It’s sad irony when on the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall riots a bar, celebrating pride here in Texas, is raided. Police walked into the Rainbow Lounge last week and started pushing around and assaulting patrons. Via the New York Times:

The grand opening sign still hangs above the door of the Rainbow Lounge, but the recently opened dance club has already become a rallying point for gay men and lesbians here, after a raid by law enforcement last week left one man hospitalized with a head injury and prompted complaints of brutality.–NYT

Of course this is a tragic and extremely sad thing to happen on such a historical day. However I am sensing, scratch that I know, there is a (racist/sexist) bias in the reporting of homophobic hate crimes. Back in May:

Jeannette Grey, 31, and Tiffany Jimenez, 19, were attending a lesbian party at the IFE Lounge [Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn] and had stepped outside when police showed up to quell a fight in front of the bar. Though they were not involved, they said cops threw them on the ground and beat them with nightsticks while shouting anti-lesbian epithets and taunts.

These two black lesbians were brutally assaulted and beyond the New York Blade and a few blogs, I can’t find this story reported. Why wasn’t this picked up by the NYT? There was even a protest that was staged in the wake of this incident.

I also want to know why the recent murder of a black gay sailor isn’t being more widely reported on. Besides a few blogs (gotta love blogs) there’s only a paragraph in the Houston Chronicle and an op-ed on DADT on San Diego News Network. Of course the stories just keep coming… Two weeks ago, a recently married black lesbian couple was murdered in their home by the boyfriend of a woman they had taken in.

Steed and Royster [victims] had known Floyd [suspect] for months, police said, and were so afraid of him that they had banned him from their home. Witnesses told detectives that Floyd had threatened the couple, according to charging documents. One witness told police that Floyd referenced the victims June 7 when he said to someone, “They’re gone,” three days before their bodies were discovered, charging documents say.

Steed and Royster were recently married in Boston. The couple had planned to return to that area.–Baltimore Sun

Mainstream media isn’t saying anything about any of this (though they keep you with up to the moment details of MJ’s funeral). Mainstream (white) gay publications do a little better, not much though. Specifically black (straight) news outlets are bad about reporting as well. Going to various blogs and online magazines/newspapers and typing ‘gay’, or ‘lesbian’, will get you gossip, ‘downlow’ articles, and ‘who’s to blame for AIDS’ debates.

• BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
• « Staceyann Chin
• » In An Absolut World…