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Anti-Violence Project Urges Gays and Lesbians To Take Offense


(Nov-Dec '00) Four loud and boisterous young men, probably college age, were on the number 4 train shouting back and forth to each other across the aisle, oblivious to the stares from the other passengers. Then, suddenly, the inevitable.

"He's a faggot," one of them said, about someone they knew.
"A faggot," another repeated loudly.
"Faggot," the third said. And they said it again and again, like a chant.

Is there any slur more common? Is there any practice more prevalent among young men, than ridiculing gay people? Is this harmless, or does it lead to harassment, and violence?

"Don't Just Take It," announces a recent advertising campaign of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, with the picture of an angry mouth in the background spewing epithets. "Take Offense. Call AVP."

With a 24-hour confidential and bilingual hotline, the Anti-Violence Project documents bias incidents that range from simple verbal harassment to murder. Celebrating its twentieth anniversary, the Anti-Violence Project is the only victim services organization serving the gay and lesbian community in the state, offering crisis intervention, counseling and other services for victims of hate crimes, rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, HIV-related violence, and police abuse and misconduct.

Harassment, Intimidation And Violence
The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs released a report earlier this year documenting incidents of violence against lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual people in 25 communities across the country. In New York City, there were 499 incidents reported in 1999. This included 6 murders, 210 assaults, 18 sexual assaults and rape, 299 reports of intimidation, 241 incidents of harassment, and 66 reports of telephone or mail harassment.

Typical anti-gay harassment, according to the report, involves the use of slurs. Harassment alone is not a crime, but is monitored because "it is often accompanied by, or escalates into, more violent types of behavior." Intimidation is defined as when speech or gestures are used to threaten an individual; most often, intimidation is illegal. Many of the numbers were down from the previous year (although not sexual assaults and rapes, which increased), but it is possible that the decrease only reflects less reporting due to cutbacks last year in outreach and advertising.

"There is also concern that because of high visibility cases like the murders of Billy Jack Gaither and Matthew Shepard," said Clarence Patton, Director of Community Organizing and Public Advocacy of the Anti Violence Project, "people experiencing a single harassment or minor violence feel they don't deserve to report it." AVP hopes the new advertising campaign will encourage more people to contact them.

The report also profiles people committing the offenses: 86 percent were male, almost two-thirds were under the age of 30, and another third were between 30 and 44 years old. Although there were fewer reported incidents in 1999, the number of offenders rose from the previous year. What this means, the report explains, is a sharp increase in the incidents perpetrated by groups of ten or more individuals.

New Layers Of Protection
The New York State Hate Crimes Act of 2000, signed into law in July went into effect a few weeks ago. The measure, which increases penalties for bias related crimes, includes protection for lesbians and gay men for the first time in the history of the state. There was also hope for passage of the Federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act, but that has yet to happen.

The city recently transformed the police department's Bias Unit into the Hate Crimes Task Force, and increased the budget. Getting anti-gay incidents classified as hate crimes, however, has sometimes been a problem. Clarence Patton recounted the story of a few men walking down the street when a van almost hit them. They cursed the driver and the van stopped, the occupants jumped out shouting anti-gay epithets, chased the pedestrians down the street, caught up with one of them, and beat him with a beer bottle which resulted in his losing an eye.

"Even though the incident may have started as a traffic violation," said Patton, "it escalated because the perpetrators thought these people were gay. It should be classified as bias."

The Anti-Violence Project fought for a year and finally succeeded in getting it classified as a bias crime. "There is some sense of justice," said Patton, "for the police to say, yes, what happened to you was a bias crime."

Deal With It
"All of us have been called things and we just kept walking," said Patton. "We heard X number of things in a day and said, I can't deal with it." But the Anti-Violence Project is urging everyone to stop and deal with it.

"By documenting all of these incidents, we can say to the community, to government, to leadership, look, this is what is happening, how it is happening, and the effect it is having on the victims."

What about preventing anti-gay sentiment and violence?

"You have to get to people while they are young," said Patton, and he recommended programs in the schools to teach tolerance.

"Some queer young people stop going to school or can't do the work any longer because all day, every day, they hear things," said Patton. Community and religious leaders, too, says Patton, have an obligation to talk about this. "A lot of faiths have come under bias attacks: the Catholics, Jews, black churches, all have been victims of bias. You can't parse it out and say I'm only going to deal with anti-Semitic or anti-black crimes. We need everyone to deal with this, come up with real strategies and make it a priority."

Related Information:

 

Helping Men Be Fathers


My father was not much of a family man. He was always in and out of prison. Growing up in foster care, I missed having a dad to help me learn how to read and write, to play sports and talk to. I wanted him to help me answer questions such as, "Can I make it in life?" and, "What is my purpose?"

I'm not alone in missing a dad. More than half of all black children do not live with their fathers, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And at least one in four Hispanic kids and one in five white kids live without their dads.

This has an effect on individual families and on society in general. Research shows that kids who don't have dads are much more likely to be depressed, fail school, commit crimes, have sex early on and (for girls) get pregnant. Nationally children without fathers are 10 times more likely to be extremely poor than other children.

As a result, a number of programs have been launched nationally and in New York City to try to help men be better fathers. New York City has a Fatherhood Initiative and allocates $3 million in federal Community Service Block Grants to 12 community organizations working with local dads. (For more on city programs to help fathers, see Gotham Gazette.)

One of these groups is STRIVE (Support and Training Results in Valuable Employees). It, in turn, runs a program in East Harlem called POPS (Providing Opportunity for Parental Success) that works mostly with black and Latino fathers 18 to 35 years old. It offers an eight-week workshop that helps fathers reunite and connect with their children, and also provides counseling, mediation with family members and legal help. Once a man participates in POPS, he can come back for help throughout his entire life. "We're like a leech. We latch on and don't let go," said Robert Sanchez, the program manager.

In POPS, dads learn how to hold a newborn and how a baby communicates his needs by crying. POPS shows men how to play with their children, help them with homework, ask about their interests, or discover something new by taking kids on outings. Dads learn child development, how to be patient, and how to solve a child's problems without criticizing a child or making her feel bad.

POPS advises men not to give up on having a good relationship with their children -- even if a dad has been told he can't see his kids or feels the kid does not appreciate him, Sanchez said. If the mother won't let a father see his kids, POPS workers take the dad to family court and help him exercise his legal rights to see his children.

Beyond the legal barriers, many men stay away from their children out of fear, Sanchez said. Having a child is scary. "A lot of guys worry that they don't know how to care for a child and don't want to look stupid."

Some men don't stay because of "baby mama" drama. "Fifty percent of our fathers have a volatile relationship with their child's mother," and almost none are married to them, Sanchez noted. Frustrated with their child's mother, men may stop seeing their kids to avoid fights and conflict, or the mothers may not let them visit.

Other dads disappear because they get caught up in the streets or prison. Black men in particular are at risk for getting locked up. Over our lifetimes, we face a 32 percent chance of spending at least a year in jail, Inside Higher Educationreported. White men face a 6 percent chance.

And lots of fathers have no idea how to be a good parent because they never had one themselves. At least 15 percent of the men who participate in POPS were in foster care when they were boys, Sanchez noted.

Many men believe a father's only role is to provide for their children. Men with jobs are more likely than unemployed fathers to be present in their children's lives. Those without money or jobs may "associate fatherhood as an extension of their pocket, and think 'I'll stay out of the child's life until I have money,'" Sanchez explained. This has a big effect on black families in New York City where, according to a report by the Community Service Society, only 51.9 percent of black men ages 16 to 64 were employed.

But Sanchez emphasizes that even the poorest fathers can support their children in important ways. "One question I ask my fathers is, 'What is one great thing you remember about your dad?'" Their answers, Sanchez said, never have to do with money. "That child is not going to remember the sneakers, but he does remember the time you took him to the park, or to a baseball game, or made him feel good about himself," Sanchez.

Sanchez's own history explains why he is so passionate about fatherhood. At 18, Sanchez fathered a daughter. He was also arrested in an apartment where drugs were found and sent to prison for 15 years. While incarcerated, he wrote to his daughter, had her visit and kept communication open with the girl's mother. When he came out of prison, he gave his daughter a cellphone to stay in touch with him. His feelings were hurt when she did not use it much.

One day Sanchez watched a Spanish film, "Mi Familia," In it, a character returns from prison and tries to force his child into a relationship. The child rejects him. An older, wiser relative tells the man, "You can't come home and demand a relationship."

"That, to me, was a lesson," Sanchez recalls. "Her feelings were legitimate. I had been out of her life for 14 years and had to give her space and room to feel what she's feeling."

Sanchez let his daughter know he would always be there for her, but that she could have some say in how much time they would spend together. Now they see each other about twice a month.

Sanchez believes that, to be a good father, a man needs to understand his own anger, his past, and his parents. To end his own family's pattern of absent fathers, Sanchez did not use drugs or alcohol. He went to college and earned a master's degree, and forgave people who had wronged him.

New York City dads, like Sanchez and the men in the POPS program hope to stay in the lives of their children. They want to break the cycle of missing fathers. When it is my turn, I am going to try to break that cycle as well.

Antwaun Garcia is a writer at Represent, a magazine by and for teenagers in foster care that is published by Youth Communication.

Cuomo Proposes a New Agency to Help Disabled


 
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Photo provided by the Office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed legislation on Monday that would create a new state agency to investigate and prosecute cases of abuse and neglect of disabled people, strengthening protections for New Yorkers with special needs.

The new agency being proposed was created with the help of advocates and would have an inspector general and special prosecutor. Any potential criminal cases would be referred to local district attorneys, who could then pursue charges.

“This is about safeguarding the civil rights of the more than one million New Yorkers with disabilities and special needs, who for too long have not had the protections and justice they deserve,” the governor said at a news conference in Albany.

Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos described Cuomo's proposal as a "package of thoughtful reforms." Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver congratulated Cuomo on his legislation. “The governor has outlined a plan to inject much-needed accountability into the system for the care of individuals with developmental disabilities and to eliminate abuses," he said.

The lawmakers said they expected Cuomo's legislation creating the new agency, which would be known as the Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs, could be passed by the end of this session. There are 20 session days remaining.

In a series of articles last year, New York Times reported on abuses under the current state system for protecting the developmentally disabled. In one case highlighted in the series, a 13-year-old autistic boywas asphyxiated when he was crushed to death in the back seat of a van by a 200-pound state employee.

The worker was a ninth grade dropout who had been convicted of selling marijuana and hadn’t had a day off in 15 days. The driver of the van, who had been fired from four different organizations that helped the disabled until he was hired by the state, watched as the boy died without saying much, the Times reported.

Cuomo’s plan would centralize background checks for workers and create new laws with clearer definitions of abuse.



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