Behind the Aegis
Behind the Aegis's JournalLGBTQ History Month: Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees Are Stinging Mad
Reprinted from "The New York Daily News," July 6, 1969
By JERRY LISKER
She sat there with her legs crossed, the lashes of her mascara-coated eyes beating like the wings of a hummingbird. She was angry. She was so upset she hadn't bothered to shave. A day old stubble was beginning to push through the pancake makeup. She was a he. A queen of Christopher Street.
Last weekend the queens had turned commandos and stood bra strap to bra strap against an invasion of the helmeted Tactical Patrol Force. The elite police squad had shut down one of their private gay clubs, the Stonewall Inn at 57 Christopher St., in the heart of a three-block homosexual community in Greenwich Village. Queen Power reared its bleached blonde head in revolt. New York City experienced its first homosexual riot."We may have lost the battle, sweets, but the war is far from over," lisped an unofficial lady-in-waiting from the court of the Queens.
"We've had all we can take from the Gestapo," the spokesman, or spokeswoman, continued. "We're putting our foot down once and for all. "The foot wore a spiked heel. According to reports, the Stonewall Inn, a two-story structure with a sand pained brick and opaque glass façade, was a mecca for the homosexual element in the village who wanted nothing but a private little place where they could congregate, drink, dance and do whatever little girls do when they get together.
The thick glass shut out the outside world of the street. Inside, the Stonewall bathed in wild, bright psychedelic lights, while the patrons writhed to the sounds of a juke box on a square dance floor surrounded by booths and table. The bar did a good business and the waiters, or waitresses, were always kept busy, as they snaked their way around the dancing customers to the booths and tables. For nearly two years, peace and tranquility reigned supreme for the Alice in Wonderland clientele.
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Sure, this isn't "new", but this is a part of LGBTQ history, a history, sadly, even many GLBTQ people are unaware. Though there had been riots before, the Compton's Cafeteria riot being the most notable, it was the one at Stonewall which finally set the modern movement for GLBT equality into motion.
GLBTQ people are important. Our lives and rights matter. So does our history matter!
October is GLBTQ History Month. Expect more of these!
20 years have passed: Matthew Shepard
20 years ago, Matthew Shepard was murdered: A letter from Laramie, 1998The Crucifixion of Matthew Shepard
20 years later: How Matthew Shepard became America's window into hate
It took 18 hours.
After Matthew Shepard’s killers drove him to a quiet development on the eastern edge of Laramie, Wyoming, repeatedly struck him with a .357 Magnum pistol, robbed him and left him to die, it took 18 hours for someone to find him.
Details from that Oct. 7, 1998, discovery would sear themselves into memories across the globe.
How at first a mountain biker, Aaron Kreifels, thought Matthew’s limp, battered form was a scarecrow — until he noticed tufts of his hair.
How Matthew’s head and torso were so caked in dried blood that every inch was covered except for two strips under his eyes — tracks left by his tears.
...more at above link
Cross-posted: Tulsa Race Massacre VR Experience 'Greenwood Avenue' Crowdfunding Through Seed & Spark
With the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre approaching, one team wants to bring the history behind the horrific event to life again through Greenwood Avenue: A Virtual Reality Experience. The project is currently holding a Seed & Spark campaign through September; it's currently 31 percent funded, raising $4,696 of the $15,000 it hopes to gain for post-production.
The project will take viewers through the two days in which 300 black people were killed in Tulsa, OK by white rioters who were inspired by Birth of a Nation. As the logline states:
"Greenwood Avenue is a groundbreaking, emotional exploration into the lives of the African-Americans living in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921, during the era of Black Wall Street, the second rise of the KKK, and the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921, told through the eyes of an elderly Black female protagonist named Agnes Bess."
"We want to give folks a taste of what it was like living in the 1920's as a person of color," wrote the team in a statement in the press release. "Lynching was on the rise but folks felt safe living in Northern Tulsa. It was a place to grow a family and build a business. We want people to experience it firsthand."
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One of my former students (and my friend), an OSU alum, is the producer. They are creating a different medium to educate people about the Black Wall Street Massacre on its 100th anniversary. There is a link in the article if you are so inclined to donate, but if you could get the word out about this project, I'd be most appreciative, as would they.
Grave Robbers, Nazi Collaborators and Official Apathy: How Ukraine Is Erasing the Holocaust
Thanks to the Ukrainian government, and the lack of interest from the global Jewish community, the physical remains of Holocaust victims are now being desecrated on a regular basis - and their memory quickly erased from history.
This July, I travelled with a 30 member group from our synagogue to the Sosinski Forest outside of Rivne, Ukraine.
Between November 5-6, 1941, all the Jews of Rivne, more than 17,000, were taken to the Sosinski Forest and killed by Nazi firing squads. We traveled to Sosinski to honor their memory.
As we arrived at the site we looked down and saw large gaping holes. We saw bones scattered all over the earth. My son looked up at me and said, "What is this?" He was holding a skull.
What was supposed to be a protected memorial site had been raided the day before by gravediggers, who, according to Ukrainian police, were looking for gold. We looked down at our feet and picked up skull fragments, a full set of teeth, a vertebral body, and other bones and buried them in a Jewish funeral.
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Kavanaugh's Answers About the Obergefell Same-Sex Marriage Case and Discrimination Are Disturbing
Judge Brett Kavanaugh is refusing to say if he agrees the historic 2015 Obergefell Supreme Court ruling finding same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage was correctly decided. He also is refusing to say if he thinks the days of discriminating against LGBT people are over.
Late Thursday during his Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing (video below) the Trump nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court faced one of his greatest opponents, Democratic Senator Kamala Harris. Harris, her state's former Attorney General for six years, and the District Attorney of San Francisco for seven years prior, is possibly one of the most precise questioners any modern-day Supreme Court nominee has ever faced.
"My question is, was the Obergefell case correctly decided, in your opinion," Sen. Harris asked.
Judge Kavanaugh, clearly prepared for the question – and for ways to not answer it – found a multitude of ways around it. As several watching the hearing noted, he instead "mansplained" to the accomplished California Senator.
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When all was said and done, Kavanaugh refused to answer.
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When all is said, and done, it will be THIS case which will likely be one of the first to go. The rights of the LGBT community hang in the balance, and frankly, IMO, many people don't seem to be all that concerned.
'Jewtropolis': antisemitic hack hits map used by Snapchat and Citi Bike
On Thursday morning, some users of the maps functionality on Snapchat were shocked to see New York labelled “Jewtropolis”. Users of the bike-rental scheme Citi Bike, the real estate website StreetEasy and the Weather Channel website saw the same thing.
No one at any of those companies appears to be responsible. Instead the blame lies with Mapbox, a third-party company that provides maps for online brands. Mapbox relies partly on user-provided data, and while there are supposed to be checks in place to prevent abuse of the system, it seems a prankster had managed to get through them and give New York a new antisemitic moniker, albeit one that was changed within an hour once moderators had spotted it.
In a statement, Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, said the defacement was “deeply offensive”. Mapbox called it “malicious hate speech” and a “disgusting attack” and said they were reviewing how it could have happened. Yet this is far from the first shot to be fired in the war of the maps apps.
You could be forgiven for thinking that online maps are one of the least controversial parts of the internet. Yes, social media may be rife with abuse, bullying and fake news, but apps like Google Maps and Waze appear to be objective, useful services.
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League of the South Blames 'Mentally-Ill Young Jews With Guns' For Jacksonville Shooting
League of the South co-founder and president Michael Hill posted a statement on the organization’s website today blaming “mentally-ill young Jews with guns” for yesterday’s shooting at a video game tournament in Jacksonville, Florida.
A gunman killed two and injured 11 at a “Madden” football video game tournament yesterday before fatally shooting himself. When the gunman was identified as David Katz, 24, of Baltimore, white nationalists latched on to Katz’ last name as an indication that he practiced Judaism and that the shooting was further justification for their anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
Mike “Enoch” Peinovich, the founder of the alt-right podcast network The Right Stuff, wrote that the shooting was “a small scale version of Israel’s Samson option.”
Failed anti-Semitic and white nationalist House candidate Paul Nehlen also engaged in rampant anti-Semitism after the shooting, accusing Jews of being over-representing in mass shootings.
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Can't say I am surprised. Happens every fucking time, and just as predictable, it is ignored.
Self-proclaimed Holocaust revisionist running for Hilton Head mayor
A self-proclaimed Holocaust revisionist is planning a run for mayor of Hilton Head, South Carolina, but says his beliefs will not impact his local anti-development platform.
Michael Santomauro, 59, filed papers to enter the race on Monday, according to the Island Packet.
Santomauro, who founded a roommate-matching service, made headlines in New York City in 2003 when subscribers to his service received a stream of emails spreading his beliefs denying historical accounts of the Holocaust.
In 2004, protesters surrounded his home and chanted “evict the Nazi.” He told the New York Post then that the Nazi label is “totally inaccurate.” He told the Island Packet this week that the protesters were “part of a domestic terrorism group.”
In 2011, Santomauro urged his child’s school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to acquire the book “Debating the Holocaust: A New Look at Both Sides.” The book collects essays denying key aspects of Holocaust history, including the death toll, the accounts of survivors, the physical evidence found at death camps and the feasibility of the methods the Nazis used to carry out mass murder. Santomauro runs American operations for a publisher of e-books dedicated to Holocaust denial.
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg action figures will ship this fall
Fans of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg can already buy a plethora of items with her face on it, including T-shirts, mugs and prayer candles. Soon they will be able to add another keepsake to their collections: an RBG action figure.
If the amount of money raised to produce the toys is any indication, they will be a success: Donations passed the $613,000 mark on a Kickstarter page dedicated to producing the figures, vastly exceeding the goal of $15,000.
Fctry, a Brooklyn-based product design company, is selling the figures; the first shipment will go out in October. The miniature version of the Jewish jurist costs $20 and sports her signature white collar, wire-rimmed glasses and hardwood gavel.
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Fctry is donating $1 for each Kickstarter donor to She’s The First, an organization that supports girls hoping to be the first in their family to graduate from high school.
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