DREAMS DEFERRED: THE SAKIA GUNN FILM PROJECT
(music)
There is trouble all over this world! Yes, there is trouble all over this world!
Children!
Who was Sakia Gunn?
Nah, I don't know who Sakia Gunn is.
I don't know.
No, I don't.
Sakia Gunn I do not know.
(music)
There is trouble all over this world!
I'm gonna be honest with you, I have not heard the name Sakia Gunn until today.
Sakia Gunn as I understand it was a Black Lesbian living in New Jersey
who got murdered because of some hate crimes.
(music)
There is trouble all over this world!
Right, I remember now.
Where'd you hear about it?
On the news. Uhm, she was stabbed. By some guys in a car?
That was basically it; they wanted to talk to her and she didn't
want to be- she didn't have anything to say and they stabbed her to death.
Well, frankly, I have to say honestly, I had no idea that it had happened.
Sakia and her friends didn't mean anybody any harm.
That night they were coming back from having fun on the pier in New York,
a place where they felt safe to be who they were.
She was real comfortable about her sexuality.
As everybody knows she was Gay or whatever.
But I guess on one night she decided to be chilling with her friends
going to a party and she got in a confrontation with somebody else
and I guess they decided to take her life.
I actually heard about it from some of our staff in the office.
Clearly this is a situation for everybody that is highly charged and emotional.
I expect everyone to behave themselves. Okay? Anyone who wants to speak
is going to have the opportunity to speak But I don't want outbursts.
This is a very sad day, I'm sure, for everyone involved in this case
on either side. Obviously, there was a loss of life. Mere words can never
do justice to any loss of life and I'm not going to attempt to do that here.
Judge, with regard to the mitigating factors in this case, we have
the fact that Mr. McCullough has no prior indictable convictions.
And in fact, his only adjudication of delinquency for a
disorderly persons marijuana possession.
So he has no history of criminal activity, and, given his age,
he's led a law-abiding life for a substantial period of time.
That's a powerful mitigating factor. We ask the court to find it and to
give it great thought for. I have been obviously representing Mr.McCullough for
some time now and I found him to be at all times respectful, a gentleman,
never a threat to myself, never a threat to anyone in Your Honor's court.
He's never had even one problem with your officers. There's no reason
why he should not be cuffed in the front. And in fact, Your Honor,
I have never had a client cuffed in the back.
Uh, we have a thirty year old man, five nine, five ten, weighing 265 pounds,
who, to party, accosted a group of young women.
Sakia Gunn was five-foot-three. She weighed 130 pounds.
He had no business even going up to them at all. He created a situation,
he threatened them. And this is a bias crime, Judge. I acknowledge
that there is a spectrum of behavior as Mr. McMann points out.
But there is no doubt, Judge, based on the evidence before this court,
based on the Judge calling for the imposition of a sentence
of twenty-five years, that is above the presumptive level,
I would ask the court to impose that sentence.
This is not the type of biased crime where someone went out and
targeted an individual because of who they were.
This is the bias, the type of bias crime that our statute actually now allows for.
It does not require a state of mind on behalf of the actor, but rather looks
at what were the acts and conduct of the actor and language, and
what would have been the state of mind of the person being victimized.
Why would they have thought they were being victimized?
Let's not misuse that conviction. There are people in this world
who go out and target people because of their religion, their race,
or their sexual orientation. That did not happen here.
At this time I think that it's important that we look at the entirety
of all that we know. And not judge someone simply by
one episode in their life. It's gonna play a part. It's gonna cause
him to suffer being in prison. But, it should not define him.
It should not define him today, at this sentence.
A white station wagon with two Black men inside pulled up.
What the Black men asked the girls was if they wanted to have fun of the
sexual variety and the girls told them, "No. We're Gay."
Further words were exchanged, and what wound up happening was
that the car stopped and the man who had made the sexual suggestions,
one Richard McCullough, got out of the car. He was very angry
and he advanced towards the girls menacingly.
He grabbed one of the girls in a headlock and when he released her,
she was lying on the ground frothing at the mouth. He then
grabbed Sakia by the throat and put a knife to her neck.
Sakia was fortunate to break away from McCullough but then
McCollugh then stabbed her in the chest before running away to his car
and leaving. Valencia managed to get the license plate to the car,
but what was more important to her was getting her friend to a hospital.
A passing motorist was kind enough to provide a ride, but by the
time they got there, Sakia had bled to death in her best friend's arms.
On May 11th they called me to the hospital to tell me my daughter
had been stabbed, I'm thinking she was getting stitched up, that's why
they're in Emergency. I've been waiting at least twenty-three months to
say this to Mr. McCullough. I have a lot of stuff to say but I broke it down
and made a letter so I won't get nothing twisted.
My letter's called Words to My Daughter's Murderer.
Richard McCullough, I believe you need to know of what this horrific incident
you have contributed to has done to myself, my family, friends, and
others that were like Sakia, young and old. Your rage has caused me
twenty-three months of sleepless nights,
twenty-three months of pure sadness results of the missing of my child.
My holidays pass, I often look for her knowing she will only be around in spirit.
When a birthday comes, I want to jump out and yell "Surprise!" for gift.
But I'm sad cause she's no where around. My daughter, Sakia Latona Gunn
was my oldest child. She was a very responsible young teenager.
She had learned from the time she was able to talk, never to talk to strangers.
Why didn't he get the hint?
The girls said, "No, we are Gay." That was your cue to turn around
and say "Good Night." Sakia has never been in trouble a day in her life
not even a bag of weed. Sakia was known as the peace-maker
amongst her friends and family. I have often been asked,
would I be happy if Richard McCullough was sentenced to death?
My answer now is the same as it was then. Even though Richard McCullough
has taken my child's life, I do not wish you dead. Yes, I would like an apology--
which I have gotten but it's not mandatory because it won't bring her back.
I do believe that prison will give you a chance to make some sense of this,
because I can't. I can't make no type of sense of what happened.
This is a picture of how I last saw Sakia before she met you.
This is a picture of how I last saw Sakia after she met you.
All they wanted was to go home, and get into their beds. But it was very late
in the day when if any of them saw a bed because when this man left Sakia
and my grand-daughter, dying on the sidewalk at Broad and Market,
the girls had to get her to the hospital. Sakia never went home that day.
Her bed turned out to be a coffin. And if he felt threatened by these girls,
why didn't he get back in the car and drive off, like he did,
after he stabbed her?
All through our years we looked to celebrate our birthdays together,
because her birthday was the day before mine. All we was planning was
our sixteenth birthday to celebrate together. You know, we was
looking forward to it, tremendously. Cause for some reason this year
we decided we was going to get our mothers something for Mother's Day
not knowing that my aunt's Mother's Day present would be her daughter's death.
We got to the bus stop not aware of anything; not worrying.
We just wanted to get home. Then two guys pulled up and asked
if we wanted to talk. We told them, "No." Right then and there, that
should have been the end of the conversation. First of all,
we're under age, you're about thirty years old.
Why would you even want to try to approach us?
He made a choice. He could have easily just got back in the car and just left.
He made a choice to take out the knife and put my life's cousin in his hands.
He decided to play God that night, and he took my cousin away from me.
That's something I cannot get back. I'm so empty inside, without her.
She can't come back. He can come home. He can come home and see his family.
I can never see my cousin again ever. The only memory I have of her
is pictures or memories in my head. I'm now about to be eighteen.
It's been twenty-three months that I've cried straight,
every night scenes of what happened constantly playing through my head
while I'm at school, while I'm practicing anything.
Look how big he is! My cousin stood this tall.
(off-screen) Smaller.
And smaller. "A" student! Three basketball teams she played on,
Your Honor. An "A" student. She weren't no criminal, no crook!
His lawyers stating, "Oh, he's a...
you know, he never had a record, this and that.
My cousin doesn't even have life now.
Never did I think that I would get that phone call.
Three-thirty-five in the morning from my daughter at the hospital.
You know It's a frantic thing. And, soon as I got the phone call,
headache developed. I ended up keeping the headache for eleven days.
Advil does not work when you're under so much stress, and pressure.
My telephone was ringing off the hook that week.
TV cameras, TV people. Magazines, the media, everything.
It was horrible. Me and my family and my daughter didn't even have
a chance to grieve because as soon as Sakia's death had taken place,
various organizations and things were happening, so much to where
we didn't get the chance to grieve like a family. I do believe that if we could
turn back the hands of time, he might just say,
Okay, I'm going to get back into my vehicle and go ahead.
But as we all know, that did not happen.
It has left everyone to the point to where we are now.
This man took my cousin's life from me. And as I sit here and hold this picture,
I embrace it so much because I don't want to let her go.
I can't accept the fact that my cousin is dead, that my cousin died in my arms.
She looked at me and took her last breath, in my arms, at the hospital.
I can't accept that fact. If I accept that fact, I've lost my cousin forever.
I watched my cousin get killed in front of my eyes.
I seen my cousin take her last breath
and her eyes went to the back of her head, in my arms, in my lap.
I seen everything that happened. Lord knows I wish it would not have, but it did
I did everything I could. Everything. And as Lord is my witness,
Lord knows that I tried everything that I could and it still it still didn't work.
It still didn't work. My cousin is not here.
And that's the plain, simple point.
He killed my cousin and she's not here right now at all!
And she's never coming back! Never! And I have to deal with that fact
that I watched it happen. I did everything, I tried everything I could
and it still wasn't enough. Nobody knows that feeling of trying so,
so hard to save your cousin's life and it's still not enough! Nobody!
Nobody at all!
To the family, Miss Gunn, I'm sorry this ever happened.
I'm very remorseful. This is from the bottom of my heart.
I wish that would have been me instead of your child. I'm sorry.
My family: I'm sorry for you all, taking you all through this.
And I gotta do what I gotta do.
You do the crime, you do the time! That's how I feel.
We not ever gonna get a chance to see my cousin again.
This man, he made a mistake. He said he made a mistake.
Why is he carrying a knife around with him?
He's supposed to be so uppity? I work everyday!
(off-screen) Quiet in the court!
I don't carry a knife! I don't carry a gun!
I work everyday, Your Honor. And I see these kids killing kids.
And they do ten or fifteen years and come right back home!
And kill somebody else. It's not fair! It's not right!
He should be punished to max! He made the mistake, let him deal with it!
I knew her from going to the clubs and stuff. She was a real sweet person,
real kind-hearted, or whatever. And it's wrong that whatever happened to her,
you know what I mean? She was just coming home from the club, or whatever.
that we was gonna graduate West Side together.
We was gonna get out the hood together. We was gonna do a lot of things together.
I was gonna start my business in computers, she was gonna be with me.
Go to school
We was gonna go to the same college
That we did not hear about this young, Black, African-American
woman in New Jersey is no surprise to me at all.
I mean, are you surprised? Would you expect nothing less?
I'm the founder of an organization that was created
in the aftermath of Sakia's murder to advocate on behalf
of the Gay and Lesbian community in Newark. This incident extended
way beyond Newark. It touched people from all through out the state.
It touched people from all around the country.
It speaks to the hate people have towards us as Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual, Transgender. What's more appalling is the apathy
of our own community, the lack of interest of the media to really show
what happened to the community. She didn't get killed
because she was a teenager. She got killed because
she was courageous enough to speak the truth about who she is!
(off screen) Yes.
She got killed because she was only fifteen years-old
and she was courageous enough to say,
"I am Lesbian, and I'm proud of it!"
It is really, really sad because, you know, you have to think:
what brought them to that moment? That day? When the decision was made.
Richard made a bad decision. And that decision has him here today,
and cost Sakia her life.
In the two months since Sakia's murder, only about eleven stories
were printed in the news about her death. By contrast,
Matthew Shepard's garnered 507 stories. And from the
LGBT organizations of New Jersey and Newark, there was silence.
This is a young, teenage, Black girl, you know what I'm saying?
And they don't take, they don't take Lesbian, being a Lesbian,
being Gay, they don't take that seriously. That's not nothing serious to them.
Because we still don't exist as far as this whole sort of thing goes.
We are People of Color and Black, Latino, whatever, it's the same thing.
You ain't never hear them mention about how many Black women
they found dead in Central Park.
You ever hear them mention that on the news?
You don't hear that! You don't hear stuff like that.
No, you not gonna hear it because we're not important.
And that's because we allow them to do that.
We allow them to put us where we at, because we don't stand up for a whole.
You getting at me, I'm getting at you. You know what I'm saying?
What you did to get where you at? Help me out. You know what I'm saying?
We really have to use that "Each one, teach one" and stick together.
'Cause united we stand, divided we fall. That's why we crumbling.
You don't have to be Black, you don't have to be young,
you don't have to be Queer.
The fact that a young woman was waiting for the bus
and this happened to her, should be enough to outrage anyone.
It's saddened me deeply that this fifteen year-old Black Lesbian
had been murdered in the street and I had not heard about it.
Rich was always helping me around the house. Rich is a good person.
He always made friends, where ever he go. He is like that, even as a kid.
And his Nana and the ladies in the Eastern Stars we all thought
that Rich was going to be a genius. My father, Bennett Tillary,
worked for the City of Newark, and his father's mother, Joyce Phillips,
who was Gay, who worked for Bell Atlantic.
I wish that we could go back and this would never have happened.
Thank you so much.
You know, and it wasn''t like she was murdered because somebody
wanted her coat or they wanted her money, or something like that.
She was stabbed and killed down here because of who she was.
And what she stood for. She was herself.
And the others that were with her that were like her.
You know, and that's what makes everything so different,
and so emotionally hurtful.
I just hope people stop--learn how to become non-homophobic.
And just love each other the way God intended for all of us to be loved,
cause he don't make no mistakes.
I know he didn't put me here for no mistake!
I know that I'm not a mistake, trust me.
She, you know, not that she was a Lesbian.
She was Black and she was young.
They don't wanna, they ain't gonna acknowledge that.
That's what they do with a lot of our Black children.
A lot of our Black children get out here, they get killed, they get raped.
It's so many of our young Black children that got
raped in Central Park. You don't hear about that on the news!
You not gonna hear about that on the news, you know what I'm saying?
You hear that cause you out here, you live out here, you come out here.
That's how you find out about it. But as for it to be on the news, in the write up,
on the front page, you not gonna see that.
And that's what they always do to us Black people.
Cause we not all that important. You know what I'm saying?
She broke the silence to say who she is!
There is silence in the Black community.
There is silence about the fact that there are Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual and Transgender that exist in our own community
I think society is really at fault here. That people who mistreat other people
have some responsibility in what happened that night.
The people who, from their pulpits,
who preach hatred against other people in this city.
They contributed to this atmosphere that caused this event to happen.
If all the gays and lesbians who were in those churches, the deacons,
some of the pastors, the music director, choir, trustees, they left the church,
there would be no church.
The schools that don't protect the gay and lesbian kids.
The teachers who have watched these kids get beat up by other kids.
And I think our school system is really failing young people.
So, I think that the high school, drop out rate in New York City
I don't have the numbers here but they're really appallingly high.
So I think we really need to look at the school system and our young people
getting a safe... are they even safe enough to get an education.
And then looking at what kind of education young people get.
There's metal detectors at schools now. It's like going to a jail.
The men who mistreat women, who mistreat children--
these are social issues in our city that we need to deal with
so that we clear this atmosphere up of hatred that exists in this city.
It has to stop. Too many kids, dying in the streets of Newark.
All of us have a responsibility to do something to make that stop.
And I just hope that God, that somebody, touches all of our hearts
and make it known that violence is not the way to solve problems.
It is not the way to solve disagreements.
It is not the way to make people be what you want them to be.
Violence is not the answer. The answer is love!
And you keep allowing this to go on!
When you guys get off of work, you not even gonna be in this town.
You going right back to your homes! We live here. We know what's going on.
It's not fair. And that's why so many people are dying out here.
Because of this system failing us.
That booth that sits there, no cops be in there.
Only like after school, that's when a cop is in that booth.
But don't nothing happen then, you know what I mean?
Late at night when stuff usually go on, the cops are not there.
Or if they are there they do nothing. They stay right in that booth.
They will not come out, see what's going on.
The only time they come out is if they see a big crowd of people.
Other than that, they don't come out that booth. That's a shame.
You here to protect the community, instead you sit in the booth
doing nothing. Cause that night if a cop was right there,
that cop should have said something and helped them.
But they don't care! They really don't. And that's f***ed up. For real.
(music)
Look! This the room! That I sleep! That I eat!
I watch DVDs, I watch my movies, tapes, write my rhymes
and listen to my music. And record.
Transgender identity is more so about gender. It's not about sexuality.
Whereas butch folks and aggressives and folks that identify as that,
you kind of attach Lesbian to that or you kind of attach Queer woman to that.
And so I think even the little things that most people don't think about
we also go through.
Whether it be a butch that wants to go into the woman's bathroom
and is getting cursed out by other women in the bathroom.
Or it's a trans man who maybe can't go into the woman's bathroom
and is trying to go into the men's bathroom
and is worried about their safety.
There's a lot of little similarities that we all go through.
I have my little chair. I'm packing clothes.
I know what's clean and I know what's dirty.
You got your bed that you flop on, and sleep when you need to.
You got your teddy bears when you feeling lonely.
I have everything that I need in this room.
Only time I need to leave this room is if I'm going to the bathroom.
That's the only time I'm going to the bathroom. And that's right there.
So, I really don't have to go far.
The one think that I definitely want to touch on is that we've always existed.
I think that part of the generational gap that you're talking about
has to do with language changing, and labels changing.
Because often times something just doesn't fit;
something doesn't resonate with how folks feel inside.
So, I think that's an important thing to remember.
I play ball all day, everyday. And I play with the older crowd.
With my brother and them?
I played with them, even though I was shorter and younger.
I played with them. I don't see how.
She was this little.
I played with them and stuff, so, when I got to meet Kia,
we played, I was better than her,
but also teaching her.
And prior to me teaching her, and her learning, she taught me certain things.
Half the time I'm getting perceived as a Black man, or as a young Black man,
and the way that young Black men in general have been
historically de-masculinized, you know what I mean?
The way that throughout slavery, throughout the war on drugs.
Even talking about a lot of Black men being taken out of their homes
and being put into prisons and then being told by the government
that they weren't man enough to take care of their families.
My girlfriend Sherrie comes in, right? My lover. So she realizes that Valencia
has company and she's, like, Do your mother know you have company?
And she look at the company and the company is a boy in the room.
She gets on the phone, calls me on my cell: "I think you better talk
to your daughter when you come home because she has a boy in her bedroom!
And I asked her about it and she laughed and closed the door in my face.
So in the meantime, I had already knew Sakia. I had been speaking
to her on the phone. I had met her. And I said, "A boy?" I'm like, shocked!
"what?!" I said, "What he look like?" "He look like her!"
I said, "Oh, no, that's no boy." She said, "What you mean that's no boy?!"
Now mind you, my girlfriend, she looks just like a boy. I'll show you a picture
when we finish. You would swear it was a man.
Finally, when I said, "That's a girl," she said "Uh-uh!" I said, "Yes it is.
That's Sakia." Right? Just left it at that.
So, my friend, she's aggressive, she couldn't believe
that she had been fooled by one of her own kind.
Sakia comes in the house. My girlfriend is sitting there making her little stuff.
"There he go! That's him!"
Sakia comes in, she's like, Sherrie, her name is, she's like this...
She could not believe that this was not a male, preteen, teenager
walking through my house.
It's also thinking less so as an individual and understanding that
the problems that we go through on a daily basis is systematic.
There's a lot of people that are going through the same problems.
How can you work together to get the same win?
Or to get the same benefits that people with money,
or skin privilege, or male privilege, have?
(music)
This day is a victorious day for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Intersex
and questioning community! We are here! We are not going anywhere!
And we plan on being part of major change in this community.
The reason that we are all here tonight is because of the murder
of fifteen year-old Sakia Gunn, an African-American,
self-identified Lesbian last year on this corner.
If she had not been murdered we would not be here.
Last year we organized our own anti-violence, pro-Democracy rally
on the corner of Broad and Market where Sakia was murdered,
and had a lot of people from the community to speak out against violence,
and to speak out against hate crimes and homophobia in Newark.
And a lot of people heard words said out loud, in the public,
that they're not used to hearing. Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender,
Intersex, and questioning. They heard those words.
Some people are afraid of saying those words.
We have to say those words so people become desensitized to them
and know that they are not harmful. That we are not harmful people.
We don't mean anybody any harm.
All these young people out here today: we need to go home and
talk to our parents and the people in our neighborhoods and in our communities.
Cause to me the violence starts from adults.
Kids just pick up on things that they see. They learn from things that people do.
Violence and ignorance is spread by ignorance and poverty.
Cause we don't know something about someone else we call them names.
Because we don't understand the language that somebody else speaks,
we think it's silly and we begin to call them names.
Cause a person is one way that you don't think is right,
or everybody don't recognize as right, we talk about em,
we isolate them, we make them feel unimportant.
We make them feel afraid and then finally, we choose to beat them.
I did not know any of these kids. Did not know any of them.
Just cared about them, because they were like me.
We remember that this was not a random act of violence.
We remember that this was a person who hunted Sakia down
because she was Gay.
Today we remember that after her death, there was not a national outcry
like there was for the white male, Matthew Shepard.
Today we remember that this city did not respond when one
of its own children died. We are still far from the mountain top!
This city must recognize all of its community.
This city must embrace all of its community.
This city must have no tolerance whatsoever for hatred.
I commit myself to be one in the number.
To be one in the number of people who rise up in our city to fight for change,
to embrace love, to embrace understanding, and to make sure
that every single one of our children can grow up in a
community of safety, security, love and dignity.
I'm sure all of us, we didn't want them to have to go
through what we went through.
We want them to have a safer environment
for them to grow and mature.
Lord, we don't want any Lesbian, any Bisexual, any Gay child
to feel like they do not count in Newark.
It was one of the most powerful things that I had seen since the sixties.
You know, I was a kid during that time, so it was really, really powerful
to see these young people taking a stand like this.
(music)
How many of you are registered to vote? How many of you are registered to vote?
You all need to register to vote!
Ain't nothing gonna change in this city if you all do not vote!
The same stuff is gonna happen over, and over, and over again,
and our children are going to die and get killed, over and over again!
We wouldn't have things like Ethnic Studies in this country
if it weren't for folks that fought for it.
We have to remember that there have been a lot of changes
and that there have been a lot of wins throughout our time.
We thank you all for your support.
We thank you all for just being here for the whole year.
And the guy that did this: I hope they never let him out of jail!
Never, ever, ever let him out of jail! I hope he rots in jail!
I love you all. Keep God first in everything you do.
It's remembering that. It's remembering that people have fought for a long time
and there have been significant changes, and that it's not over.
Just so that you know, Sakia's murder is the event
that has given birth to this movement. What we are demanding
equality and justice here in Newark for safer schools and streets for all.
We are constantly shown on TV how important white children
are when one of them is missing, there is non-stop coverage on the news
until they are found. Many children of color are missing
and we have never heard their names mentioned once!
You know, when we call the police because we're getting harassed,
the police then re-bash us. You know what I mean?
This system is not set up to protect anyone, except for those who have money,
and, you know, skin privilege.
I've looked at the aggravating factors. I've looked at the mitigating factors.
I do find as a mitigating factor that you don't have a record for
prior indictable offenses.
It's been offered as mitigating factors that your conduct
was the result of circumstances unlikely to reoccur,
and that your character and attitude indicate that you're unlikely
to commit another offense.
I don't find either of those to be mitigating factors.
I don't find them to be mitigating factors because this was a situation
that involved yourself and fifteen and sixteen year-old girls.
I don't know why you didn't walk away from it.
I don't know what took place.
I don't know whether or not were you put in the same situation again
you would do the same thing.
And therefore I can't find that circumstances are unlikely to reoccur
and that your character and attitude indicate that you're unlikely
to commit another offense. An adult and children should never
be put in a confrontation position, and whether you like it or you don't like it,
it's the adult who has to be the adult, and has to say,
"I'm not gonna get involved in it."
You may have thought that they mouthed off to you.
You may have thought that they didn't respect you. I don't know.
Whatever you thought, you're the adult.
The adult has the responsibility. We'd like to think
that children also have responsibility, but they're children.
And that's the difference between adults and children.
Or should be the difference.
This incident was a terrible accident.
For a man who was at the wrong place, at the wrong time--
who has never been in trouble before and doesn't have a record,
to be punished so severe and harsh when it was just an accident.
Rich has suffered, and this is something that he
will have to live with for the rest of his life.
But he shouldn't be punished so harshly. Everyone makes mistakes.
And we learn through our mistakes.
Right now we need to pick up the pieces and move on toward the future.
It's an unfortunate situation.
Certainly most importantly for the family and friends of Miss Gunn
because they'll never have her again.
If you didn't think that way before you heard everyone speak,
you have to think that way having heard everyone speak.
They'll never have her growing up.
They'll never be able to see her do the things that one would expect;
the joy that parents, friends, and loved ones get from a child growing older.
And accomplishing things. And at least from what I've read and heard,
this is a young lady who would have accomplished a lot in her life
had she been given the opportunity to grow old.
If you are African-American, chances are you
gonna be oppressed because of your skin color.
Then you gonna be oppressed because of your sexuality.
Then you gonna be oppressed because of your class,
you know, whether you're a "have" or a " have not" whether you're
in the middle class. And then there's education; whether you have
a high school education vs. having a college education.
A common experience of LGBT youth is that they are either sexualized,
or ignored and dismissed; not taken seriously.
And I guess I'm speaking of mainstream culture; it's weird in that
it's very youth obsessed. I mean, with a certain kind of youth, you know:
generally a white, good-looking, presumably straight youth.
So, I think a lot of young people come from families where they are not
where they're dismissed, and especially if they come out are rejected.
Something like forty percent of homeless youth in New York City are LGBT.
Like some people feel that you can beat the gayness out of them.
They get abused terribly. So some of them choose to live in the streets, .
rather than to live in a home where they're being abused.
Where they're being forced into being something
that they don't feel that they are.
I think what's needed for young people who are LGBT in the
Metropolitan Area are safe spaces.
The preservation of safe spaces such as the pier.
Better housing for LGBT young people.
You know, homeless shelters are not safe.
the homophobia and transphobia they experience in shelters
I don't have the answers. I don't know.
I just know I love those kids, and I love my people.
And I just believe that it's time for us to do something different;
to do things differently. Because the old stuff isn't working for us right now.
Our communities are in crisis all over the country,
in every major city across the country. We're in crisis!
As mature as we are as a community, as we've built
some wonderful and solid institutions, we actually haven't
done the work that we need to do
to figure out where our young people fit into that.
And how to support them in a way that I know I felt supported
by older peers and things like that as a young person,
kind of coming up and coming into my own as a young Gay man.
A young, Gay, Black man.
I think that that's sort of what helped me knowing that other people
went through what I was going through. Other people are going to continue to
go through what I'm currently going through.
And I'm not alone. I think that's one of the things about leadership development
is realizing that, not only are you not alone,
but that you have an entire community that can make change.
We train young people to be leaders in the camp program.
And then they run groups six weeks here at the Center of young people
who are going to be in their cabins.
And then in August we go away for a week to a YMCA site in New Jersey.
And young people get to do, they like to call it Gay Camp.
We get to incorporate all the pieces of our programming.
So we have safer sex education; it's an HIV/AIDS prevention camp.
We also get to do fun things like have a talent show.
We have a reading where the youth leaders share work that's really inspired them
and talk about--we always have a theme for camp--what the theme means to them.
It usually has something to do with community building and empowerment.
We've started a new tradition of having a mini-Ball.
We have a lot of peer leadership programs.
So we strongly believe that our mission is to develop youth leaders,
and to facilitate that process.
And so a lot of our young people get to have different choices in
youth leadership programs they can get training in.
So there's a peer education program, there's the camp leadership program
which is called Family Group Leaders.
There's a Safe School internship where they get to work on issues
of violence and harassment in schools.
And we've had a conference that young people have helped to organize,
so we really look to build leaders in our program
and I feel like a lot of them then go out in the world also
and do really great things.
Because the aggravating and mitigating factors are imbalanced,
the sense of writ is that you're to be remanded in custody of the commission
of the department of corrections for a term of twenty years.
During that period of time you will not even be eligible for parole
for eighty five percent, which although days get adjusted for leap years
and everything else basically is that you'll have to do a
minimum of seventeen years before you're even eligible for parole.
When you do get parole, you will be on parole for five years,
meaning that if you were to go out and violate the parole you would
go back to prison--if you did it early on you would go back to prison
for an additional five years, thus,
bringing the potential sentence up to a twenty five-year period.
On this twenty-first day of April, Sakia, I would like to let you know
that your murderer is now behind bars. You can rest in peace later,
but amongst your family and your friends here to day,
we will keep your name alive. You can believe that, Boo. That's all.
There aren't many systems set up
that help protect us or help our community survive
Even as Black people; especially as Black people, you know?
We're not supported in this country.
We're sort of just being pushed into this new modern version of slavery
which is like prisons.
You know, we would like for the day to come, when,
no longer can the fact that a person is Gay or Lesbian be used as a weapon
to keep them from fulfilling their dreams.
To be used as a weapon to hold them down, to oppress them,
to keep them from letting their light shine.
It's so many people that's living in the closet, especially
in the African-American LGBT community.
I-want-to-kick-the-doors-down!
I want them to know what it's like to really be free.
We're really wonderful people, and we really bring a lot to the table.
And we really are assets to any organization that we belong to.
Any school that we go to. Whatever we do
we bring something special to it.
Because we've had special experiences.
And we want these young people, we want them to have
a better quality of life than what we had.
We want to do what we need to do to make things safe for them.
So that they can go as high as they want to go.
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