As we mourn the 50 dead and over 50 injured in Orlando, our hearts compel us also to fight for the living, while the system forces us to fight to live.
We are here to connect what happened at PULSE in Orlando to the daily lived violence that LGBTQ people of color face in this country. That violence is perpetuated by law enforcement agencies, a criminal justice system designed to police and detain the bodies Black and Indigenous peoples, and from society at large. Recent examples:
- On May 5, 2016, Jonathan Snipes, a 33-year-old gay white man, assaulted Bayna-Lehkiem El-Amin, a 42-year-old gay Black man, at a Dallas BBQ in Chelsea. Snipes, who originally claimed El-Amin had insulted him with homophobic slurs, went up to El-Amin’s table and attacked El-Amin with his purse. Snipes later testified that did not know if El-Amin said any homophobic slurs. El-Amin fought back in an act of self-defense, and when the situation escalated and Snipes threatened with a knife, El-Amin hurled a chair at Snipes and left the restaurant to seek medical attention.
- On the night of June 11, 2016, Omar Marteen killed 50 people and injured over 50 more as he opened fire inside of Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida. That night the gay club promoted itself as “Latin Night” and featured images of Black and Latina trans women on their promotional flyer. The 29-year-old gunman was eventually shot down by police and killed.
- Approximately 10 days ago, Devin Diamond, a 20-year-old Black trans woman, was found dead in a burning car in a New Orleans parking lot. The burning has been confirmed as an act of arson and homicide by an unknown man that left the scene after lighting the car. Diamond is at least the 10th trans person of color to be reported dead this year, the majority of whom are Black trans women.
- On June 20th, 2016 a judge in Missouri will respond to an amicus brief filed for Michael Johnson, a 25 year old Black gay man currently serving more than 30 years in prison on inhumane HIV criminalization charges. In the U.S. and around the world people living with HIV can face prison time just for their status. Most charged and likely to serve time on HIV criminalization charges are Black men.
- On June 1, Black Lives Matter Pasadena founder Jasmine Richards was convicted of a “lynching” felony stemming from when she and other activists went to support a black woman being arrested.
- On January 20th, 2016, Edwin Faulkner, 34, and CiCi aka Juan Carlos Martinez-Herrera, 34, were sentenced 25 years to life in prison after being convicted of the murder, kidnapping, and robbery of a sex work client that died during sex. Edwin, an Afro-Latino man, and CiCi, an undocumented transLatina, knew that law enforcement agents and the courts would not believe them so they panicked, “robbed” their client, and fled to Florida where they were later taken into police custody. They are both currently serving their sentence in upstate New York facilities and awaiting an appeal.
Through all of this and more….We fight to live because there are too many examples of community and state sanctioned violence targeting Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color. We know that these incidents are intimately connected, and we are scared for our lives. We know in 2016 that it is our lives that are criminalized, when we survive and when we defend ourselves. We say no to the terrifying normalized policing, surveillance, interpersonal and institutional violence that our communities face.
We fight to live because surveillance culture and the consistent criminalization of queer and trans people of color are the forces that allowed these murders and attacks to happen. The same culture that produced Marteen—an employed security guard under G4S, a transnational military contractor, and an avid supporter of the most militarized police force in the world, the NYPD—also produced El-Amin’s situation, where a Black gay man being assaulted and defending himself against knife attacks from a white gay man in a restaurant brawl can face a cruel and unbelievable 5-15 year sentence in prison. These events tell our communities that our bodies do not matter, that violence is an inescapable reality for people like us, and that even in places branded as “safe” spaces for queer people, like gay nightclubs and the Chelsea district, we are still not safe.
We fight to live because El-Amin’s situation is another account of normalized violence that specifically targets Black queer and trans folks. The media has portrayed a Black gay man’s act of self-defense as a “hate crime” and an act of terror to “gay people.” While the prosecution in El Amin’s case did not charge El Amin with a hate crime, the rhetoric that the media and prosecution used throughout the case was in fact “hate crime” language, completely erasing El Amin’s queerness to “protect” gay white men.
We fight to live because to name the common, accepted portrayal of black masculine bodies as dangerous is a form of violence. It perpetuates the policing, surveillance and punishment of black masculinity.
We fight to live because when one of the largest massacres in recent times happens to queer and trans people of color, self-preservation is necessary and should not lead to incarceration.
We fight to live because the violence that happens to our community is not our faults, it is not “inevitable” or “the way things simply are” and we refuse to take this understanding as our reality.
We fight to live because we are not alone and this fight did not start today. We will not give up until this systems stop detaining and incarcerating our communities. With the same spirit that led Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and other LGBTQ people of color to retaliate against police harassment in the Stonewall Riots—the real origins of Pride month—we refuse to leave Bayna Lekheim El-Amin caged serving an unjustifiably harsh sentence without a fight.
In our fight, we stand with our queer and trans communities, Black, Indigenous and other communities of color, our abolitionist communities, our #BlackLivesMatter family, and we are asking our communities and allies to join us in support of El-Amin through the following:
- If you have an organizational affiliation or are a resident of Chelsea,
sign on to the letter we have written (by clicking here),
or
write a letter to Supreme Court Justice Arlene Goldberg asking for her to give Bayna-Lehkiem El-Amin the lightest possible sentence. Let her know that the LGBTQ community supports Bayna in being given the lightest possible sentence given all of the facts of the case. This is not an opportunity to dispute the facts of the case as Bayna-Lehkiem El-Amin has already been convicted of four felony assault charges. This is an opportunity to ask the Judge to sentence Bayna-Lehkiem El-Amin to the lightest possible sentence given the violence Bayna-Lehkiem El-Amin will face inside prison as a gay black man and because the time that Bayna is up against is in no way appropriate.
Any letter should start with:
The Honorable Arlene Goldberg
New York Supreme Court
111 Centre Street
NY, NY 10013
For more info on how to write a letter, and to send your letter, email us at letters4justice@gmail.com. Click here for an example on how to write a judge a letter. Please send letters by 8 am, June 14th, 2016. They will be printed and brought to court tomorrow.- Call Cy Vance’s office today until 6:00 pm and tomorrow from 9:00 to 11:00 am to tell him that the LGBTQ community stands with Bayna-Lehkiem El-Amin, and against the criminalization of queer and trans people of color, particularly Black queer and trans folks. Call either the liaison for Gay and Lesbian Community at 212 335 9291 or the Community Affairs Unit at 212 335 9082.
- Use social media to help raise awareness around the epidemic of criminalization of our communities using the hashtags: #1dayis2long #standwithbayna #blacklivesmatter #blacktranslivesmatter #not1more #whydowefight2live
- Help friends and people in your community make the connection between the violence that happened at Pulse, and the violence that is happening to LGBTQ people of color across this country every day. Start talking about us!
We stand with those who lost their lives at PULSE in Orlando by fighting even harder for those we have not lost, those of us who are being targeted.
Let’s fight to love together for Bayna-Lehkiem El-Amin and for all the queer and trans people of color that find it difficult every day to navigate a world that has marked Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color’s bodies as disposable.
This statement was created by a group of friends, lovers, strangers and others June 12 to June 13 in person and online. This is by no means a perfect statement but it is where we are now as a group of trans, queer, lesbian, bisexual, and gay people of color.
