On my next-to-last day in Memphis, before flying home, I finally made my pilgrimage. No, not to Graceland. I never really had any desire to go there. Besides, I knew that when I got home, most of the people who knew me and knew about my trip wouldn’t ask if I went to Graceland. At least not first. If I was going to visit anywhere in Memphis, there was one place I had to visit first. So when I co-worker told me that several people were planning to visit the National Civil Rights Museum — which includes and incorporates the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated — I knew that was where I was going to go, if I went anywhere else in Memphis.
I remember walking through the exhibit, and finally making my way to the King Room, looking through the glass that protected and preserved it, and then walking through an adjacent room and stepping out onto the balcony next to where King was shot. I remember looking across the street and seeing the window of the boarding house where James Earl Ray made the fatal shot. I remember walking through a tunnel, across the street to that house, and looking into the room from which he made the shot. And I remember walking past James Earl Ray’s car when we finally left the museum.
I stepped out into the sunlight, at last, with the rest of the group —all of us blinking our eyes, trying to get used to the light, grateful for the awkward silence, yet feeling the need to fill it with something profound or moving, but coming up short. The thought I kept to myself was how strange it was that in Memphis people ended up visiting a monument to someone’s death, both named — at birth or at birth as a celebrity — “King.” I didn’t think about then, what comes to mind now: how many deaths will receive no monument in Memphis, or be remembered even a year later.
My one trip to Memphis didn’t include the expected pilgrimage to Graceland, and I never saw the ghost of Elvis (impersonators notwithstanding) even though I stayed on Union Avenue. Even if I had I’m not sure I’d have followed him to Graceland. I say expected, because almost everyone I met who wasn’t connected with the conference asked me if I was going to Graceland. I said no, but what I didn’t share was that I’d already made up my mind where I was going while in Memphis, and my itinerary didn’t include Graceland. Not even a walk down Elvis Presley Blvd.
I only went to Memphis once, and I left knowing there was much of it I hadn’t seen. It was 1998, and it must have been August, because the city was crowded with people there for the anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death. I was there for a conference about HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. It was an odd coincidence, and one that made it fairly easy to tell conference attendees from the tourists who were there to celebrate or experience one of Memphis’ three major attractions: Elvis, Barbeque, and the Blues. They were all everywhere.
You weren’t out of the airport before you encountered all three in some form, and they were still there when you left, so you could take them home with you. (You could even — I was amazed to find out — order your barbeque at the airport and have it Fed-Exed home. Depending on how long your flight was, it might arrive before you.) Downtown, Elvis’ images and impersonators were in abundance. (I think every hotel may have had one of the latter.) You could stand in the street and be wrapped in the sent of barbeque and the sound of the blues. And that was just the block where my hotel stood.
Sometimes I’ll come across an article focusing on family and friends remembering the victim, and may be able to glean a little more information. But just as often, those friends and family may not have known — may have guessed or inferred, or may have assumed since they were not told — that their loved-one or their friend was gay. Co-workers who have worked beside the victim for years, friends and family who have known the victim even longer, may simply not have known who their friend and love-one really was. That is, until they become the victim of a hate crime.
That was the case with the murder of Victor Manious. When I filed away an article on Manious’ murder a couple of months ago, I intended to get back to it, and I did. But I didn’t expect to find so much information on the case, or to spend much time with it. But the more time I spent looking in to it, the more I was reminded of a few other stories, which raised some questions for me.
Basically, I had someone say to me that if a hate crimes case didn’t get widespread coverage, didn’t spark large protests, or catalyze new legislation, then it wasn’t noteworthy enough to warrant its own entry. Well, part of the reason I started the project was because so many cases don’t get the kind of coverage that a Matthew Shepard or Brandon Teena gets. In fact, many don’t get coverage beyond their local areas, and don’t spark huge protests in part because the victims are already members of marginalized groups; people we tend to care even less about in death than we do in life.
One of the things that surprised me after starting the LGBT Hate Crimes Project is the amount of email I get. Much of it is from people who knew, or were related to the victim. Sometimes I’ve heard from family members who didn’t know the outcome of their loved one’s cases. Sometimes it’s from people who want to let me know about cases that they think should be on the site.
In the latter case, I usually take them and research them, unless they’ve been covered in depth elsewhere. If, for example, they’re already covered in depth on Wikipedia I may decide not to duplicate efforts. I started this project on Wikipedia, by the way, but stopped posting entries on Wikipedia when it became clear that their notability guidelines would cause many of the cases I was writing about to get deleted, because one editor or another didn’t think they were noteworthy enough. In one case, one person asked me “What makes this different from any other crime story?”
I mentioned earlier that the shooting at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church had jump-started my return to the LGBT Hate Crimes Project. Specifically it was Joe Lauria who put it into a context that immediately gelled for me.
Even if this man hopefully acted alone it is chilling to all progressive people and groups, like the Unitarians. Are we free to express our views, indeed to allow our children to perform in a church play?
Th answer, of course, is no. Well, sort of. Maybe. Not really.
[Ed. Note: In light of the Knoxville shooting, I've decided to spend most of my blogging this week focusing on hate crimes.]
I rarely set foot in a church these days, for the most part, except for weddings and funerals. I did a few months ago, when a D.C. area “welcoming church”, offered Rainbow Families DC a space to gather and decorate our tricycles, bicycles, wagons, scooters and skateboards for the Capitol Pride Parade. But if I were, I’d probably feel most comfortable in a Unitarian Universalist church.
So, when I heard about the shooting at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, and the motives behind it, my first thought was that my own family could have been sitting in that sanctuary if we lived in Knoxville. (In a place as conservative as Knoxville, the church was described as an “oasis” to the city’s LGBT community, and I suspect it was to anyone who held progressive/liberal views.) Sad to say, I’m used to the idea that my family may be targeted simply for being the kind of family we are. But what struck me was that the hatred was so deep in this case, that the gunman lashed out not just at gays, but at those who supported gay and lesbian equality.
In the pre-civil-rights south, whites who supported equality for African Americans were called “nigger lovers,” and as such were as much targets as blacks who stood up for their rights. Now, are heterosexual supporters of LGBT equality the new public enemy?
It’s been a while since I last updated the LGBT Hate Crimes Project. That was partially due to life events (adopting a baby, losing a baby, adopting a baby, etc.), but also due to the nature of the work. Spending so much time researching each story inevitably, for me, means spending a lot of time feeling a story, as much as researching and writing it. Having a new baby, for a while, made me less inclined to focus on the uglier realities of the world my family and every other family lives in.
But the shooting at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church nudged me out of nesting mode a bit. Dylan, now eight months old, is not only sitting up, but surpisingly mobile in his own way. A combination of rolling and scooting himself backwards allows him to cover quite a bit of ground. (Though it doesn’t necessarily take him where he wants to go, but moves him further from it instead, leading to frustration on his part.) Crawling may be a month or two away, but he’s actively exploring the world around him now, where he used to just gaze at it from the safety of our arms.
He’ll be walking soon; probably sooner than I expect. And, like all children, he’ll walk out in to the world someday; probably far beyond the reach of our arms. So, now I’m back to looking at the world our children will walk into and walk through, as we all have. We are all somebody’s child, after all.
It’s been a while since I’ve made any updates to the LGBT Hate Crimes Project. Honestly? The project requires more research and writing than I have time to do right now. So, though there are more stories I want to add, it just hasn’t happened. And even some of the cases I’ve written up so far need updating that I haven’t gotten a chance to do. (In fact, I almost didn’t get the chance this time. Right after I wrote the previous sentences —the first tiny bit of writing I’d been able to do all day — at about 11:40 p.m., our entire neighborhood lost power.)
Thalia Mosqueda, a transgender woman, was shot in the head in the parking lot of a Daytona, FL, nightclub on July 29, 2007, and died soon after. Her killer, Cesar Villazano, said he became enraged when Mosqeuda made sexual advances toward him.
The Background
Thalia Mosqueda
Born Oscar Mosqueda, in Mexico, Mosqueda, 34, was a member of the Farm Workers Association of Florida. She lived in the United States legally, worked at a fern farm, and regularly sent money to her mother in Mexico.1) On July 29, Mosqueda went to Garibaldi, a restaurant which operated as a club in the evenings, and catered to a clientele of Latino crossdressers, transgender Latinos, and gay men.
Mosqueda encountered Cesar Villazano at Garibadli when, according to Wesley Rosser, a friend Mosqueda’s, Viillazano was trying to persuade a drag queen at the club to go with him in his car. When she refused, he pulled her hair and tried to force her into the car.2)
The Attack
The shooting occurred when Mosqueda intervened, saying to Villazano, “Leave her alone. Can’t you see she doesn’t want to be with you? Villazano argued with Mosqueda before pulling a gun, firing two shots in the air, and then fired a shot at Mosqueda, striking her in the head.3)
Villazano shot Mosqueda in the head at about 2:30 a.m. Police were called to the scene around 3:30 a.m. and arrrived to find Mosqueda lying on the ground.4) Mosqueda was transported to Halifax Medical Center, where she died at about noon on July 29. 5)
The Aftermath
Villazano & Acosta
Following his arrest, Villazano told police that he was in the United States illegally, and police reports showed two warrants against Villazano for failure to appear in court on a charge of driving without a license. Villazano said that Mosqueda approached him in the restaurant, and that he became angry because he is not gay.6) Villazano said Mosqueda grabbed him by the penis, and that angered him because he was not gay.7)
Rosser said that Villazano was a regular at Garbaldi’s, and though he did not identify as gay, engaged in sexual activity with other gay men. “In Spanish culture,” Rosser said, “you’re not considered gay if you have sex with another guy as a top.”8)
Villzano later fled the scene after the shooting.9) Around noon, Villazano was stopped by a Volusia County police officer, arrested, and charged with second degree murder. The driver of the car, Louis Acosta, 21, was arrested on a cocaine possession charge.10)
On July 7, 2008, Cesar Villazano was convicted of Mosqueda’s murder and sentenced to life in prison. Villazano rejected a plea deal offered by prosecutors, which would have sentenced him to 25 years in prison. 11)
What he said. In solidarity with the Day of Silence, I’m not posting anything else today.
If you’ve come here looking for something to read, I invite you to spend some time reading the stories collected in the LGBT Hate Crimes Project. (Which I’ve decided needs to be taken up again.)
When it comes to blogging these days, when I come across something I want blog about days — even weeks or months — go by before I get around to actually blogging about it. Half the time, I let it go because it’s not news anymore, and I can just imagine people asking, “Why’s he blogging about that? It’s so, like, last week.” (As a result, I have tons of half-written draft posts sitting in queue, most of which will never see the light of day.)
The up side is that almost everything comes around again, and when it does I’ve got something partially written, and maybe even a few links already in hand. So, when I read Billy Wolfe’s story in The New York Times, and how he and his parents finally dealt with bullying, I knew exactly what wanted to say; even though I’m still a couple of days late in saying it.
It’s an old cliché, but nonetheless true: even a broken watch is right twice a day. The same can be said for even the most bigoted organizations of the religious right. (Maybe it’s just that if you keep moving to the right, you eventually meet up with the left?) The American Family Association is that broken watch right about now.
I don’t remember the last time I thought the AFA was right about anything, and I don’t ever remember saying the AFA was right about anything. Ninety-nine and nine tenths of the time, they’re not. But their response to the Day of Silence this year, actually had me nodding my head and thinking they might have gotten a couple of things right this time.
You discover all sorts of things, when you check out your incoming links. Like the fact that Matthew Yglesias is apparently all moved in to his new home at Think Progress, and has added me to his blogroll. I've returned the favor, which reminds me that it's probably time I updated the blogroll again...
I probably shouldn't say this, but I work on K Street. I've even bumped into Robert Novak once, when we were both pedestrians, crossing the street in opposite directions. Now, I'll have remember to keep an eye out, and look both ways before I cross the street, lest Robert Novak run into me.
I don't really care about the Madonna/Alex Rodriguez affair story, because I'm not married to either of them. But in this day and age why would anyone (who's not "in the business" and getting paid for it) intentionally record their sexcapades on video? Why, when there are a thousand different ways for someone to get and distribute that video? How dumb do you have to be to make a 'sex tape' nowadays?
Maybe I'm taking this the wrong way, and I know these aren't Warren Buffett’s actual words of widsom, but nothing irritates me more than hearing things like "Happiness comes from within," and "Find happiness in simple pleasures." From a billionaire? Easy for him to say...
Gimmick or no gimmick, I would sodance with Lance. Hey, I took ballroom dancing in college, and was pretty good at it. Later, I learned to two-step in a gay C&W bar, and was pretty popular because I was a good follower. Not like dragging around a sack of potatoes. So, Lance, you can lead if you want to...
I knew there was a reason I'm not buying an iPhone today. (Besides the fact that I don't "need" one, and the reality that I don't need to spend that much on a tech purchase. It looks like Apple's having a pretty bad day, along with people who did buy iPhones that currently don't work due to server problems.
Thalia Mosqueda, a transgender woman, was shot in the head in the parking lot of a Daytona, FL, nightclub on July 29, 2007, and died soon after. Her killer, Cesar Villazano, said he became enraged when Mosqeuda made sexual advances toward him.
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