Outrage of the Day- Duana Johnson Murdered

2:20 PM Posted In , , , , Edit This 3 Comments »
"Duana Johnson was found dead from an assassination style gun shot wound to the head on Monday. Zhe was the African American transwoman who came to the attention of the media after a severe beating by police and the failure of medical personnel to aid hir were caught on tape."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am a gay male and this is the first I am hearing about this.. What happened did it get brushed under the rug???

SLiver of Jade said...

My understanding was not so much that it was ignored, but that it was overshadowed by the election. It just didn't get as much coverage because of Obama. Ironic, isn't it? Just as the first African-American president is elected, the murder of a transgender woman of colour is overshadowed by it.

Anonymous said...

Thankfully, after I wrote this post several white GLBTQ organizations pledged their support to raising awareness about Duana Johnson's death and to ensuring that hate crimes against Transgendered people (and qoc) took as much precedent as other issues.

The irony seems to be how much "we" are willing to blame on Obama with regards to homophobia. Obama's to blame that prop 8 passed b/c otherwise black folks would stay home (never mind stats that prove it wasn't the black vote that passed prop 8 and Obama gave a lukewarm statement supporting anti-prop 8 folks before the vote) and now its Obama's fault no one at the multiple rallies for queer rights mentioned Duana Johnson.

National attention was on the queer community at the time of Johnson's death and GLBTQ folks were organizing at both communal and national levels during this time. There is no excuse for how little info and organizing around hir death circulated in either the queer community or straight media. I'm just glad some people saw that and got on it. It is that kind of collective, cross-intersection, bridge building that will ultimately ensure our rights.

New link to post: http://likeawhisper.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/duana-johnson-found-deadduana-johnson-found-dead/