(no subject)
Oh Jesus, where does the time go? I meant to post about Transgender Day of Rememberance and about the murder of Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado (he was decapitated, dismembered and burned.)
I also wanted to pass this on:
Sylvia Rivera Law Project opposes the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act
The recent expansion of the federal hates crimes legislation has received extensive praise and celebration by mainstream lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organizations because it purports to "protect" LGBT people from attacks on the basis of their expressed and/or perceived identities for the first time ever on a federal level. The Sylvia Rivera Law Project does not see this as a victory. As an organization that centers racial and economic justice in our work and that understands mass imprisonment as a primary vector of violence in the lives of our constituents, we believe that hate crimes legislation is a counterproductive response to the violence faced by LGBT people.
I don't support hate crimes legislation, not the way it will be implemented in our current legal system. We need justice. We need to not keep quiet. There are forces and people trying to keep us invisible and keep our deaths invisible - that is one thing that the language of "hate crimes" has helped with; it has put the emphasis on the motivation of the person who committed violence, instead of on the identity or actions of the victim. But it also hides certain things. Lopez Mercado's alleged murderer claims that he acted out of the trauma he endured in prison, which may be another version of the twinkie defense, but it is indicative of the intersectionality of racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, nationality, etc. There's a Facebook group calling for the murder to be classified as a hate crime, which would ensure that the defendant is jailed for a longer period of time. We need to stop acting like prisons are the answer. They will not make us safe.
I also wanted to pass this on:
Sylvia Rivera Law Project opposes the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act
The recent expansion of the federal hates crimes legislation has received extensive praise and celebration by mainstream lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organizations because it purports to "protect" LGBT people from attacks on the basis of their expressed and/or perceived identities for the first time ever on a federal level. The Sylvia Rivera Law Project does not see this as a victory. As an organization that centers racial and economic justice in our work and that understands mass imprisonment as a primary vector of violence in the lives of our constituents, we believe that hate crimes legislation is a counterproductive response to the violence faced by LGBT people.
I don't support hate crimes legislation, not the way it will be implemented in our current legal system. We need justice. We need to not keep quiet. There are forces and people trying to keep us invisible and keep our deaths invisible - that is one thing that the language of "hate crimes" has helped with; it has put the emphasis on the motivation of the person who committed violence, instead of on the identity or actions of the victim. But it also hides certain things. Lopez Mercado's alleged murderer claims that he acted out of the trauma he endured in prison, which may be another version of the twinkie defense, but it is indicative of the intersectionality of racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, nationality, etc. There's a Facebook group calling for the murder to be classified as a hate crime, which would ensure that the defendant is jailed for a longer period of time. We need to stop acting like prisons are the answer. They will not make us safe.