Justice

As many people are aware, this morning the jury reached a verdict in the trial of Dwight DeLee for the murder of Lateisha Green.  That verdict was that DeLee was guilty of first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime, and of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree.  I am relieved that the trial ended, and I hope that this verdict brings some small degree of closure to Green's friends and family, who have suffered tremendously in the months since Lateisha's murder.  I'm pleased to see that they have taken some solace in the ruling.

Personally, I am glad to see that the jury recognized that hatred against queer people (although the statute as written and interpreted applies only to actual and perceived sexual orientation) was behind this horrible crime.  I'm not a big fan of the manner in which our society uses prisons as a way of dealing with crime.  I don't feel that longer sentences deter crime.  However, I am tremendously upset that the jury did not recognize this crime for what it was-- murder.  In my opinion, pointing a gun inside a car window and firing represents an intent to kill somebody.  Further, while the jury did find Dwight DeLee guilty of a hate crime, I'm still concerned that the identity of the car's passengers may have impacted the way they viewed the crime.  I'm not a legal scholar, and am not aware of cases of other people who have been shot and killed in a similar manner, but I'd like to think that their cases brought murder convictions.

I don't share the excitement of many trans and LGBT organizations about hate crimes legislation.  I think that it's incredibly important that law enforcement gives a high priority to crimes committed on the basis of bigotry.  There is a long history of law enforcement agencies failing to adequately investigate and prosecute crimes against members of disadvantage groups, or even being complicit in those crimes.  Thankfully, that was far from the case in Syracuse, as it was in Greeley.  I also want the courts, the media and society to acknowledge the violence that occurs against minority communities.  However, I am less enthusiastic about arbitrary and extended sentences that the justice system may misuse.  We must not measure justice in the years of incarceration, but rather in the ability of all people to reach their full potential.

One of the things that struck me during this trial was the state's tremendous ability to wield power over arbitrary matters.  The judge was able to expel people from his courtroom at will, including Lateisha's mother, and just prior to the trial, a baby that was softly whimpering.  There were multiple armed court officers present to enforce the rules of the court.  The judge did not want people sending text messages from his courtroom, and his will was done.  Not only did a court officer demand that I remove my coffee from the courtroom, he also instructed me that it was unacceptable to return with my empty travel mug.  I saw officers confiscate water from members of the gallery.  In fact, the only way for those of us in the gallery to get water was to have a coughing fit, upon which time the judge might nod to an officer, who would pour and deliver a paper cup filled with court approved water to the parched observer.  Inside the courthouse and inside the courtroom, it was clear who held the power.

Everything that I mentioned above is, in my opinion, defensible at some level.  I don't mean to paint a picture of anything other than seasoned, courteous officials who were executing their duties.   Rather, my point is that there were lots of arbitrary rules, and that the county invested individuals with the power and resources to ensure that people followed those rules.

There was one rule that struck me as indefensible.  This was the insistence by attorneys, the judge, and government witnesses in referring to Lateisha Green by her legal name and male pronouns.  I understand that this practice wasn't personal per se.  As the victim of this crime, Green wasn't present, and official documents listed a name and gender that by all accounts, she didn't identify with.  However, identity is personal, almost tautologically so.  The whole business might have struck me as a silly game, were it not for the impact that it had.  Because of the bizarre legal requirements set up by a cissexual establishment, Lateisha Green all but vanished from a trial about her very death, and yes, very identity.  I find it tragically ironic that during the very trial where a young man was found guilty of killing Lateisha Green because of his profound disrespect for her identity, the legal system disrespected Ms. Green in its own way.  This delegitimizing of Lateisha's identity certainly did nothing to dissuade much of the local media from insisting on using her birth name and refusing to accept her womanhood in its coverage.  To me, the whole trial consisted of one big mixed message-- what I took from the government witnesses, the attorneys and the judge (whatever their intent) was that they believed killing a human being was wrong, regardless of how "different" they might be.  I suppose this is progress for trans people, but it's hardly an out-and-out victory.

As I've said, the authorities have shown that they are capable of displays of power for multiple ends, be it maintaining an orderly courtroom, or ensuring the sanctity of legally acceptable identities.  The issue is that real justice often isn't found in a courtroom.  Lateisha Green's family complained that she had been bullied and harassed throughout the four years following her coming out.  They had complained to school officials, and others, but I'm not sure that anyone ever lifted a finger to stop this bullying.  Green's mother reported hearing nasty comments in the courtroom.  I heard rumors of the harassment of LGBT friends of the Green family in the hallway outside of the courtroom.  I saw that the news media has footage of a fight between the Green and DeLee families outside of the courthouse.  What I did not hear about was any of numerous court officials stepping in to stop this harassment.

Don't get me wrong, the district attorney is looking into allegations of witness intimidation.  They appear to be taking Mark Cannon's statement that he was threatened with a gun seriously.  This morning, there was a very visible police presence outside the courthouse, presumably to prevent any violence.

It's not that people in power aren't doing their jobs, it's that their job descriptions are wrong.  Prevention of violence needs to be proactive, not reactive.  Those in power need to use their actions to affirm the value of all human beings.  This means taking bullying seriously.  This means speaking up.  If we're ever going to get to the just society that so many people surrounding this trial spoke of, we're going to need that same establishment that so ably controlled the flow of courtroom water to respect people's identities.  We need school teachers to take bullying seriously, rather than participating in it.  We need citizens to speak up when they see injustice.

I know that there are court cases to be heard and legislative battles to be fought, but let's not wait that long.  Justice isn't just about using the system to protect ourselves-- it's about fighting to replace an arbitrary system with one that values the dignity of all human expression.  Judging from the leadership that Lateisha's friends and family and members of the near-Westside community have shown, we're already on the road to that point.

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I may add links later; at this point I'm looking for (and writing because) I need a certain degree of closure myself.  I definitely need to take a break (starting now) to spend some time with my family, my hobbies and my career.  However, watching these painful events unfold has certainly galvanized my desire to become a more effective advocate for change within our community.

Notes from Syracuse

This is difficult for me to write about, and I really hope I strike the right tone. I really, really appreciate the hard work that everyone in the trans, LGBTQ communities and our allies have placed on publicizing the senseless violence that takes places against trans people. I love that much (albeit not all) of the discussion has kept the humanity of the victims front and center. Nobody deserves to be murdered, much less to have their identity stripped away after the fact by the media, and by defense attorneys looking to justify the taking of a life. Lateisha Green’s murder troubles me deeply. I’m a transsexual woman and a mother. Talking about the taking away of somebody’s child because of who they makes me nauseous. I won’t be surprised if I spend much of the next week trying to stay away from news of the trial, because I simply can’t take it. I understand the need to focus on the horrifying consequences—and the need to prevent homophobia and transphobia (yes, the two are intertwined, and yes, that’s a discussion that’s been ongoing elsewhere).

Something about the response to Lateisha Green’s murder troubles me, though. I live in Syracuse. My friends and neighbors live in Syracuse. I feel the need to point out that crimes like Lateisha’s murder don’t happen in a vacuum. Furthermore, while violence against trans and gender non-conforming people is one of “my” issues, something I take very personally, I also care about all of my friends and neighbors, be they cisgender or transgender. When I see people from around the country speaking up about one of my neighbors’ lives being treated as disposable due to her identity, while remaining unaware or ignoring the rest of my city, I feel uneasy. I live here, and this city’s issues are my issues. How can I expect my neighbors to fight for my rights, when people like me seem hesitant to fight for my neighbors’ rights?

Don’t get me wrong—anti-LGBT bigotry is an important fight for all of us. Community leaders in the near-Westside neighborhood where Green lived (including Green’s mother) are working to provide LGBT youth of color with a space safe from all the hostility and violence they often face. Just this week, my neighborhood is participating in a constructive response to anti-queer vandalism (for a look at what some folks are willing to say anonymously to get a rise out of people, check out the comment thread on the newspaper coverage of the incident).

However, it’s also important to address the perceived disposability of other parts of the community. Upstate New York is not disposable. Syracuse is not disposable, nor are other urban areas. The poor are not disposable. People of color are not disposable. People with disabilities are not disposable. Young people are not disposable. This shouldn’t be news to readers, yet on many levels, power structures treat the above groups (and many other) like garbage. This needs to change. A focus on the issues of LGBT people is important, but it’s not enough to fix our communities nor is it all that is required to give many trans people the quality of life that they, like all people, deserve.

Why am I so upset? Well, here’s part of what I see in my city: I see rampant violence within groups of young men. I recall rerouting a recent trip out due to a massive brawl in the middle of the street, in the middle of the day. The issue here isn’t that I was inconvenienced. However, things seem to have gotten far too out of hand when violence is creating a traffic hazard, in addition to less frivolous concerns, such as the loss of a life earlier this week. A neighbor of mine who is about to be redeployed to Iraq complained that our neighborhood was more dangerous than Baghdad, and confessed his hesitancy to leave his loved one behind. I sense a heavy dose of hyperbole. Still, it is troubling when you hear someone emptying a magazine across the street from the playground where you take your child. While I’m not behind the drug war, I’m not at all torn about having to kick drug paraphernalia out of the reach of my daughter when we’re on walks, or about the strung out junkie who broke into a neighbors’ locked apartment and began rifling through her couch while she slept, only to be chased off by her mother. It’s painful to watch a city that at times seems on the verge of an outright race war, with epitats of all types clouding all parts of the city; the sidewalk, the grocery store, the playground, the post office. Regardless of your race, you simply can’t escape the threat of racially motivated harassment if you spend any time here. Of course, you can’t always escape violence, either; earlier this year a 14-year old sniper shot and killed a man as he got in his car to start the second shift.

There’s no single reason why so many of us experience such futility and violence. The economy certainly hasn’t helped. The latest recession has cost greater Syracuse some of its last manufacturing jobs, with Syracuse China and New Process Gear moving jobs out of the country, and Crucible Materials preparing to fold in the face of a disastrous market for American steel. As an Eastern outpost of the rust belt, this is simply an extension of a decades-long decline, marked by previous blows such as Carrier corporation’s foreign outsourcing. Speaking of the lack of media coverage that the media has given Green’s murder, economic considerations led Syracuse’s CBS affiliate (arguably the most community oriented station in town) to close its newsroom and effectively merge with our NBC affiliate, costing us jobs, and limiting the number of corporate perspectives of current events.

In addition to the economy, Syracuse is faced with the same crises as many other cities. We can measure the distain in which the powers that be hold us in slashed school budgets funded by unfair mechanisms, the environmental degradation of poor neighborhoods of color (and yes, segregation is an issue), in underfunded and borderline useless mass transit systems and the general lack of effective health and human service programs for many folks not privileged enough to live outside of the city’s South side (or the North side, or the East side).

What’s being done to allow all of the chance of upward mobility, or at least to be treated with dignity while we live in poverty? Thanks in large part to Gerrymandering, a city Republican and two conservative Democrats from outside Onondaga county are supposed to be representing us in the State Senate. Of course, if you’re playing along at home, you know that the Senate is (or until this evening was) in deadlock, as members of both parties court a tax cheat who openly flaunts campaign finance laws and a man indicted on two felony counts for beating his girlfriend. This whole schism largely seems to have been paid for by the former richest man in New York State, who recently moved his official residence to Florida in order to avoid paying his fair share of taxes. Of course, it’s not entirely clear that his tax dollars would have gone to help the majority of Syracuse residents, considering the incredible corruption in New York State government. While hundreds of millions of dollars of tax breaks went to help a developer build a “green” shopping mall (that may never be completed) finding the means to create *actual* jobs that pay a living wage has been elusive.

You could write a book (and people have) about what’s behind the violence within the poorer pockets of this (or any other) city, particularly among young men. Certainly, there are problematic issues with outdated, violent visions of respect and masculinity, and it takes strong families to keep children on the right path. However, it’s all too easy to blame violence on laziness or otherwise imperfect families, and doing so misses a massive part of the story. We as a society systematically disrespect the poor and people of color. The power structure in this country helps ensnare people in poverty. While violence is never excusable, much of our country seems to leave young men with very few outlets with which to make a living, or which to gain status within a community. This is complicated stuff, and discussions of it are fraught with peril—particularly discussion that involve a diverse audience. However, if we don’t all engage in a critical analysis of our actions and force ourselves to engage in dialogue on the tough issues, we’re merely enabling a culture where lots of human lives, LGBT or otherwise are treated as disposable. To me, the tragedy of Latiesha Green’s murder lies not only in the taking away of a human life for no good reason, but with my fellow white LGBT’s repeated unwillingness to consider the countless other lives snuffed out in Green’s neighborhood, or the rest of my city, or all of urban America, for no good reason. This stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum.