"ATLANTA - A 20-year-old victim who was brutally beaten by a gang of men has spoken out about his ordeal. Brandon White, who is openly gay, says he just wants the men who attacked him to be held accountable for their actions.
Footage of the homophobic assault, which was uploaded to WorldStarHipHop.com by his attackers, shows White being beaten to the ground as the gang shout out anti-gay slurs. After its initial posting, the video went viral, surfacing on YouTube, The Smoking Gun and The Drudge Report.
White, who described his attackers as "monsters" at a news conference Wednesday in Atlanta, says at first he did not want to watch the video because he was "embarrassed." White says he wants "justice to be done because he deserves it."
If a straight person can walk into a store and not have a problem then I should be able to do the same thing," says White. "I could have died that day."
The video depicts the attack as White left the JVC Grocery and Deli on the corner of Delevan and McDaniel streets last Saturday.
The men punch and kick the victim. One person tosses a tire onto the victim. As he is beaten, an onlooker yells "no more fa**ots in Jack City," repeatedly, which, according to multiple sources including The Smoking Gun, is an apparent reference to a local gang.
"I feel I was violated," says White. "The scars run deeper than anyone will know. The physical pain, I can get over that. My thing is: Who's to say they won't come after me again? Who's to say they won't kill me?"
White has spoken with Atlanta police and Federal Investigators are looking into the attack.
U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said her office is looking into potential civil rights violations based on sexual orientation. Georgia does not have a state hate crimes statute." [Source]
Clearly hate crimes laws are needed in Georgia, and some of you Negroes need to go to a library and start reading your history books. Putting a beat down on someone because of his or her sexual orientation is just flat out wrong.
And now to hate of a different kind. This one was brought on by skin color.
I would like to point you to an area of Pistolvania that time forgot.
"Vile racism raised its ugly head during a boys basketball game near Pittsburgh on Friday when fans of a nearly all-white suburban school ran on the court in banana suits and made monkey noises to taunt the players for their rivals, who play for a school which is predominantly African-American.
As reported by a variety of Pittsburgh media outlets, the Monessen Valley Independent and WPXI prominent among them, the annual basketball rivalry game between Pittsburgh (Pa.) Brentwood High and Monessen (Pa.) High turned extremely ugly when the two teams tried to head to their respective locker rooms for halftime. Before the players could leave the floor, three fans from the visiting Brentwood student section ran onto the court in full-body banana suits.
The fans surrounded the Monessen players and allegedly began making monkey noises and hurling racial epithets at the Monessen players, with no one entering the fray to stop the horribly inappropriate catcalls.
"I was appalled and shocked," Monessen parent Terri Payne told WPXI. "I was like, 'I can't believe they're doing that, and they didn't do anything about it.'"
Disturbingly, other Monessen parents claim that the Brentwood players hurled similar racist epithets themselves, calling the Greyhounds "monkeys and cotton pickers," as one Monessen fan told WPXI.
Meanwhile, Valley Independent staff writer Jeremy Sellew claimed that Brentwood Director of Security Joseph Kozarian, who was on duty at the game, refused to intervene, instead sitting back and at one point smiling and laughing with the Brentwood fans in the stands.
As more media attention has swirled around the disgusting incident, Brentwood officials have scrambled to try and alleviate pressure on the school and district as a whole. As of Tuesday the three students involved had been identified and disciplined, though their punishment was not disclosed to the media. Similarly, officials claimed they were "reviewing school policy to make sure a similar incident doesn't happen again."
Clearly, that's not strong enough. If the banana suit incident and subsequent racist abuse from Brentwood players occurred as numerous witnesses claim it did, the entire Brentwood season should be put under much deeper inspection before moving forward.
This is legitimate hate speech, after all, and the teenagers who were responsible need to realize just how damaging that is, both to their victims, themselves and society as a whole. At the very least, any players who made racist comments during the game itself should be punished significantly." [Source]
Good for the young men on that basketball team who showed restraint before beating their opponents from the town that time forgot on the hardwood floor.
Here in A-merry-ca we might not make great products anymore, but we sure are producing some great kids. *sarcasm off*
Finally, why can't you black "intellectuals" just get along? Now it seems that Melissa Harris-Perry and Cornel West have a Biggie Tupac style feud going on.
Stop it already! Dr. West, calling out Ms. Perry and calling her a "liar" a "fake and a fraud" is not cool; you should be above that. There should be ways to discuss your differences and to discuss ideas and policy in a thoughtful and intellectual manner without reverting to petty name calling.
In the future, please leave that other stuff to bloggers like me.
