The unrest in Baltimore, brought on by the death of Freddie Gray, has been the source of a lot of commentary in the world of social media. My Facebook feed is full of people offering their opinions about what many call the "rioting" or "violence" in Charm City. Mind you, most of those commenting use those words only to refer to destruction of property and throwing of rocks. Strangely, they're not talking about the actions of the police, this despite the violence that characterizes so much of the police's treatment of poor black communities.
Lots of those appearing in my news feed are gay white men like me. Some of them have been very critical of the protestors in Baltimore, and they've decried the resort to "violence" and condemned the people for rioting. I'm not a violent guy, and I don't support the indiscriminate destruction of property, but as a gay man, I find it a bit hypocritical when white members of my community wag their fingers at the so-called rioters.
I'll explain below the nuage de kos.
We gay people have had our own struggle against police oppression. Although it had begun long before, many people date the beginning of the modern LGBT rights movement to a particular event -- the 1969 Stonewall Riots. Did you notice the name? They were called "riots" for a reason. The link describes how they started:
An officer shoved a transvestite, who responded by hitting him on the head with her purse as the crowd began to boo. [. . .] Pennies, then beer bottles, were thrown at the [police] wagon as a rumor spread through the crowd that patrons still inside the bar were being beaten.
A scuffle broke out when a woman in handcuffs was escorted from the door of the bar to the waiting police wagon several times. She escaped repeatedly and fought with four of the police, swearing and shouting, for about ten minutes. Described as "a typical New York butch" and "a dyke–stone butch", she had been hit on the head by an officer with a baton for, as one witness claimed, complaining that her handcuffs were too tight.[64] Bystanders recalled that the woman, whose identity remains unknown [. . .], sparked the crowd to fight when she looked at bystanders and shouted, "Why don't you guys do something?" After an officer picked her up and heaved her into the back of the wagon,[66] the crowd became a mob and went "berserk": "It was at that moment that the scene became explosive."[67]
The angry crowd threw coins and beer cans at police. They also started destroying property, including the Stonewall Inn itself, despite the fact that it was a gay bar:
Garbage cans, garbage, bottles, rocks, and bricks were hurled at the building, breaking the windows. Witnesses attest that "flame queens", hustlers, and gay "street kids"—the most outcast people in the gay community—were responsible for the first volley of projectiles, as well as the uprooting of a parking meter used as a battering ram on the doors of the Stonewall Inn. [. . .]
The mob lit garbage on fire and stuffed it through the broken windows as the police grabbed a fire hose. Because it had no water pressure, the hose was ineffective in dispersing the crowd, and seemed only to encourage them.[note 6] When demonstrators broke through the windows—which had been covered by plywood by the bar owners to deter the police from raiding the bar—the police inside unholstered their pistols. The doors flew open and officers pointed their weapons at the angry crowd, threatening to shoot. [. . .] The onslaught had lasted 45 minutes.
The unrest continued the next night, with people setting fires in garbage cans throughout the neighborhood and rioters attacking police cars.
In case you think this was an isolated incident in LGBT history, you're wrong. Although they're less well known, Stonewall was actually preceded by at least two other violent encounters with the police, at Cooper's Donuts in 1959 and Compton's Cafeteria in 1966. Cooper's was a Los Angeles doughnut shop located between a couple of gay bars and was a hangout for both gay and trans people. The police often raided places like Cooper's to harass the patrons "marching the queers out in a line and arresting anyone whose perceived gender didn’t match what was on their ID. Occasionally, they’d even single out a few lucky victims for special attention in the form of insults and beatings. " One night in May 1959, when the police tried to pull off another of their standard raids on Cooper's, the gay and trans people who frequented it decided they'd had enough and fought back:
From the donut shop, everyone poured out. The crowd was fed up with the police harassment and on this night they fought back, hurling donuts, coffee cups and trash at the police. The police, facing this barrage of [pastries] and porcelain, fled into their car calling for backup.
Soon, the street was bustling with disobedience. People spilled out in to the streets, dancing on cars, lighting fires, and generally reeking havoc. The police return with backup and a number of rioters are beaten and arrested. They also closed the street off for a day.
Seven years later in San Francisco, a bunch of fed-up transfolk clashed with the police at the Compton Cafeteria:
In August 1966, a cafeteria worker called the police when some transgender customers at Compton’s became unruly. When a police officer attempted to arrest one trans woman, she threw a cup of hot coffee in his face. Within moments, dishes were broken, furniture was thrown, the restaurant’s windows were smashed and a nearby newsstand was burned down.
Yes, you read that right. They attacked police, destroyed property, and burned down a local business. Just as we'd later do at Stonewall, members of our community attacked law enforcement officers and damaged other people's property because we were tired of being treated like shit by the police.
My community's history of violent riots doesn't end there. In May 1979, Dan White, the man who assassinated Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for the killings of the two men. The prosecution had asked for a finding of first-degree murder, but White escaped with conviction for the least serious offense charged and received a sentence of less than eight years.
So how did the San Francisco gay community react? With understandable rage, which it expressed in a march that became, yes, a riot:
Members of the crowd tore gilded ornamental work from the [City Hall's] wrought iron doors and then used it to break first floor windows. [. . .] One young man kicked and smashed the window of a police car, lit a pack of matches, and set the upholstery on fire. After burning for a short time, the fuel tank exploded; a dozen more police cars and eight other automobiles would be destroyed in a similar fashion. [. . .] Several crowd members threw tear gas, which they had stolen from police vehicles. Riots began to break out, with one mob disrupting traffic. Electric trollies were disabled when their overhead wires were pulled down, and violence broke out against the police officers, who were outnumbered.
Now, most of the white gay people I know are proud of this history. They're proud of the way our community finally stood up for itself after endless years of oppression and mistreatment by the police. I freely admit I'm proud of it, too. I think it was an understandable and overdue response to the actions of the police. Sure, it would have been great if American officialdom had responded positively to the quiet, orderly protests by the suit-and-tie-clad members of Frank Kameny's Mattachine Society. But that didn't happen, and it was only when LGBTs turned violent that straight society finally decided to sit up and take notice.
So, my white gay brothers and sisters, before you criticize the people of Baltimore for deciding they've had enough, for concluding that quiet protest hasn't stopped police from killing black men, and for letting their rage erupt, remember that we've done the same. Remember Dr. King's observation that "a riot is the language of the unheard." As a community that has also been unheard, our response to Baltimore should not be criticism but rather solidarity and understanding.
I'll leave you with a question posed today by my fellow San Franciscan, Rebecca Solnit:
One more thing. Urban uprisings are not necessarily great tactics for social change (though sometimes they are) and they're not nonviolent direct action. We already know that. But before you criticize some young people of color for not engaging in nonviolent tactics, ask yourself: am I actively engaged in nonviolent tactics for social change on these issues? Or am I quietly acquiescent with the system that perpetuates the violence that makes their lives impossible?
I ask you to think on that, and I thank you for reading.