Those instincts.

I know , its so crazy we have that , right? You go straight back to the cave, ha!

you left their territory rob, and were not 'drunk' enough to have a handicap that they could vantage. glad you are ok.

manhattan has never been a disney set, and as poverty and job loss continue to grow, there will be more violence in the city. it's not like the 1960's when there was tons of money rolling around and everyone could eat or feed someone. it's real bone chilling poverty now comming to america.

merlin

Im in LA right now. but i saw the news before i left and a young man was killed by 3 guys after he walked home from a club in Chelsea this weekend. They have surveilance footage of the suspects and 2 of them really seem like the ones i was talking about. It really shocked me. They bashed the boy so badly that he died a few hours later in the hospital. I suspect that he was hanging out in gay bar , but cant be sure since the news didnt say. Really sad. So be warned to really watch whats going on if you walk home alone this summer.

As your recent experience points out, these crimes aren't the cliche, late at night on an empty street in the bad part of town scenario. It can go down anywhere, almost anytime.

Since I have lived in the city I have been the subject of three attempted attacks. I say attempted because I was never finished off nor did the perps manage to rob me. In two of the incidents I did incur some punches to the head but like Rob I happened to just notice the perps closing in just in time to bolt out of the way before they could really put me on the ground. The last time was right off Riverside Drive around 96th St. in broad daylight at about 3PM on a Sunday. With plenty of people around on the street. The perps were three teenagers. They were surprised when the two blows they managed to land on the back of my head didn't floor me and in a second I was standing between two parked cars so they couldn't close in. By then an older woman on the other side of the street was screaming (on my behalf I guess) and the heavies ran off. I had a nice knot behind my ear as a souvenier for about a week. And of course at the time of the incident there wasn't a cop within eight blocks to be found.

The latest figures show something like over 50 percent of African American males in the city are unemployed. It is a very old story really, when the motive is robbery.

The thought occured to me the other day that we have a civil society seemingly intent on disadvantaging a whole population by keeping them out of work. And that the parameters of what can qualify a person to be criminalized now have been broadened to the point where if you are out of work for any length of time you are pretty much going to end up criminalized for something. -It's all so dysfunctional. Then the governement ( with our tax dollars ) ends up paying like forty grand a year to incarcerate each individual. It is almost as if we are taxed to criminalize a whole segment of the population and that is supposed to be some kind of societal favor on our behalf.

But I also wonder (in keeping with this topic) how many beatings are labelled as robbery attempts by the cops when they are really bias crimes against gays.

Another mark of a sick society is: one that openly encourages anti-gay attitudes and beliefs, then has to clean up after itself when the attitudes it encourages result in someone's beating or even death. Almost like the society is just pretending it is wrong to do violence to a gay person.

im really convinced that its a "combo" of robbery but targeted at gays to "kill 2 birds with one stone". Bad analogy i know but that's what i see it as. I think there is a big backlash because of the media saturated with gay images/issues (if you can call one big movie and a few TV shows/channels saturation). Its inevitable that the pendulum would swing the other way a bit.

BTW, I don't believe that Chelsea murder was gay related but robbery motorvated (The kid was a friend of a friend and had been playing pool in that area). Very sad.
I think violent crime does seem on the rise. Or should i say more random acts of desparation.
Am sure as we sway even more right it will get even more worse

I hate to say it but...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: daddy,

Backlash...

Bush Calls for an Amendment Banning Same-Sex Nuptials

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/washington/04radio.ht...h&emc=th&oref=slogin

and you think that's bad:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/opinion/04moore.html?...bb6de71f4678&ei=5070

American AIDS denialists are partly to blame for South Africa's backsliding AIDS policy. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the health minister, has described antiretrovirals as poisons. She is supported in these views by Roberto Giraldo, a New York hospital technologist who says AIDS is caused by deficiencies in the diet, and who served on President Mbeki's AIDS advisory panel in 2000. The minister promotes nutritional alternatives like lemons, garlic and olive oil to treat H.I.V. infection. Several prominent South Africans have died of AIDS after opting to change their diets instead of taking antiretrovirals.

Another American AIDS denialist, David Rasnick, a regular letter-writer to South African newspapers, absurdly claims that H.I.V. cannot be transmitted between heterosexuals. Mr. Rasnick now works in South Africa for a multinational vitamin company, the Rath Foundation, conducting clinical trials in which AIDS patients are encouraged to take multivitamins instead of antiretrovirals.

In the past, South Africa's Medicines Control Council acted swiftly to curb such abuses, and the Medical Research Council condemned AIDS denialism. But recent high-level political appointments of administration supporters to both bodies have neutered their influence. In South Africa, AIDS denialism now underpins a lucrative nutritional supplements industry that has the tacit, and sometimes active, support of the Mbeki administration."

...so friends is it any wonder drunken idiots, on a rampage to steal from gay people/gay-bash or whatever, feel justified hubris in destroying the "plague of the gay?" The whole rest of the world is fast on the way towards institutionalizing our destruction.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: S'tan,

Kevin Aviance was hospitalized after being the victim of a gay bashing early Saturday morning outside The Phoenix. He had to have surgery to repair a badly broken jaw. He was beaten by 4 men. Will it take one of us being beaten to death to get this fucking community to wake up? For those of you who DO NOT walk the streets in garish make-up and heels, I can tell you the climate IS HOSTILE. That doesn't mean gay men dressed "normally" cannot be the victims of these animals. Standing outside my building not 3 hours ago, 3 white teens in a Mercedes pulled over, jumped out of the car and yelled "Fucking Faggot" and "AIDS SPREADER" as they walked towards me. When I got safely inside my door, they still walked up and kicked the door and kept screaming. This is not the ramblings of some timid queen. I have walked the streets of Manhattan in drag for 15 years and never felt the least bit uneasy. When I came in and heard about Kevin on the news, I felt I had to write this, maybe against my better judgement. This may sound absolutely nuts, but I will say in all honesty, IF I AM EVER GOING DOWN at the hands of one of these animals, I will do everything within my power to fight back. I would rather die fighting than submit myself to that kind of human shit. I swear to God I have never considered more seriously leaving this pathetic, souless, shit hole city. It just isn't THAT fabulous anymore.

Below is the links to the articles about the incident. Yes, Sweetie, this is really the shit hole city.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/nyregion/11drag.html?...cce&ei=5070&emc=eta1

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=60115

This is so awful. I really hope people start spreading the word to not walk home alone this summer. I actually can believe no one did anything on the street , people have become so complacent about everything. Or I guess they are scared of everything. Its so sad really.

I'm sure it took at least four thugs to take THAT Diva down!

For the lurkers...
This is Kevin Aviance.

A lot of you are sending love to Kevin on the Queenmother.tv side of THE MOTHERBOARDS.

Kevin Aviance: Send her some love!

No Sweetie, you are not alone in your reaction. one smear on that mercedes and those boys would have been up sh*ts creek with their daddys. this one, Sweetie,
is for all of us. and makes these threats so real for all of us. we are all being stalked not just by the radical religious we are being stalked by the weakest among them that have to attack at night in the dark in larger and larger groups. i can't tell you the manuevers i have used on the street to go around unrulely looking crowds of young guys, and that was the saturday night before last and along the same east 13th. because i live near the beacon theatre, i have seen these drunken idiots come out of concerts just ready to hurt anything on the street as they head back to their cars, at least it was only garbage cans that time.

it is all too real for all of us.

Merlin

Iraq, Katrina'ed New Orleans, Avenue A, and your own front door. The social climate of intollerance and hate is a regression to ignorance, violence and social retardation that has not been in the lead since before the current political regime -we all know. This is the blank vision of the fear-mongers. There does not seem to be any large-scale organizations or institutions that specifically combat this condition. It reflects a wholesale breakdown in American liberty, the liberty that says everyone is free to be who they are and do what they want,excluding all violence. And this squelching of liberty is the REAl anti-Americanism.

Don't walk alone this summer. Anyone who lives in proximity to Avenue A or B could tell you now is not the time to be conspicuous there. This territory is innundated with tens of thousands of young people who do not reside in the community and who have brought values very foreign to its tollerance and openness. Especially at night when the circuit of cheap bars and lounges pollutes the zone with heedless, intoxicated Little Bush-era youths who look at this part of the city as their playpen. To these people NYC is a city populated by The Losers whose diversity and internationalism equates to an assault on the isolationist idea of Amerika. The backward youths have come here to buy us and be entertained and have us pay for the city to clean up after their recreational litter. And part of thier entertainment includes recreational violence against gays.

It is kind of weird to see in the NYTimes today a large article about Eve Ensler's vagina monologues festival 'crusade' that confuses entertainers with social workers -all about stopping violence to women and girls. This is a kind of cultural desperation. The whole tone of the article is one of bemusement as though there is some envy of Ensler's success in producing or sponsoring the productions of thousands of events and projects to combat gender-based violence. She isn't a social worker or social psychologist and producing ten years of entertainment-oriented 'consciousness-raising' events is not the same as changing a whole culture that on one end glorifies and feeds on hyperviolenece and on the other side newsifies the violence and puts civil authorities in charge of cleaning it all up. I guess if the only change amounts to that the word vagina can be put on a billboard and opposition to gender-based violence can be rallied in to and given a more public voice, that is a kind of progress. But it does not effect a change that is an actual stop to the violence. Yes, talking back is essential and important. But it can't be left to a socialite to do if there is going to be a real, substantive reduction in violence, otherwise we are all still left just treating the results of that violence, weirdly in Ensler's example, with a kind of festive entertainment that funds health clinics and such.

When will someone with actual political power in government institute an initiative to attack this problem? Let us not hold our breaths.

I do have some optimism however. Because I think the people who will do open, collective violence to gays are a small minority. The real problem now is the vast majority who will not for once just as collectively put an end to this kind of violence for all people.

????? Eve Ensler of the Vagina Monologues is not a 'socialite'...
she is a very productive writer, artist and activist who works very, very hard for lesbian and
Transgender politics as well as the rights of women!

Given the general apathy for these issues, it's a good thing when entertainers like actors and other 'stars' come out for these issues. I don't think their efforts should be down-graded.

Here is the article you mentioned

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/arts/12ensl.html


"That cultish 1996 Off Broadway show ultimately morphed into a nonprofit charity that has so far raised more than $35 million for programs designed to end violence against women. Worth magazine, in 2001, named V-Day one of the 100 best charities.

"Although "Monologues" has occasionally raised outcries from conservatives who complain that it promotes homosexuality and underage sex, performances have become something of a staple on college campuses.

"This year alone 1,150 colleges and communities put together 2,700 V-Day events, occurring on or near Feb. 14, Valentine's Day.

" 'The best time to act is when you're at a place of success, you have the energy to go forth,' Ms. Ensler said later over coffee. At 53, with her signature dark bob haircut, she looks much the same as she did when she first channeled many women's experiences for "Monologues." 'The way you get people to deal with something is to saturate them with it. I can feel everywhere in the city that I go that people are talking about it, thinking about it.'

"The power of her Rolodex — all the festival celebrities and artists perform free — can be seen in the schedule: Jane Fonda, Kathy Bates, Marian Seldes and Kerry Washington read Ms. Ensler's play "Necessary Targets," about women and war, this evening at Studio 54.

"Tomorrow women from Afghanistan, Bosnia, Rwanda, Sudan, Iraq and, yes, New Orleans will discuss the play and kick off a V-Day campaign for women in "conflict zones."

This message has been edited. Last edited by: S'tan,

A new article about Kevin today:

The New York Times
June 12, 2006
Fourth Man Is Arrested After Attack on a Dance Recording Artist in the East Village
By KAREEM FAHIM and SARAH GARLAND

A fourth man was arrested yesterday in connection with the beating of a Manhattan singer who the police said was attacked by a gang of young men who kicked him, screamed anti-gay slurs at him and broke his jaw as the singer walked through the East Village early Saturday.

The man arrested by the police yesterday is Gregory Archie, 18, who lives on 21st Street, about seven blocks from where the attack took place. Two 20-year-old men and one 16-year-old boy were arrested on Saturday night in connection with the beating.

Mr. Archie and the three others were being questioned by detectives from the Police Department's hate crimes unit at the 13th Precinct station yesterday. All four have been charged with first-degree assault as a hate crime, the police said.

It was not immediately clear whether the police were seeking anyone else regarding the attack.

The singer, Kevin Aviance, was walking home about 1 a.m. Saturday after leaving a bar on East 13th Street when he was attacked. In an interview in his hospital room yesterday, Mr. Aviance, who has recorded several chart-topping hits, said he might have been attacked by only four people. He had previously told his publicist that as many as six or seven people had beat him unconscious.

The three arrested Saturday are Akino George, 20, of Townsend Avenue in the Bronx; Jarell Sears, 20, of Newark; and a 16-year-old Manhattan boy. The police had previously identified Mr. Sears as Sears Jarell.

Mr. Aviance, 38, said that he had not yet been shown pictures of the four suspects. He said that the thing he remembered most was the shoes. "They were wearing Air Force sneakers," he said, referring to a popular model made by Nike. "I can still hear their feet in my head."

In his room at Beth Israel Medical Center, surrounded by friends and dozens of roses, Mr. Aviance recounted the attack, saying that it started when one of the men shouted at him, using anti-gay slurs. "You're not diesel," someone shouted, in obscenity-laced language. "Who do you think you are?"

The men threw trash bags at him, and then one of them threw a spray can that missed him, prompting laughter from the other men, he said. "His friends are making fun of him," Mr. Aviance said. "He's angry." The young man who had thrown the can then punched Mr. Aviance, and the other men joined in the attack. As the men attacked him, Mr. Aviance recalled hearing people yelling at the attackers to stop. When it was over and he was lying on the street, a man named Tim approached him and walked him to the hospital. "He said, 'You're safe now,' " Mr. Aviance said.

When he was attacked, he was wearing black shorts, a black hooded T-shirt and black boots and was carrying a large bag.

In the more than 15 years he has lived in New York, Mr. Aviance said, he had never been attacked. A native of Richmond, Va., he grew up with supportive parents and seven siblings who chose different paths — one became a pilot, another a preacher, a third an architect, he said. "A freak is really what I wanted to be," he said. "A revered freak."

In 1990, he moved to Miami, where he said he was adopted by a group of like-minded people into a collective known as the House of Aviance. He gave parties there and in Washington. He changed his name. After he moved to New York in 1992, Mr. Aviance became a familiar figure on the cabaret scene, a performance artist who recorded several dance hits and collaborated with stars, including Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson, he said.

Clarence Patton, the executive director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, said Mr. Aviance had performed at many of his organization's functions. "He really has, in his time in New York and D.C., become a community figure," Mr. Patton said. "You can't deny that the man has a presence."

The police were not immediately able to provide statistics on the number of anti-gay bias crimes this year, but community activists said they often noticed a spike in June, in the weeks before the Gay Pride Parade, which is coming up in New York City on June 25.

The 16-year-old whom the police charged in the attack had been in his share of trouble since his mother died two years ago, said his grandmother, who lives with the teenager in an East Harlem apartment.

His mother became sick after a boyfriend abused her in front of the boy, and she died after having seizures, his grandmother said. "He's a good kid," she said.

The boy's grandmother said that on the night of the attack, she believed that he had gone to the beach with friends. When she went to the police station house yesterday, detectives told her about the charges against her grandson.

"I asked them if it was serious and they said very," she said. "I have a lot of prayers. I'm going to church right now to pray for him."

Mr. Patton said the attack on such a high-profile figure was likely to raise fears in the gay community.

"People will say: Here it is. Kevin Aviance in the East Village in boy's clothes, in a place that's supposed to be ours, getting beat up," he said.

Dear S'tan, I do not see a general apathy for concern about gender-based violence. There are thousands and thousands of private, community, non-gevernmental and governmental organizations around the globe, admittedly very small organizations, that have for many many decades combated the same conditions Ensler also opposes. So she did not invent her cause. She made it though a cause celebre. And of course she is very deserving of gratitude and support. What I see is a widespread complacency of the majority of people for stopping violence altogether. I very much appreciate your admiration and support for Eve Ensler. And there is nothing wrong or downgrading about her being a socialite and certainly a dilletante when it comes to social work, a very wealthy, and with some, a very influencial dilletante with a committment to make changes. Yes, good, she's done well. What I say is, we need to have a change to the way of life that produces violence as a routine. Being a dilletante social worker producing entertainment fundraisers and consciousness raising events to fund clinics and a kind of self-esteem pep rally obviously doesn't accomplish that. This doesn't mean those activities are wrong, useless or unimportant, on the contrary. There is a very very long cultural traditon for those methods of involvement. There sure shou