The Republic of T.

Damn. It’s 9:21 p.m. on a Friday night. Nobody’s reading blogs right now, but I gotta run with this.

Not just abuse of power, but unlawful abuse of power. Well, what can I say?

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Then I’m walking in Memphis

Walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale

Walking in Memphis

But do I really feel the way I feel

~ Marc Cohn, “Walking in Memphis”

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.

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Saw the Ghost of Elvis

Down on Union Avenue

Followed him up the gates of Graceland

And I watched him walk right through.

~ Marc Cohn, “Walking in Memphis

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.

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Then I’m walking in Memphis

Walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale

Walking in Memphis

But do I really feel the way I feel

~ Marc Cohn, “Walking in Memphis”

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.

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I wrote this yesterday:

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.

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I’ve written this before, but one of the most striking things I’ve found about researching cases for the LGBT Hate Crimes Project is how little information is often available about the victim. In some cases, where the victim or victims survived an assault or attempted murder, they may speak for themselves, unless they are minors or afraid of reprisals if they speak out. (Some victims are targeted because they are marginalized and less likely to speak out and report a crime against them.) In some cases — where the victim has been killed and was also a member of a marginalized group — the victim almost disappears, except for a fleeting sentence here or there in one news article or another, hinting at the life that existed before the crime that snuffed it out.

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.

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In the previous post, I wrote:

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.

This is one of those stories.

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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 thought I’d scream, but it got worse.

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I guess I have to admit that I have been drawn in by the Washington Post’s series on the 2001 disappearance/death of Chandra Levy. I’ve been reading each installment as they are published. It’s likeI can’t help it. Before Natalie Holloway, before Elizabeth Smart, before Kristin Smart, before Laci Peterson, before Laurie Hacking, before the Runaway Bride, there was — at least here in D.C. (I don’t know how the story played elsewhere)— there was Chandra Levy.

It’s long since turned into a syndrome. It has several names, and one rather of them popular. I have my own name from it, taken from a scene in Scary Movie.

White Woman in Trouble!

A pretty high school student, knowing the killer is close to breaking through her bedroom door, calls 911 on her PC. Her eyes wide and her heart pounding, she types in her message: “White woman in trouble!” In an instant, her suburban driveway is crowded with cruisers, sirens shrieking and lights flashing, and her wouldabeen slayer is beating a hasty retreat.

And Eugene Robinson has the best working definition.

Someday historians will look back at America in the decade bracketing the turn of the 21st century and identify the era’s major themes: Religious fundamentalism. Terrorism. War in Iraq. Economic dislocation. Bioengineering. Information technology. Nuclear proliferation. Globalization. The rise of superpower China.

And, of course, Damsels in Distress.

But of course the damsels have much in common besides being female. You probably have some idea of where I’m headed here.

A damsel must be white. This requirement is nonnegotiable. It helps if her frame is of dimensions that breathless cable television reporters can credibly describe as “petite,” and it also helps if she’s the kind of woman who wouldn’t really mind being called “petite,” a woman with a good deal of princess in her personality. She must be attractive — also nonnegotiable. Her economic status should be middle class or higher, but an exception can be made in the case of wartime (see: Lynch).

Put all this together, and you get 24-7 coverage. The disappearance of a man, or of a woman of color, can generate a brief flurry, but never the full damsel treatment. Since the Holloway story broke we’ve had more news reports from Aruba this past week, I’d wager, than in the preceding 10 years.

The damsel— the “White Woman in Trouble” — thanks to the Post, is back.

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And nobody came? This was apparently the case with the D.C. gun registry, following the Supreme Court decision.

With the ban lifted after a momentous, years-long legal battle that led to the landmark high court decision last month, here’s how many applications the city received by day’s end: one.

Bracing for a crowd at the registration office, at police headquarters on Indiana Avenue NW, officials set up a reception counter in the lobby and used portable metal railings to reserve one of the building’s entrances for “gun registry applicants.” Officers stood guard at the door, and a dozen reporters and TV cameras were waiting expectantly at 7 a.m., when the registration process was to begin.

But in the eight hours that the office remained open, there was no crush of people eager to avail themselves of the newly affirmed right to own a revolver in the nation’s capital. Police gave out 58 registration packets to people stopping by for the materials. But only two people showed up to apply to register handguns, and one was turned away by police officials because he didn’t bring his weapon with him, as the registration rules require.

And the beauty part?

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It’s inevitable that, since the poisonous parenting series started, someone who drops into the the middle of it without reading the previous posts (or perhaps without reading any of it) completely misunderstands the point of it. That’s what seems to have happened with one commenter on the previous post.

I am a black hetrosexual woman who reads your blog often. It is really bothersome that you choose to highlight the worst of the worst of hetrosexual parenting. How can we have meaningful dialogue about our differing views when all you do is degrade and mock hetrosexual parents?????

Of course, the point is not to “degrade and mock heterosexual parents.”
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I’ve been meaning to post some kind of follow-up after my last three posts on mental illness and mental health care (or the lack thereof). After going off about the lack of mental health services, or lack of access to treatment, can lead to problems for the mentally ill, their families, and the rest of society, it was encouraging to read about states increasing funding for mental health services. But it raises some interesting questions about how to achieve a balance that also protects the rights of the mentally ill.

I thought about it a couple of weeks ago, when I read about Kaine’s plan to boost mental health funding, in the wake of the VA Tech shootings. But that funding comes with a reform that—though apparently intended to address situations in which people, like VA Tech shooter Seung Hui Cho, don’t get court ordered treatment—raises questions about the effectiveness of basically coercing the mentally ill into getting treatment.
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