti-trans bias is likely a factor, not only in the beating itself but in the lack of criminal charges being filed. “This is not the first time the Shelby County District Attorney’s office has shown indifference to brutality against transgender people,” observed Dr. Marisa Richmond, the President of Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition. “When Tiffany Berry was murdered in 2006, her alleged perpetrator, D’Andre Blake, was released on only $20,000 bond.” Dr. Richmond noted that people charged with murder in Tennessee typically get a $100,000 bond.
The FBI is now assisting in the investigation of Ms. Johnson’s murder. NCAVP calls upon the FBI to bring its full resources to in the investigation of not only Ms. Johnson’s murder but also Ms. Ebony Whitaker’s. NCAVP also demands that District Attorney Gibbons bring appropriate charges against former officers McRae and Swain.
Aurora
In Colorado, the Aurora Sentinel reported that local police have speculated that Ms. Wilcoxson’s death was a suicide. But friends of hers insist that explanation is very unlikely given her life circumstances and also given the condition the body was in when it was discovered. NCAVP is hopeful that local police will conduct a thorough investigation that takes into account these statements from people who knew her.
Syracuse
In Syracuse, Sage Upstate and other local community members report that Syracuse City Police Department Chief Gary Miguel has responded to this crime with sensitivity. The family of Latiesha ‘Tiesh’ Green and LGBT advocates in the Syracuse community are hopeful that the Onondaga County District Attorney’s office will be able to include hate crime charges in the prosecution of this case.
NCAVP commends district attorneys and police who identify and appropriately categorize hate-motivated violence. We are hopeful that district attorneys and law enforcement in other jurisdictions will follow suit and NCAVP will continue to monitor the violence against transgender communities, as well as the police response.
Transgender and gender non-conforming people experience violence and harassment everyday and most of it never makes headlines. NCAVP encourages LGBT people experiencing any form of hate violence, harassment, vandalism, or bullying to contact NCAVP or one of our member programs by calling 212.714.1184 or emailing us at info@ncavp.org.
Remembering Harvey Milk (May 22, 1930 — November 27, 1978)
Thirty years ago, Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the United States, was murdered alongside San Francisco mayor George Moscone. Milk, a new film about Harvey Milk’s life and murder will be released this November. Directed by Gus Van Sant and featuring Sean Penn, the film recounts the hate crime assassination perpetrated by Dan White, a former city supervisor of San Francisco.
In the summer of 2006, Unfinished Lives project director Stephen V. Sprinkle visited the San Francisco Bay Area to conduct research about anti-LGBT hate crimes victims. His work included research about Harvey Milk. Sprinkle shares some of his recollections from the trip:
“On my first major trip to study LGBT hate crimes murder victims, I traveled to Gay Mecca, the Castro in San Francisco. Though this was one of several visits to Castro Street through the years, the summer of 2006 was different. It was the year I met Harvey.
“Gay life is as vibrant as those who live it, and the Castro is Ground Zero for all LGBT people thanks to Harvey, the ‘Mayor of Castro Street.’ On my way to the HRC Store, I had walked right by Harvey Milk’s camera shop without noticing it. A friendly clerk at the HRC named Fidel pointed me back there, and I walked back across the street and down the block until I stood facing the closed and vacant shop at 575 Castro Street. Down at my feet was a bronze plaque commemorating Harvey’s shop and home.
“I looked up and saw a mural of Harvey standing in the window, looking down from the second floor at the beloved community he represented as the first openly gay person elected to a major office in America. He and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated in City Hall by Dan White, a disgruntled former city supervisor, on November 27, 1978.
“Now, thanks to Gus Van Zandt, Harvey will be remembered in a major motion picture. It is only fitting that Sean Penn, one of our finest actors, will portray him on the silver screen he so loved. Enjoy the trailer, and remember Harvey Milk with gratitude.”
Pattern of severe of anti-LGBT violence increases nationwide
The Hate Crimes Bill has provided an excellent summary of a new report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs showing anti-LGBT violence has been on the rise since the murder of Lawrence “Larry” King in Oxnard, California, at the beginning of this year.
“The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) reports a recent rash of at least 13 brutal and violent hate crimes that have occurred throughout the country on the heels of the murder of 15 year-old Lawrence King in Los Angeles and the brutal beating of Duanna Johnson, both in February of 2008,” says the Hate Crimes Bill’s website. “NCAVP reports that these hate crimes may indicate a frightening trend of increases in both the number and severity of anti-LGBT violence.”
The NCAVP findings come after several anti-LGBT hate crimes, including the police beating of a transgender woman in Memphis, Tennessee; the harassment and beating of a gay man on a New York subway; the murder of a transgender woman in Memphis, Tennessee; the alleged police beating of a gay man in Greeley, Colorado; the beating of a priest in Queens, New York, for protecting a group of LGBT youth living at a shelter for homeless youth; the midnight home-invasion and arson, in Central New York, by a self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi, who targeted a sleeping 65-year-old gay man (the victim was able to flee the home, unhurt); the fatal bludgeoning of 18-year-old Angie Zapata, a transgender Latina woman in Greeley, Colorado; the beating of gay man Jimmy Lee Dean, in Dallas, Texas, whose injuries were so severe that he was in intensive care and could not be interviewed or identified until five days after the crime; the severe injury of a man in upstate New York, whose two assailants beat, kicked, and shouted anti-gay slurs until they had broken ten bones in their victim’s face; the attack against an 18-year-old living in St Helens, in the United Kingdom, who died a week later from his injuries; the (at least partially) anti-gay-motivated shooting rampage in a Knoxville, Tennessee, church that claimed two lives and wounded seven others; the mob-beating and stabbing of a man perceived to be gay in Staten Island, New York; the ongoing and escalating harassment (for nearly 8 years) of a gay male couple living in Cleveland, Ohio, by anti-gay neighbors; and the ongoing and escalating harassment (for nearly 20 years) of a gay male couple living in a rural Pennsylvania town, who have suffered incidents of gunfire, vandalism, stalking, acts of intimidation, and the indifference from local police.
In a grim coincidence, more than one anti-LGBT hate crime has occurred in both Memphis, Tennessee, and Greeley, Colorado, since the beginning of 2008.
Unfinished Lives also offers our own analysis of the significance of anti-LGBT hate-crime statistics in the United States. The NCAVP’s findings and the Hate Crimes Bill’s detailed summary confirm what has been a growing concern for LGBT persons living in the United States.
About
If you are a first-time visitor to the Unfinished Lives Project website, we invite you to read A Welcome Message introducing you to our project. We are truly grateful for your visit.
The Unfinished Lives Project website is a place of public discourse which remembers and honors LGBTQ hate crime victims, while also revealing the reality of unseen violence perpetrated against people whose only “offense” is their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender presentation. LGBTQ people in the United States are suffering a slow-rolling decimation of terror and murder all across the country. Every locale and demographic of society are affected: First Nations, Anglo, Black, Latino and Latina, South and Southeast Asian, Transgender, Bisexuals, Gay men, Lesbians, disabled, young, and mature. Homophobia has a long, crooked arm, and it is reaching out to snatch the life away from women and men whose tragic stories are under-reported to begin with, and whose memories are swiftly forgotten.
The horror of these killings transcends the shock and bereavement of loved ones and friends. These are not typical homicides; they are not killings for money or drugs, incidents of domestic strife, or crimes of passion. The vicious nature of hate crimes against LGBTQ persons is extremely brutal, grotesquely violent, and egregiously hateful.
Each murder serves the LGBTQ population as a sobering warning about the actual level of danger in our communities. The message these killings send is that freedom and open life for LGBTQ people is a cruel dream. Every time we remember one of these victims, however, the intentions of their killers are frustrated. To remember these women and men is to begin the process of changing the culture that killed them.
Our Project Director
Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle (Keith Tew photo).
Stephen V. Sprinkle is Director of Field Education and Supervised Ministry, and Professor of Practical Theology at Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas, a post he has held since 1994. An ordained Baptist minister, he is the first open and out Gay scholar in the history of the Divinity School, and the first open and out LGBTQ person to be tenured there. Read More…
Recent Social Justice Advocacy Activity By Dr. Sprinkle
Summer 2009 – Dr. Sprinkle responded to the Fort Worth Police Department and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission Raid on the Rainbow Lounge, Fort Worth’s newest gay bar, on June 28, 2009, the exact 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. Dr. Sprinkle was invited to speak at three protest events sponsored by Queer LiberAction of Dallas. Here, he is keynoting the Rainbow Lounge Protest at the Tarrant County Courthouse on July 12, 2009. Read More…
Contact Us
Communicate with the Unfinished Lives project team:
info@unfinishedlivesblog.com
Schedule a Presentation
Dr. Sprinkle will gladly present his acclaimed presentation to your organization. To arrange an Unfinished Lives presentation for your organization or group, please contact us.
Dr. Sprinkle has given his Unfinished Lives presentation to these and other community groups and organizations. Read More…
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Steve Sprinkle
Unfinished Lives: Remembering LGBT Hate Crime VictimsBrite Divinity School/Texas Christian UniversityFort Worth TXprofessor, minister, author, blogger, LGBTQ advocate
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Unfinished Lives 
Bullfrog in the Kettle: On Not Being Lulled into a False Sense of Security About Anti-LGBT Violence
How do you boil a bullfrog? Don’t try to plop it in a steaming kettle on the stove. Ease it into a nice warm bath in the pot, and let it swim around until it drops its guard. Nudge up the heat nice and slow. Caught unawares, the frog won’t wake up to its danger until it is too late and the water is about to boil.
Larry King Cover in The Advocate magazine
Last year saw a rash of murders of young, feminine-presenting men about this time. In January, Adophus Simmons of North Charleston, South Carolina was shot to death while carrying his trash out to the dumpster. In February, just after Valentine’s Day, Larry King was shot in the back of the head in his middle school computer class by his classmate in Oxnard, California. Then, near the end of February, Simmie Williams, Jr. was shot down in the street in Fort Lauderdale, Florida by two still-unapprehended murders. Simmons was 18, King was 15, and Williams was 17.
Simmie Williams' Mother Mourns his death
It took some weeks for the LGBT press to connect the dots and cry out that young, gender non-conforming men, especially young men of color, were in the crosshairs of deadly prejudice in the United States. King’s murder drew a cover story in The Advocate, and then the mainstream press picked up the theme with its flawed cover in Newsweek. The nation shrugged off the murders of the other two boys. Now, things have gone strangely silent about the morphing of murder against LGBT people, with minimal interest in the new outbreak of violence against African American transwomen in Memphis, Tennessee. Queer folk are still being killed, but in the glow of President Obama’s first 100 Days, with all eyes turned to the beautiful First Couple and the stumbling U.S. economy, even the LGBT press is falling to sleep again, lulling the LGBT population who are still at risk everywhere into a false sense of security. The bullfrog is doing the backstroke in the kettle, and the heat is rising oh-so-slowly.
Joan Crawford, LGBT Icon, in Johnny Guitar
Just like queer folk used to sit through whole tiresome movies like Johnny Guitar just to see Joan Crawford descend the stairs wearing a butch shirt waving a gun, the LGBT and progressive press are hanging onto every hint of “gay” in President Obama’s speeches and press releases. He said “gay and lesbian” in Chicago on Election Night! He didn’t mention us in the Inaugural Address at all, but has our issues on the White House web site! His team invited Rick Warren (who opposes us 100%) to pray, but Joseph Lowery (who kinda likes us), too! The Inaugural Committee chose Bishop Gene Robinson to pray at the Lincoln Memorial (but then botched its broadcast, and somebody cut off his mic), and at the last minute invited him to the platform for the Inauguration! Please!
Here is what we know for sure:
1) Queer folk are still being killed and attacked in heightened numbers throughout the United States, especially in the Heartland of the Upper Midwest, the Left Coast, and the South, as NCAVP and FBI statistics demonstrate.
2) Even the presumption that someone is gay is deadly, as was the case of José O. Sucuzhañay, a straight man attacked while walking arm-in-arm with his brother in Brooklyn just before Christmas.
3) Transgender women and men, especially if they are of color, are dying in our streets in alarming numbers, as the Memphis attacks testify.
4) A gay man’s life is worth less than an animal’s in some states, as the imminent early release of Sean William Kennedy’s convicted murderer shows in Greenville, South Carolina.
5) Silence-of-the-Lambs style murders apparently cannot shake urban governments awake to the peril of their LGBT citizens, as the gruesome dismemberment of Richard Hernandez and the subsequent veil of silence surrounding it in Dallas, TX points out.
6) Most LGBT people would rather not read about this right now, with Spring Break coming up, and Easter, and the next Circuit Party, and all.
Who wouldn’t rather ignore the reality of violence and neglect that makes LGBT jobs, loves and our very lives so fragile in March 2009, the Obama Administration notwithstanding? Please don’t “let Barack do it” and abdicate responsibility for acting for and end to anti-LGBT violence in this country. Barack Obama needs all of us who feel the heat to make him keep his promises to enact the Matthew Shepard Act, ENDA, and to repeal DADT.
Don’t be fooled. Don’t be lulled. The kettle is on to boil.
~ Stephen V. Sprinkle, Director
The Unfinished Lives Project
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March 11, 2009 Posted by unfinishedlives | African Americans, Anglo Americans, gay men, gun violence, harassment, Hate Crime Statistics, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Legislation, Mistaken as LGBT, Politics, Racism, School and church shootings, Special Comments | Comments Off on Bullfrog in the Kettle: On Not Being Lulled into a False Sense of Security About Anti-LGBT Violence