The picture you see above is 17 yr old Lennon Lacy. On Aug. 29 he was found hanging from a swing set near a trailer park a couple hours before he was about to play in his High-School Football game that night. The autopsy showed he died of asphyxiation from hanging and his death was ruled a suicide. yeah that’s right a fucking SUICIDE. wait it gets worse.
here are the things you need to know:
Lump on his head - Lacy’s mother, Claudia, noticed scratches and abrasions on the teen’s face when authorities led her to the black body bag holding her son
He was wearing someone elses shoes - The gray and neon green Jordans Lacy bought just a few days before he died were gone. Instead, the teenager was wearing a pair of size 10.5 white sneakers with the laces removed. Lacy wore a size 12. His family members did not recognize the sneakers as his own. His shoes were never found.
The shoes were missing when they were sent to the medical examiner - he said that he found that odd since it isn’t protocal to remove the victims clothing (aka didnt want them to pick up dna)
It was impossible for him to hang himself - “there was no item present at the scene that Lennon could have stood on, applied the noose and then kicked away,” and there were no swings hanging from the swing set that Lacy— who was 5 feet, nine inches tall and weighed more than 200 pounds— could have used to elevate himself the seven-foot crossbeam of the swing set.
He had recently entered a relationship with a 31 yr old White girlfriend months before his death - His girlfriend mentioned alot of people would bother her about having a black bf to the point where they had to lie about being together.
He was hung with a dog leash and belt - both items were not his..
The FBI wouldn’t allow medical examiner to take pictures - They even threatened to confiscate the camera even though it’s their job to do that as soon as they are on the scene.
Officers didn’t want an autopsy done- the medical examiner had to order one from the District Attorney
It’s a very racially charged town -The age of consent in North Carolina is 16, but in a town where 86 black people were lynched between 1882 and 1968, and neighbors still have Confederate flags in their yard, the interracial relationship may have caused some tension.In fact, Lacy’s neighbors, a white couple living in a trailer home right behind the Lacy family home, were instructed by police to remove a Confederate flag and a sign that read “Niggers keep out” from their front yard.
His grave was desecrated - Just a few days after Lacy was buried, his family found that someone desecrated his burial site, dumping the flowers 40 feet away beside the road and carving a hole into the plot.
It was ruled that there was no foul play - EVEN THOUGH OF COURSE THERE FUCKING WAS
Hate violence disproportionately targets black transgender women
Deoni Jones was simply waiting at a bus stop at the intersection of East Capitol Street and Sycamore Road NE, in Washington DC’s Benning Heights neighborhood when she was stabbed in the face. She was rushed to a hospital in Cheverly, MD where she died.
“Amanda [Milan] was a transsexual. She was killed because she was a transsexual. Her neck was slashed and her story went unreported because she was Black and a transsexual…The Black community is the worst. They who have suffered from prejudice in this country have treated us worse than any other people.” - Octavia St. Laurent preached at Amanda Milan’s funeral.
23 year old Paige Clay was found shot to death in the West Garfield Park neighborhood in an alley in the 4500 block of W. Jackson Blvd.
Lorena Escalera, a 25 year old black trans woman, garnered attention after her brutal death was sensationalized in media by Time. The article sexually exploited her, sexualized her “curvy” body and basically shamed her legacy instead of even addressing the violence she endured.
Rita Hester was an out African-American transwoman who lived in the Allston/Brighton community west of Boston. A neighbor reported to police a disturbance at Rita’s apartment. Upon arrival, they found her in cardiac arrest, having been stabbed multiple times. She was rushed to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital but was unfortunately declared dead after her arrival.
On the morning of August 7, 1995 the popular 24 year old hairdresser named Tyra Hunter was on her way to work as a passenger in a car. That vehicle ended up being involved in an accident at the corner of 50th and C streets in Southeast DC. Tyra and the driver had been pulled from the smoking ruins of the vehicle by onlookers and were lying on the ground when fire department personnel arrived at the scene. The neighborhood began gathering to watch as a male firefighter began treating Tyra for her injuries. That is, until he cut open her pants leg and noted she had male genitalia. At that point, according to eyewitnesses, the firefighter, later identified as Adrian Williams stood up and backed away from Tyra. She was semi-conscious, complaining about pain and gasping for breath as he was quoted as saying by one witness, “This bitch ain’t no girl…It’s a nigger, it got a dick.” Williams began joking with the other fire department personnel at the scene as the bystanders pleaded with them to resume working to save Tyra’s life. Tyra’s treatment was discontinued for 5 to 7 critical minutes while bystanders pleaded for them to resume treatment. Finally an EMS supervisor arrived and resumed treating Tyra. She was rushed to DC General Hospital where she arrived at 4:10 PM. But the nightmare was just beginning for Tyra. The DC General Hospital ER staff compounded the insulting neglect of the fire fighters. A doctor refused to treat her and she died of blunt force trauma at 5:20 PM in the now closed hospital’s emergency room.
26-year-old Erycka Morgan, a black transgender woman, was stabbed to death in her home, proving that even in death our identities remain unsettled, Susan Epstein of the New Jersey Star-Ledger opted to ignore industry guidelines and instead report Ms. Morgan’s death with only masculine pronouns and her given name.
A post operative black transgender lingerie model named Victoria Carmen White was brutally shot to death. Victoria Carmen White was pursued by the Newark man who she began talking to earlier that day. She invited him over to talk. Once she told him she was transgender, he was heard yelling “You a dude?” by Victoria’s female friend and female cousin, and a string of gun shots followed.
Police have discovered the body of a transgender woman named Coko Williams in a particularly crime-, drug-, and prostitution-ridden section of East Detroit. Her throat was slashed and there were apparent gunshot wounds as well.
32 year old aspiring actress Domonique Newburn, who was found dead in her Fontana, CA apartment. She robbed of clothes and her computer. Her car was also stolen.
37 Year old Brandy Martell, an outreach worker, was sitting behind the wheel of her car when one or two men walked up and began a conversation that appeared cordial on the surface, Brandy revealing immediately she was a trans woman, a few moments later one of the men became angry and fired into the car at Martell.
Chanel Larkin, 26, was shot three times in the head by a man who allegedly picked her up for sex, and offered her $20 to turn a trick. Authorities contend that Andrew Olacirequi, who was cruising the vicinity for a prostitute, shot Larkin three times in the head when Larkin revealed to him that she was biologically male.
Artegus Madden, 34 year old black trans woman, was found dead in the living room of her Denton County home. She had been hit in the face and shot in the neck.
20 year old Cemia Dove Acoff from Cleveland was found in a retention pond on MacKenzie Road, north of Cook Road, in Olmsted Township, OH, nude from the waist down. She was stabbed multiple times tied with a rope to a block of concrete. She was slandered through out media and misgendered by news.
30 year old Ashley Sinclair was found shot to death in a wooded area on Rio Grande Drive just off S. Orange Blossom Trail in Orange County.
Kelly Young, a 29-year-old black transgender woman, was found shot to death inside a home in Baltimore, Maryland.
20 Year old Ebony Whitaker was found murdered in grass, shot, nude from the waist down.
Just like most black trans women, Duanna Johnson made national news when video footage leaked of her being viciously beat by white officers of Memphis who called her transphobic and racist slurs. It resulted in the officers being fired. Ten months later, Duanna Johnson was found murdered.
Lateisha “Teish” Green, the sweet 22-year old African-American transgender woman who was shot and killed at close range by Dwight DeLee after DeLee uttered anti-gay slurs.
Nakhia “Nikki” Williams was a proud transgender woman, a writer and painter, who was deeply involved in her community. She was brutally murdered in Louisville on August 20, 2008, a few days shy of her 30th birthday.
A 21-year-old out transgender woman who went by the name of Tyli’a Mack was stabbed to death in DC on August 26th, 2009.
Chanelle Pickett, an African-American transsexual woman, was strangled to death at age 23. Chanelle’s murder graphically illustrates the connections between violence and pervasive employment discrimination. After being bashed by co-workers and experiencing discrimination from her job - along with her twin trans sister (after both being outted as trans) and falling on hard times, Chanelle begin dating a man named William Palmer. While William Palmer tried to deny that he knew Chanelle was transsexual, or that he enjoys the company of transsexuals, he’s as familiar to the Boston transgender community that frequented the bar as Norm from Cheers was. He not only knew what and who a transsexual was, he frequently dated them. Chanelle and Palmer had been seeing each other for some time and they had met at Playland on a number of occasions. Friends say that she really liked Palmer and wanted to have a more serious relationship with him. Palmer had written a letter to Chanelle not only expressing his affection for her, but had promised to help her get back on her feet and to take care of her. With this overwhelming evidence, the letters to Chanelle and being seen in the company of her and other transwomen prior to the murder, Palmer’s defense attorney came up with a then new variation of the ‘homosexual panic’ defense.
Stacey Lee’s lifeless body was found by her boyfriend in the South Philadelphia home she shared with her boyfriend.
21 Year Old Islan Nettles was walking down the street with her friends (all trans women of color), while she begin to get cat-called by her murderer who thought she was beautiful. Islan and her friends were trying to walk away to avoid drama. One of his male friends voiced that the group of women were transgender and Islan Nettles was beat to a coma right across the street from the police station. She died.
22 year old Brittany-Nicole Kidd-Stergis was found murdered in a car. The early media reports of course (as usual) misgendered Brittany-Nicole.
These were only some black trans women who have been murdered. So many are unidentified, not reported in news and ignored in general. They are denied employment not only for being black but for being transgender. They are profiled by police not only for being black but for being transgender. They are murdered not only for being black but for being transgender.
reading wilson’s statements about Mike Brown further illustrates why the “magical negro” trope is so fucking dangerous. he called Mike a “demon”. he said he looked like he got stronger with each bullet fired into him. he saw him, not as a human, not as a boy, but a mystical frightening creature that absolutely needed excessive force to terminate. he didn’t see him as human and capable of feeling pain and death. he was supernaturally othered.
In breaking news, a police source in Cleveland has informed us that the 12-year-old shot in the abdomen by a Cleveland police officer yesterday has just died.
We have corroborated the claim with a second source close to this case, and they too say that the child in question just died.
Shortly after the shooting, we spoke with police representatives at the First District Cleveland Police Department but they were unwilling to say much other than the basics.
They acknowledge that a 12-year-old was shot in the stomach by a First District officer. They would not reveal the name of that officer. When we asked them if the child was armed, they hesitated and said “we really can’t say.”
This would seem to indicate that this was a shooting of an unarmed child by police.
We asked further if they could tell us why the officer opened fire on the child. They told us that they are not willing to speak about those details at this time.
But other sources on the scene tell us he was shot at the park outside Cudell Recreation Center this afternoon, and that he had a BB gun, which police said they believed was real.
After the release of our story quickly swept social media, the Cleveland Police scrambled to throw together an “Official Statement” where they blamed the youth for almost essentially trying to commit “suicide by cop.” Read more about it here (link) and stay tuned for updates.
(Article by Moreh B.D.K. and Jackson Marciana)
Another day, another senseless death at the hands of police. What will you say about young Tamir? Tell me why deserved to die! My heart bleeds. When will this end? #staywoke #farfromover
Where are all of those anti-racism bloggers now? If it’s not your race it doesn’t matter or what?
I don’t even want to talk about this because I’m fucking sure someone will come to discard my opinion just becase I’m a mexican girl. Like we don’t have the fucking right to get angry at this because you clearly think we are inferior.
In Gretna, Florida, Juanita Donald called the police to come assist her and get her 24 year old son to take his medication, as she had done in the past.
On Tuesday morning, around 9:30 am, she called the police to help her with her son Kaldrick Donald and one officer showed up, Sergeant Charles Brown.
Charles Brown ended up tasing Kaldrick Donald repeatedly, and then took him into the isolated bathroom in the family’s house and shot him multiple times, killing him.
Brown murdered Donald in the presence his pregnant sister and mother, and no one can even say why. He was completely unarmed, and somehow not completely sane.
His mother said “I heard my baby say, I want my mama after he shot him, and then I didn’t hear anything else.”
His mother said she was “expecting them to take him to the Apalachee Center like before”, but instead a single officer came and escalated the situation, murdering him in front of his family.
Juanita continued to say “It wasn’t but one officer. Instead of him calling for backup, he took things in his own hands and he goes in the house and he rush him and shoot him.”
She continued to say he “didn’t want to be bothered”, and that he simply walked away from the officer.
She says Sergeant Charles Brown “Just grabbed him and he tased him. Then when he grabbed him and tased him, he rushed my son off in the bathroom and I heard three shots. I was like, you shot my son and he was like, I had to. I said, no, you didn’t have to.”
Charles Brown is now on ‘administrative leave’, or paid vacation, and if this story doesn’t blow up then this officer surely will see no charges.
Don’t forget Charlie Sheen. He’s been arrested for domestic violence at least six times and shot a woman. With a gun. And he’s still got a career.
Sean Penn tied Madonna to a chair and beat her. Fuck him. Fuck all of them.
Michael Fassbender
Matthew Fox
John Lennon
Paul McCartney
Ringo too I’m pretty sure
Phil Spector, although he’s now in jail for killing a lady he beat on Ronnie Spector for years and still got into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Axl Rose
Vince Neil
Sean Penn
Charlie Sheen
Jim Morrison tried to set fire to his girlfriend
Stephen Segal
Tommy Lee
Ozzy Osbourne
Mickey Rourke
Bill Murray
Gary Busey
Tom Sizemore
Christian Slater
James Caan
Josh Brolin
Edward Furlong
I could go on.
The point isn’t that the men on the left don’t deserve everything bad they have coming to them. The point is where the fuck is all the outrage when the men on the right do it. So many of our pop culture heroes are abusers and nobody seems to care.
Like, even if we’re gonna stick to the NFL, Ben Roethlisberger patiently sat out his six game suspension for rape and continued on with his career with little outrage.
If we’re really going to care now about ostracizing perpetrators of domestic violence, we got a lotta slack to pick up.
Adding more to the list:
Gary Oldman - hit ex-wife Donya Fiorentino repeatedly about the face with a telephone receiver in front of their two children.
Sean Connery - thinks an openhanded slap is justified if a woman is a “bitch, or hysterical, or bloody-minded.”
Josh Brolin - was arrested for abusing Diane Lane in 2004.
Glen Campbell - beat Tanya Tucker and on one occasion knocked her teeth out. Glen actually received a tribute at the 2012 Grammy Awards—the same year that Chris Brown received so much vitriol for performing.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers - was arrested in 2005 after he was accused of beating up his teenage girlfriend and throwing a cellphone at her. The 27-year-old actor later made a counter allegation that the 18-year-old girlfriend had assaulted him. The warring couple were both questioned at a London police station before being released on bail. He was also verbally abusive and threatening to a woman who tried to help him up off the floor during one of his drunken airport episodes. “Don’t you know who I am?” Yes dear, you’re the King of fucking England.
Harry Morgan - best known for his role as Col. Sherman Potter in the television series “MASH,” was accused in July 1996 of beating his wife.
Sean Bean - has been arrested for harassing an ex girlfriend and has been reported for domestic assault.
Tommy Lee -pleaded no contest in April 1998 to a felony charge of spousal battery against his wife, former “Baywatch” star Pamela Anderson. Lee received a three-year suspended prison sentence, was required to spend 180 days in jail and ordered to pay a total of $6,200 to a shelter for battered women. Anderson, who filed for divorce shortly after the incident, reportedly had hoped her husband would be spared jail time.
Roman Polanski - raped of a 13-year-old girl before fleeing the country.
Eminem - Wrote the song “Kim” about abusing his wife.
Here’s the lyrics:
Kim: “Baby you’re so precious/Daddy’s so proud of you/Sit down bitch/If you move again I’ll beat the shit out of you”
Kim: “There’s a four year old boy lyin’ dead with a slit throat/In your living room, ha-ha/What you think I’m kiddin’ you?/You loved him didn’t you?”
Kim: “[sound of his wife choking] NOW BLEED! BITCH BLEED!/BLEED! BITCH BLEED! BLEED!”
Wrote a song, “‘97 Bonnie and Clyde,” about murdering his wife and disposing of his body in the presence of his child
‘97 Bonnie and Clyde: “Oh where’s mama? She’s takin a little nap in the trunk/Oh that smell (whew!) da-da musta runned over a skunk”
'97 Bonnie and Clyde: “And mama said she wants to show how far she can float/And don’t worry about that little boo-boo on her throat/It’s just a little scratch - it don’t hurt, her was eatin/dinner while you were sweepin and spilled ketchup on her shirt”
'97 Bonnie and Clyde: “Here, you wanna help da-da tie a rope around this rock? (yeah!)/We’ll tie it to her footsie then we’ll roll her off the dock”
Made fun of Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson’s domestic abuse case in “The Real Slim Shady”
Elvis Presley - According to “Elvis Presley. The Man. The Life. The Legend.” written by Pamela Keogh. Elvis was immensely abusive towards Priscilla. He was stationed overseas during WWII where they met. He often lied to her parents to get her to spend the night. He would have sex with her, and would give her amphetamines. (The amphetamines were distributed by the Army to help him sleep, and he gave them to everybody.) When the war ended and he went home, he forced her to come with him. She was expected to sit at home while he had affairs. He didn’t even want to marry her, it was simply a publicity stunt. Elvis was immensely controlling. He made Priscilla dress the way he wanted (and would yell at and insult her when she wore something that he didn’t approve of), do her hair the way he wanted, and wear as much make up as he wanted her to.
Mel Gibson - assaulted, struck with his fist and choked, his ex girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva while she was still holding her baby. He then went on towards the pool, screaming and yelling and then told Oksana to get the ‘fuck’ out, and went to get his gun.
Signal boosting this shit, because all of these women beating pieces of shit should be put on full blast! No mercy for this kind of behavior!
I can’t believe I didn’t know any this! All this shit swept under, signal boosting so we can air out the damn rug!
“Hog-spitting – not just spitting,” Tonja Bulley emphatically clarifies.
“He just hog-spit at my baby. He hog-spit. He took everything out of him and spit in my daughter’s face. She is a minor. That’s the absolute worst thing you can do, when you spit on another human being. She was just saying ‘No justice, no peace’ and he hog-spit (at) and then smacked my baby. At that time — there was no more being peaceful.”
Bulley and her daughter, Brandy were released from jail last night after being arrested by police outside the St. Louis Rams game the previous day after a violent clash with football fans.
As the Rams were completing an impressive 28-26 victory over the Super Bowl champions Seattle Seahawks, Tonja and Brandy were outside the stadium participating in a non-violent protest calling for justice for Mike Brown, and the immediate arrest of his killer, Darren Wilson.
Tonja, known affectionately to her friends as “Tiny,” continued:
“We were peacefully protesting. We were saying something that this big, tall White man did not like. He should’ve been locked up, and they did not lock him up. One slapped my daughter and another hit her with his fist. Another woman threw her drink on me – and I retaliated. I’m not coming out to fight, but I have the right to protect myself.”
Tiny would eventually get punched and knocked to the ground. “I got hit by a couple people. I have a mark behind my ear.” She was initially charged with two felonies for throwing punches after the initial altercation. No violent Rams fans were arrested.
She says the racial double-standards were apparent: “We had a right to protest without anybody interfering. When the White people protest, there are no problems. Nobody is spitting on them. When we try to do it, the media goes around and acts like we started (the fighting.) We did not start it. I peacefully protest every day in Ferguson, and it’s never a problem.”
In Ferguson, Tiny and Brandy have been protesting since Brown was killed in August, and have become unofficial members of the Lost Voices—a spirited and well-known group of young leaders who led Sunday’s protest.
Take 5 minutes out of your morning/night to educate yourself on this young man LL. The brother was LYNCHED. “Crackertown”, North Carolina. Been gone since the morning of Aug. 29th. Day of his first football game of his senior year. All that hard work in the summer for nothin’. #JusticeForLennonLacy
So he was found hanging, the morning of his first big game that he had been preparing for all year, wearing somebody else’s shoes, with his brand new shoes missing. he had a white girlfriend, openly racist neighbours, confederate flags everywhere, marks on his face indicating he was in a fight just minutes before..
This was not a suicide, no way in hell. This was a modern day lynching.
Remembering Injured/Killed African-American Victims of Police Brutality
Dymond Milburn, 20-Year-Old African-American Teenager Assaulted By Police Officers When She Was 12, Then Charged With Assault By The Cops That Assaulted Her, & Police Alleged She Was A Prostitute
Three police officers in Texas accused a 12-year-old black girl of being a prostitute, beat and kidnapped her, and none of them ever faced any consequences for their actions.
On August 22, 2006, 12-year-old Dymond Milburn was outside her home flipping a breaker switch to help her family after the electricity went out, when a blue van pulled up and three men exited the vehicle without identifying themselves. The men were cops in plain clothes with the Galveston police and they accused Dymond, who is black, of being a prostitute.
“You’re a prostitute,” an officer declared. “You’re coming with me.”
They then tried to drag Milburn into their van while she scratched and clawed in her struggle to stop them from taking her. She screamed for her father to come to her rescue while the angry officers began beating her in an effort to force her into the van. One of the officers, David Roark, muzzled the girl’s mouth with his hand to silence her.
Hearing her screams, Dymond’s parents arrived on the scene and told officers, “That’s our daughter. She’s twelve.” But Roark didn’t give a damn. “I don’t care if she’s twenty-two, thirty-two, or forty-six,” Roark responded.
Along with Roark, the other officers included Sean Stewart and their Sergeant, Gilbert Gomez. They believed they had the right to take Dymond Milburn away without consulting her parents. Horrified, Dymond’s parents were devastated and powerless as the officers literally kidnapped their daughter before their eyes.
The officers decided to bring Dymond to the hospital for medical attention, and the level of her injuries was devastating. As a result of the brutal beating by police, the little girl suffered a head injury, a throat injury, abrasions on her arms, a sprained wrist, two black eyes, and lacerations as well as spinal injuries. On top of all these physical wounds, Dymond also suffered nightmares and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. In all, her injuries resulted in a hospital bill totaling $8,000.
But police still weren’t done putting Dymond through hell. When she finally returned to school following her release from the hospital, police embarrassed her further by showing up at her school. They arrested her in front of her classmates at Austin Middle School in revenge for putting up a fight. The charges? Assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.
You read that right. Cops beat the hell out of this girl and they charge HER with assault. Plus she resisted the officers because that’s what we tell our children to do when strangers try to force them into a vehicle against their will.
Milburn and her family had to deal with two mistrials over a period of three years before the District Attorney agreed to stop pursuing the charges. By then, Dymond was 15-years-old and a huge chunk of her childhood was stolen from her. In retaliation, the Milburns filed a civil lawsuit against the officers who changed her life three year earlier. But none of them have been punished and a settlement hasn’t occurred. Basically, all three officers complicit in the kidnapping and beating of the then-12-year-old girl got away with it. Sean Stewart was actually named “Officer of the Year” sometime later and Gomez went on to be promoted prior to becoming a private detective.
Dymond Milburn is 20-years-old now and still hasn’t received justice for what these police officers did to her. She was just a black 12-year-old girl in front of her own home at night, and yet, police accused her of being a prostitute even though she didn’t do anything wrong and officers had no cause to accuse her of anything. In fact, the only reason the officers were around is because they were responding to a call about three white prostitutes allegedly soliciting in the area. However, they attacked a black child who obviously didn’t fit the description instead and accused her of being the prostitute. Remember, we’re talking about a 12-year-old girl who was at her house with her parents. She was an honors student helping around the house. She wasn’t out on the street hooking.
Police brutality against people of color is not just an epidemic today. It’s been around for a long time. And even children aren’t immune from illegal police behavior. If this can happen to one child, it can happen to any child in America. For too long, police have been able to do what they want to the citizens they are supposed to serve and protect with little or no consequences. That needs to change or police behavior never will. [PoliticusUSA]
[TW: Talk of sexual assault, physical assault, violence and antiziganism.]
I’ve sat here, combating the ignorance individually. I’m done with that. I’m done trying to reach you on a one on one level. You continuously ignore anything from me, you ignore the people I talk to on here who are Roma. You say we’re “Being too sensitive,” that “Gypsy is just a word,” that it stands for “Being free spirited, moving from place to place,” and the best, “I’m APPRECIATING your culture.”
First, gypsy is a slur. No matter what you think, it has been a slur for centuries. It’s where the term “gypped“ comes from. It was believed that the Roma would rip gadje (non-Roma) off for money. Roma who escaped the fate of death at the hands of the SS and their dogs, the ones who weren’t killed right away, were branded with a "Z”, which stood for Zigeuner, the German word for “Gypsy”. They were shipped to death camps, where barely any suvived.
It is a slur still used today. Roma are called “Gyppos” while being beaten, forced out of their settlements, forced to move. They are called this when they are assaulted and even raped. They are victims of forced sterilization, forcible eviction of settlements, harassment by both law enforcement and citizens, fingerprinting simply because they are Roma, they are often ecxluded from schools.
I want you to look at this:
This is from 2009. This is a Roma woman being assaulted WHILE CARRYING HER CHILD in Dublin! This is what the word “Gypsy” stands for.
This is Natalka Kudrikova. She is a little girl who was severely burned when antiziganists threw molotov cocktails into her family’s home:
This is also what the word “Gypsy” stands for. This happened in 2010. Systemic violence against a culture, an ethnicity, that just wants to be treated equally, to not have their way of life treated horribly. You can be sure, as these acts were going on, the word “GYPSY!” was being screamed in a way meant to incite fear and terror in those hearing it.
You dress up in flowy clothing, half-naked or naked except for a shawl. Do you have any idea how insulting that is? It contributes to the fetishization and sexualization of the Roma. Women are assaulted physically and sexually, because of this type of thing. They are raped, simply because they are believed to be “Easy” because of these “Positive stereotypes” you’re so quick to buy into.
It’s damaging to the culture when you treat it as a costume. Do you know the meaning behind the long skirts, or the “head scarves” that you’re so fond of donning? Do you know why the Roma wear these? It’s not for fucking fashion.
When you wear these things without a a care, you take away the meaning of these items. You take away the deep cultural roots the have. The skirt is worn because the lower half of the body is traditionally seen as “unclean” due to marime, or the code that’s followed. That “scarf” is known as a diklo, worn by women when they are married.
When you dress like this, you are spitting in the face of that culture, these people that are treated like they’re less than garbage TODAY. Not centuries ago, this is STILL HAPPENING.
So, before you tag that picture as “Gypsy” or say you want to “Lead a gypsy lifestyle,” look back on this post. Think about what that word means, and what you’re saying. Think about how fucking disrespectful it is. Think about the racism involved with that word. And realize that you are contributing to the ignorance that allows violence like these 2 out of countless incidents that occur. You are turning the Roma into a trope. This positive stereotype allows people to ignore the violence and hatred that Roma are still facing, because everyone thinks that being a “gypsy” is all about freedom, when really, they face oppression daily!
You’re not cool when you do this, you’re contributing to racism and violence.
