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By DAN RENZI
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Well hello.
‘Tis a new day here, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to this, my first-ever issue as the new Editor of the Express Gay News. This paper has been a chronicle of the South Florida community for more years than I’ve lived here. This is a huge responsibility, reporting the news that happens within the LGBT world--news that rarely makes to print anywhere else. So it’s very exciting to be sitting down at my fancy new desk, amongst the rest of the staff writers and graphic designers running around yelling at each other about missing deadlines. Granted, the desk isn’t new; it’s covered in old articles from years gone by, articles about protests and scandal and drag queens acting up, as they so often do. But the desk is new to me. So…hi.
Enough dawdling! Let’s get started. There’s much business to be discussed.
First, it is with great anger that we share the plight of Denise King, the mother of murdered teen Simmie Williams. Williams’ story was plastered across the mainstream press: a young man, dressed as a woman, was walking through an area “known” for its prevalence of prostitution and drugs, and was killed in a drive-by shooting. The details are unknown--the killer is still at-large--but Mr. Williams had no criminal record, nor were any drugs found on his body. What he was doing out there, no one knows…and frankly, it’s none of our business. Rest in peace.
But when Ms. King applied for a state grant that covers the funeral costs of murder victims, she was denied; the State Attorney General’s office believed, based on the “evidence,” that he “contributed to his own death.” How so? No additional reasons were given.
The argument of “you asked for it” has been branded on victims in many situations: women who dress scantily are asking to be raped, high school students who don’t play sports or who dress out of the norm are asking to be bullied. In the case of Simmie Williams, it has been decided that by dressing up as a woman and walking through the “wrong” part of town, he was somehow welcoming the opportunity to be shot. Since when does cross-dressing mean you deserve to be killed? Had he walked down that street dressed as a man, would we be having this discussion? Of course not. That would be considered a tragedy, case closed.
Thankfully, we do have good news to report: the Florida Legislature has unanimously approved the Safe Schools Act (page 5), which creates specific laws to protect students from being bullied. (As of our publishing deadline, Gov. Charlie Crist has not yet signed the bill, but it’s expected that he will do so.) By giving young people a framework of policy to back them up, they now have the ability to ask for help--and expect a response--whenever their lives are made uncontrollable through violence inflicted by their peers. And with this bill, jaded school administrators will no longer be capable of dismissing such claims as just “kids being kids.” Nor will those administrators be able to look at a victim and unfairly question why s/he was “asking for it.”
Mother’s Day is this Sunday, on March 11, which certainly won’t be an easy one for Denise King. On this day, take a moment to remember all the mothers who have endured the death of their children, who have fought to protect their children from violence, who have watched their children suffer abuse just because they don’t fit in. And then you should remember to call your own mother, your grandmother, whoever helped make the world a better place for you to be in.
We’ve got big things in store for this paper, from the way we cover the news to the way the news looks on the page. And of course we welcome your suggestions, should you wish to share. We even reach out directly to you, the reader: in our feature called “The Q” (page 15) we asked whether you thought people “asked” to be attacked because of how they choose to look or dress. And, of course, the responses were…interesting, to say the least. But we like it that way.
And with that…I have to go learn how to use my computer, so I must go. Thanks for reading.
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