sinidentidades:

It’s an all too common, if shocking story: A transgender Latina woman with HIV is attacked on a street close to her home in a low-income neighborhood in the Bay Area. Making a bad situation worse, police officers literally drag her from her bed at 6 a.m. because they think she committed the crime herself.

“They kept telling her she wasn’t who she was, and that she was a man,” explained María Carolina Morales of the San Francisco-based Communities United Against Violence as she recounted the incident to Colorlines. “She was arrested. She was taken to the station. She wasn’t listened to. She spent the weekend in jail.”

The woman went to court a month after her arrest, but disappeared shortly after her court date.

“She was somebody who was unemployed, who didn’t have a safety net,” noted Morales. “We don’t know if she ran away, if she ended up in jail or [was] transferred to another place, another city. Her phone was disconnected the day after court. We just don’t know—don’t know what happened.”

The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs released its annual report on hate violence motivated by sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and HIV status last week. The report documents 27 anti-LGBT murders in 2010, which is the second highest annual total recorded since 1996. A whopping 70 percent of these 27 victims were people of color; 44 percent of them were transgender women.

The study also found that transgender people and people of color are each twice as likely to experience violence or discrimination as non-transgender white people. Transgender people of color are also almost 2.5 times as likely to experience discrimination as their white peers.

“It wasn’t a shock,” said Morales, whose organization is among the 17 anti-violence programs from across the country that contributed data to the NCAVP report. “For the last four years we’ve seen that trend—of transgender women and people of color in our communities experiencing higher levels of violence. Sadly that continues.”

Recent headlines certainly bear witness to this disturbing trend.

A Milwaukee judge sentenced Andrew Olaciregui to an 11-year prison sentence in December after he pleaded guilty to shooting Chanel Larkin three times in the head on a street corner in May 2010. Prosecutors maintain Olaciregui shot Larkin after he offered to pay her $20 to perform a sex act and found out she was transgender. Larkin was 26 at the time of her death.

In another high-profile case, Hakim Scott and Keith Phoenix both received decades-long prison sentences last summer for their role in the death of Ecuadorian immigrant José Sucuzhañay on a Brooklyn street in December 2008. Prosecutors contend Scott and Phoenix shouted anti-gay and anti-Latino slurs at Sucuzhañay as they attacked him with a baseball bat and bottles.

Juan José Matos Martínez received a 99-year prison sentence in May 2010 after he pleaded guilty to stabbing gay Puerto Rican teenager Jorge Steven López Mercado to death before decapitating, dismembering and partially burning his body and dumping it along a remote roadside in November 2009.

So what causes disproportionate rates of violence against transgender people and queer people of color?

“What the 2010 report allows us to do is document something we’ve seen and experienced for a long time,” said Ejeris Dixon of the New York City Anti-Violence Project, which wrote the bulk of the NCAVP report. “It’s really about an intersection of oppression.”

Dixon, who was a long-time staffer at Brooklyn-based Audre Lorde Project until she joined AVP earlier this year, said a lack of employment, housing and health care for transgender people all contribute to disproportionate rates of violence. Morales said that ongoing police harassment against these communities is an additional factor, making those most at-risk for hate violence also least likely to seek help.

“All of those things sanction violence,” said Dixon.

The NCAVP report found that half of those who experienced hate violence did not contact the police after their attack. The report further found that 25.4 percent of transgender women did not file a report. So what can be done to reduce these rates of violence against LGBT people and communities of color?

The Audre Lorde Project is among the groups that organize LGBT people in communities of color that are increasingly looking beyond law enforcement and the criminal justice system for a solution. The Safe OUTside the System Collective works with bodegas, businesses and organizations within Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood and surrounding areas to create safe spaces for LGBT people of color to curb violence.

“What’s true and important is our communities have been and continue to organize around issues of harassment—whether it’s neighborhood or community harassment or [harassment] by the police,” said Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Audre Lorde Project.

Morales stressed that empowering transgender people and people of color to participate in decision making processes around employment, health care, improved access to food and affordable housing is another key component to addressing the problem. “For that, our organizations and institutions need to prioritize opening spaces for people to develop their leadership, to be able to engage, to learn and make decisions and so that they can see themselves not only reflected, but see themselves in the process.”

Another potential solution is for anti-violence programs to tackle some of the underlying disparities that contribute to increased violence against LGBT people and people of color.

“That can mean a lot of things: We can talk about low-cost programs, intersections with immigration rights groups,” said Dixon. “It’s about crafting programming that focuses on these populations and also developing leadership of LGBT people of color and trans people.”

While Morales conceded these most recent statistics are grim, she said she remains hopeful that they will allow her organization and others around the country to develop more effective strategies to tackle hate violence. She stressed, however, this hasn’t happened as much as she would like to see.

“It hasn’t been significantly stepped up enough,” said Morales, referring to strategies to further engage community members in the solution. “However, I have seen a lot more conversations and dialogue opening up around the community—the prison population continues to significantly increase every year, and violence continues to increase. I don’t believe its working. COAV doesn’t believe its working. I am hopeful [the report] will open up more opportunities to question the strategy to violence response.”

(via kobebeefcake)

Everyone Should Feel Safe - Victim Blaming Is Not The Answer 

fitvillains:

Everyone should feel safe heading out for a walk or run. EVERYONE.

But the truth is, many women don’t.

I do advise women to take precautions, but I hate having to do so. Victim blaming is very subtle at times, and when something awful h appens to you, the last thing you NEED or want is for someone to say “you should have known better”. Even when every precaution is taken, often media outlets still find someway to place a little blame on the victim.

No one has the right to hurt you. If they choose to do so, they should be held to the highest of legal AND MORAL accountability. To assume that men simply can’t control themselves, and that women are responsible for their own victimization is both insulting to decent men and brutal to women. By FAR the vast majority of men out there are decent, awesome human beings. To assume they are uncontrollable rapists is awful, misinformed and disgusting.

Anyone who asks “Well, shouldn’t she have known better?” or feels that it’s a woman’s responsibility to control the actions of the very FEW who would take advantage of her, needs a reality check.

It’s NOT your fault.

Information: Rainn.org

Resources: WomensLaw.org

Support: After Silence

thepeoplesrecord:

thrillhouse1980:

Having survived two assassination attempts, Mexican mayor found beaten to death

• Maria Santos Gorrostieta had been stabbed, beaten and burned
• She defied Mexico’s powerful drug gangs, who twice tried to gun her down previously
• She was kidnapped in broad daylight in front of her terrified daughter 
• The former mayor leaves behind three children

This is an absolutely heart-wrenching and tragic story. If anybody ever dismisses wanting to end the nonsensical US drug war and the cause of drug legalization as something frivolous and self-serving to potheads, make sure you link them this article. 50000 Mexican people have died in cartel violence since 2006.

How in the world do people anywhere in the world find this acceptable?

The violence of the drug war is an everyday reality for Mexico. Yet, these stories are rarely found in American media. 

Just this weekend, 20 bodies were found in a mass grave, asphyxiated, beaten or shot in southeast Juarez, which borders El Paso, Texas.

Drug war violence has claimed more than 50,000 lives in Mexico since 2006. 

(via feminismfreedomfighters)

feminismfreedomfighters:

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

canadian-communist:

CIA Chiefs Face Arrest Over Horrific Evidence of Bloody “Video Game” Sorties by Drone Pilots

The Mail on Sunday today reveals shocking new evidence of the full horrific impact of US drone attacks in Pakistan.

A damning dossier assembled from exhaustive research into the strikes’ targets sets out in heartbreaking detail the deaths of teachers, students and Pakistani policemen. It also describes how bereaved relatives are forced to gather their loved ones’ dismembered body parts in the aftermath of strikes.

The dossier has been assembled by human rights lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who works for Pakistan’s Foundation for Fundamental Rights and the British human rights charity Reprieve.

Filed in two separate court cases, it is set to trigger a formal murder investigation by police into the roles of two US officials said to have ordered the strikes. They are Jonathan Banks, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Islamabad station, and John A. Rizzo, the CIA’s former chief lawyer. Mr Akbar and his staff have already gathered further testimony which has yet to be filed.

We have statements from a further 82 victims’ families relating to more than 30 drone strikes,’ he said. ‘This is their only hope of justice.’

In the first case, which has already been heard by a court in Islamabad, judgment is expected imminently. If the judge grants Mr Akbar’s petition, an international arrest warrant will be issued via Interpol against the two Americans.

The second case is being heard in the city of Peshawar. In it, Mr Akbar and the families of drone victims who are civilians are seeking a ruling that further strikes in Pakistani airspace should be viewed as ‘acts of war’.

They argue that means the Pakistan Air Force should try to shoot down the drones and that the government should sever diplomatic relations with the US and launch murder inquiries against those responsible.

According to a report last month by academics at Stanford and New York universities, between 2,562 and 3,325 people have been killed since the strikes in Pakistan began in 2004.

The report said of those, up to 881 were civilians, including 176 children. Only 41 people who had died had been confirmed as ‘high-value’ terrorist targets.

Getting at the truth is difficult because the tribal regions along the frontier are closed to journalists. US security officials continue to claim that almost all those killed are militants who use bases in Pakistan to launch attacks on Western forces across the border in Afghanistan.

In his only acknowledgement that the US has ever launched such attacks at all, President Barack Obama said in January: ‘This is a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists, who are trying to go in and harm Americans.’

But behind the dry legal papers seen by The Mail on Sunday lies the most detailed investigation into individual strikes that has yet been carried out. It suggests that the US President was mistaken.

Source (More of the Story)

How you like your lesser evil now?

If it’s true, I wouldn’t be surprised. Disgusted, but not in the least surprised .

(via feminismfreedomfighters)

thefcukingfcukisthisfcukery:

borntosweetdelight:

Students Perform Chris Brown and Rihanna Domestic Violence Skit in Blackface at Pep Rally. People this is from my home town. Fucking please spread this around, I’m appalled.

Apparently your high school comedy skit isn’t complete without some woman beating and blackface. SMH at white folk.

Half-assed excuse/apology coming in….

fuckyeahretailrobin:

[Image Description: Background is several triangles in a circle like a pie alternating from true red, scarlet and black. A robin is sitting on his perch looking to the right.

Top Text: “LEFT ALONE FOR AN HOUR WITH CUSTOMER’S CRAZY HUSBAND”

Bottom Text: “GIVEN STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO EAT A HUMAN BEING”]

I only wish this were a joke. This man was a self-confessed “basket case”, but I truthfully think he needed to be institutionalized. The guy and his wife were newlyweds, but now I’m honestly worried he might one day attempt to consume his spouse. The guy claimed to be full-blooded Cherokee, but he looked like any other white trash you’d see on TLC, complete with only nine teeth left in his mouth. He also owned two pet wolves, showing off the bite-mark scars to prove it. And there was a tiny live spider dangling off the edge of his Army Veteran cap that just hung there the entire time he spoke with me. I cannot make any of this up.

The subject of eating people for dinner was just one of many topics he covered while I played the never-ending game of “stand there and nod”. Besides being creepy as hell, he was quite the misogynist, claiming he “hates females” with a passion. In fact the cannibal “instructions” he gave me pertained to a woman. “We start at the top,” he said. “I get one titty, you get the other.” No, thank you. He did briefly mention eating a man, too, “but that’s the stuff that nobody wants.”

He was also oustandingly racist, which he backed up with an account when he told an innocent Arab-American man to “get his ass back to his goddamn country where he belongs”. When the man tried to defend himself by claiming he was just a truck driver, this lunatic went as far as to tell the man, “I don’t give a shit what you do, I know what your religion is. Now get out of my country and give us our jobs back.”

And did I mention his conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton gave birth to her daughter Chelsea asexually?

It was a very… enlightening conversation, certainly.

tagging #violence because there is no tag for #cannibalism

yet

ashesforjustice:

24 YEAR OLD JAMAR MCLEOD SLASHED IN THE FACE WHILE DEFENDING HIS GIRLFRIEND, A TRANSGENDER WOMAN, FROM TRANSPHOBIC ATTACKER

(TW: language, transphobic language, homophobic language, violence against lgbtq persons)

This attack occurred in broad daylight, in Greenwich Village in New York City.  No, New York is not some magical utopia where everyone can just “be themselves.”

Do yourselves a favor, and avoid the comment section to avoid triggering language.

(via feminismfreedomfighters)

"I appreciate your thought and respectfully disagree. If a man has just been told a woman has killed his child, I do not fault him for responding with a slap. I can’t think of anything that would more qualify for righteous indignation." —

Pro-life activist Jill Stanek on why it’s okay to abuse women who’ve had abortions. (via ladytudorrose)

I would like to know how in 2012 “righteous indignation” is equated with “physical violence” and “abuse”. There is nothing righteous about abuse. If you believe that, then I feel incredibly sorry for you.

(via someauthorgirl)

If a man is told a woman has killed his child, that’s far different from a man being told a woman aborted a fetus. And in either event, violence toward the woman in unjustified, undignified, and unforgivable.

(via nefariousnewt)

(Source: jillstanek.com, via stfuconservatives)

fuckyeahretailrobin:

[Image Description: Background is several triangles in a circle like a pie alternating from true red, scarlet and black. A robin is sitting on his perch looking to the right.

Top Text: “Tell customer total of their sale.”

Bottom Text: “customer reaches over the counter and slaps you”]

After I told a customer the total of their sale without a word they reached over my counter and slapped me.

Then yelled at me to make the sale total less.

The total of the sale in question $20 even.

"For some reason, it is entirely OK for a strange man I don’t know to approach me in the street and tell me he’d like to violently stick his hard cock in my anus. If I turned around and say, spat on him or stabbed his eye out with a fork, this would not be OK. Moreover, if I tried to press charges, I have the stinking suspicion that without a physical assault my complaint wouldn’t be taken entirely seriously. And yet the same man gets caught taking a piss in a public place and he’s a sexual offender in the eyes of the law. ARE FERAL LANEWAYS AND BRICK WALLS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WOMEN?" —

Kat George, Things I Wish Were Not OK But Are Definitely OK (via shoshkablob)

Sometimes even with physical assault, the cops don’t take complaints seriously. Basically if a woman is making the complaint, it will not be taken seriously.

(via paleotrees)

(via jamilalikemanila)

(Source: renamok)

"Here’s why their story is in the paper today. We cannot allow such callousness to continue unremarked, from the irrational, senseless teenagers who attacked two people just trying to go home, from the police officer whose conduct may have been typical but certainly seems cold, from the tweeting nitwits who think beating a man in Norfolk will change the death of Trayvon Martin. How can we change it if we don’t know about it? How can we make it better if we look away? Are we really no better than this?" — Virginian-Pilot columnist Michelle Washington • Writing on the attack of two of her co-workers, reporters Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami, on the streets of Norfolk a few weeks ago. A large crowd swarmed around the duo, who were in their car, with Forster getting out after someone threw a rock at the vehicle, which led to the attacks. Both suffered injuries severe enough that they were out of work for a week. But the kicker was a series of tweets about the incident which Forster discovered. “I feel for the white man who got beat up at the light,” a person wrote. “I don’t,” another responded. “(do it for trayvon martin).” The police were unresponsive to concerns about the incident, saying teenagers in nearby public housing commonly look for trouble on the weekends. Read this story — it’s full of small truths and big questions. (via shortformblog)

(via shortformblog)