yourfaveisproblematic:

• Uses gay as an insult: “Foo Fighters are gay”
• To a black audience member: “Do you really like rock music? Because you’re African-American. That would be like me being into Lil Wayne.”
• “I’m allowed to use the word ‘f**’ because I’m a gay icon”
  
• Said…

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by Sharon Lettman-Hicks | May 20, 2013 at 9:00 AM

It’s been 82 days.

Eighty-one days since the body of Marco McMillian, a black mayoral candidate, who was also gay, was found on the Mississippi River levee, unclothed.

After 82 days of utter apathy from our collective community—the black community, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, our allies, and communities at the intersection—we are breaking the silence and calling out the paralyzing hypocrisy plaguing us.

Lives are at stake

On May 9th, in response to the autopsy results of the late Marco McMillian, the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), Parks & Crump law firm, and the McMillian/Unger family demanded a federal investigation at a national press conference held at the family’s home in Clarksdale, Mississippi. It was on their front lawn, with an oversized portrait of Marco behind us, that we declared that we will stop at nothing until the Department of Justice takes over the investigation.

As I’ve previously noted,justice sluggishly shifts when the lives of our black boys and girls are at stake. The public outcry is even more hushed, if at all audible, when it is a life of a black LGBT person on the line.

On March 3rd, four days after McMillian’s lifeless body was found, his parents released a statement saying that he had been beaten, dragged and set afire. But the Coahoma County coroner, Scotty Meredith, said McMillian was found with “two little bitty burns” and that “there was no beating, although there may have been an altercation.”

Brutalized, tortured and left for dead

March 5th, NBJC, the nation’s leading black LGBT civil rights organization, submitted a letter to the Attorney General Eric Holder, calling for the Department of Justice to launch a federal investigation.

Seventy-five days after Marco was found, we received an autopsy report detailing injuries the family outlined in their statement two months ago. The same statement that the Coahoma County coroner challenged by saying, “I don’t know where that is coming from.” Contrary to the coroner’s attempt to minimize McMillian’s murder, the young superstar aspiring to be a public official was brutally murdered.

It was not a random act of violence. He was brutalized, tortured and left for dead.

The report states that the victim died from a lack of oxygen. It goes on to detail that blunt force trauma most likely contributed to the Clarksdale mayoral candidate’s death, but what exactly caused the asphyxiation remains unknown. The report also notes that there were abrasions and lacerations on McMillian’s head, back and legs and multiple “areas of second and third degree burns,” and that the manner of death was a homicide.

Where’s the outrage

While an arrest has been made in this disturbing case, after 75 days of silence and virtually no public outrage, we are left with more questions than answers.

Back in March, the Coahoma County Sheriff’s Office announced that a suspect, Lawrence Reed, faces a murder charge in the death. Reed, 22, was found in McMillian’s wrecked SUV. He later provided authorities with the location of the victim’s body. Some say the two were romantically involved while others are pleading the “gay panic” defense, insinuating that Marco McMillian made unwanted advances to the murder suspect, Lawrence Reed.

Not only was this defense dangerous, it was problematic. It reeked of victim-blaming and ignored the egregious acts of violence committed against LGBT people of color.

According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), violence against LGBT people is on the rise, with people of color and transgender women as the most likely targets. Of the victims murdered in 2010, 70 percent were people of color. And those are just the cases we know about. Other findings indicate that identifying as gay, or offenders perceiving individuals to be gay, may increase hate violence murder risk.

Details don’t add up

The details just aren’t adding up. The McMillian/Unger family agrees.

In a heartfelt plea to the sheriff’s office on May 1, Patricia Unger, mother of McMillian, explained that she feels the investigation “has not been conducted in an ethical manner.”

“Please know that I am not questioning your expertise,” she wrote to the sheriff. “I am merely trying to find answers to questions that I have about the murder investigation of my only child.”

Unger pointed out that the sheriff refused to discuss the case with her husband because he didn’t want any leaks to the media.

No mother deserves to be held hostage by a lack of information around the death of her own son. No mother deserves to suffer in silence while being ignored by those who are entrusted with the justice system of government.

We can no longer be silent

The conflicting reports, the current racial and anti-LGBT climate in Mississippi and the lack of state protections for LGBT individuals are justification enough for a federal investigation. Again: Marco was brutalized, tortured and left for dead.

In the state of Mississippi, hate crime statutes do not include sexual orientation and gender identity, resulting in no state legislative protection for the LGBT community. According to a 2011 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) report, there has been a spike in Mississippi anti-gay and racially-motivated hate crimes.

Sometimes silencing others—and the truth—makes people more comfortable. For 82 days, the silence around Marco McMillian’s murder has spoken volumes. We’re standing firmly, visibly, and loudly with his family so that their concerns do not go unaddressed.

Sharon J. Lettman-Hicks serves as the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), which is a national civil rights organization dedicated to empowering black LGBT people. NBJC’s mission is to eradicate racism and homophobia. For more information about NBJC, visit www.nbjc.org.

searchingforknowledge:

1. Krik! Krak! by Edwidge Danticat (Fiction)
2. Caucasia by Danzy Senna (Fiction)
3. Sister Citizen by Melissa Harris Perry (Nonfiction)
4. Praisesong for the Widow by Paule Marshall (Fiction)
5. The Upper Room by Mary Monroe (Fiction)
6. One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia (Children’s Books)
7. Ugly Ways by Tina McElroy Ansa (Fiction)
8. Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America by Lori Tharps and Ayana Byrd (Nonfiction)
9. Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Fiction)
10. Small Island by Andrea Levy (Fiction)
11. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Fiction)
12. On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Fiction)
13. Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story by Elaine Brown (Nonfiction)
14. A Street in Bronzeville by Gwendolyn Brooks (Poetry)
15. Mama Day by Gloria Naylor (Fiction)
16. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (Science Fiction)
17. Breath, Eye, Memory by Edwidge Danticat (Fiction)
18. Daughters by Paule Marshall (Fiction)
19. Sula by Toni Morrison (Fiction)
20. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Fiction)
21. Naughts and Crosses trilogy by Malorie Blackman (Fiction)
22. Coming to England by Floella Benjamin (Autobiography)
23. But Some of Us Are Brave by Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell Scott and Barbara Smith (Nonfiction)
24. Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks (Poetry)
25. Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones (Fiction)
26. 32 Candles by Ernessa T. Carter (Fiction)
27. The Fisher King by Paule Marshall (Fiction)
28. Before You Suffocate your own Fool Self by Danielle Evans (Fiction)
29. Our Black Year: One Family’s Quest to Buy Black in a Racially Divided Economy by Maggie Anderson (Nonfiction)
30. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (Nonfiction)
31. Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (Nonfiction)
32. Abeng by Michelle Cliff (Fiction)
33. Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor (Fiction)
34. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (Fiction)
35. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (Autobiography)
36. Black, White & Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self by Rebecca Walker (Nonfiction)
37. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Various (Nonfiction)
38. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (Fiction)
39. The Skin I’m In by Sharon G. Flake (Children’s Books)
40. The Shimmershine Queens by Camille Yarbrough (Children’s Books)
41. Darkest Child by Dolores Philips (Fiction)
42. The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey by Toi Derricotte (Nonfiction)
43. Gathering of Waters by Bernice McFadden (Fiction)
44. Corregidora by Gayl Jones (Fiction)
45. The Cutting Season by Attica Locke (Fiction)
46. The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir by Staceyann Chin (Autobiography)
47. Are Prisons Obsolete by Angela Davis (Nonfiction)
48. Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde (Nonfiction)
49. Coffee Will Make You Black by April Sinclair (Fiction)
50. Zami—A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde (“Biomythography”)
51. Black Girl in Paris by Shay Youngblood (Fiction)
52. In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens by Alice Walker (Nonfiction)
53. To Be Young, Gifted and Black by Lorraine Hansberry (Autobiography)
54. Her Stories: African American Folktlaes, Fairy Tales and True Tales by Virginia Hamilton (Fiction)
55. The Dark Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia McKissak (Fiction)
56. Wrapped in Rainbows by Valerie Boyd (Biography)
57. Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor (Children’s Books)
58. Betsy Brown by Ntozake Shange (Fiction)
59. Kindred by Octavia Butler (Science Fiction)
60. Baby of the Family by Tina McElroy Ansa (Fiction)
61. Cane River by
62. Lalita Tademy (Nonfiction)
63. Daughter by asha bandele (Fiction)
64. Some Things I Never Thought I’d Do by Pearl Cleage (Fiction)
65. The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta (Fiction)
66. Homegirls and Handgrenades by Sonia Sanchez (Poetry)
67. Efrain’s Secret by Sofia Quintero (YA)
68. When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost by Joan Morgan (Nonfiction)
69. The Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village Tales by Bessie Head (Fiction)
70. The Collected Poetry by Nikki Giovanni (Poetry)
71. Jubilee by Margaret Walker (Nonfiction)
72. Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology by Barbara Smith (Nonfiction)
73. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin (Fiction)
74. For Colored Girls Who’ve Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange (Fiction)
75. Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics and Values Wars by Sikivu Hutchinson (Nonfiction)
76. The Hand I Fan With by Tina McElroy Ansa (Fiction)
77. Deals with the Devil and other Reasons to Riot by Pearl Cleage (Nonfiction)
78. Kehinde by Buchi Emecheta (Fiction)
79. NW by Zadie Smith (Fiction)
80. The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker (Fiction)
81. Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery by bell hooks (Nonfiction)
82. Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid (Fiction)
83. Ain’t I A Woman by bell hooks (Nonfiction)
84. The Street by Ann Petry (Fiction)
85. Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriweather
86. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriett Jacobs
87. Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis (Nonfiction)
88. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
89. Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman by Michelle Wallace(Nonfiction)
90. Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime by J.California Cooper (Fiction)
91. Meridian by Alice Walker (Nonfiction)
92. The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin
93. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor (Fiction)
94. Homemade Love by J. California Cooper (Fiction)
95. Bitch is the New Black: A Memoir by Helena Andrews (Autobiography)
96. Color Blind: A Memoir by Precious Williams (Autobiography)
97. On Black Sisters Street by Chika Unigwe (Fiction)
98. Oh Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam CJ Walker by A’lelia Bundles (Biography)
99. Yurugu: An African-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior by Dr. Marimba Ani (Nonfiction)
100. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (Fiction)
101. Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler (Science Fiction)

Thoughts? My first one is that people need to open their eyes beyond Octavi Butler, case there is LOTS of black women writing sci-fi and fantasy and horror that they keep missing. Granted this was based on a poll, which points out the visibility problem. That being said, nice mix of fiction and nonfiction.

(via holyfuckmeinthemouth)