Gay bashers suck! Attacking people on the street, intimidating people, calling people homophobic names is a load of crap and people should not do it. It is absolutely tragic that Fabio Brandao and some of his friends attacked a bunch of queers and caused so much harm. The fear that we all begin to internalize because of attacks like this is huge and can feel incredibly unbearable. I know I get filled with rage that helps me deal with my fear but sometimes that rage isn’t entirely helpful and sometimes it can become misdirected.

The past couple weeks Bay Windows, New England’s largest Gay, Lesbian (trying to include bisexual and transgender people) newspaper has been reporting on the outcome of the court case against Brandao. Brandao pleaded guilty to four counts of “civil rights violation” and 5 other charges. He was then given a 2 year suspended sentence and required to attend anger management classes. By no means is this justice. However, we will NEVER find justice in a system that thrives on white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, and capitalism. While it is appalling that Brandao is not truly being held accountable for his actions it is a very sad that queers in Boston actually thought the (in)justice system would provide some kind of justice. The response to it all is a bit pathetic. There is constant turning to “hate crimes” and a call for prison time as if that would provide any kind of answer to the situation we are in. You can read the coverage in Bay Windows HERE. You can read two other reflections about it here, including one from a survivor of the attack HERE.

I did send a letter to Bay Windows which they printed. You can read that short letter HERE.

This situation is absolutely complicated and forces us to ask a lot of questions. We know that the penal system does not exist for the purpose of creating true justice or to protect marginalized communities. The police are responsible for protecting private property and enforcing social norms of behavior while targeting young people, People of Color, gender non-conforming folks, poor people, addicts, etc. The reality is, however, that many people experience interpersonal violence all the time and we MUST come up with systems to deal with it. It is vital that we operate with the understanding that interpersonal violence will continue as long as any system of oppression exists. When we are taught from day one that it is okay for one group of people to have dominating power over another (whether that be through white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, colonization, zionism, xenophobia, heterosexism, etc.) we internalize that belief and it impacts our daily human interactions. Any attempt to end interpersonal violence must also come with a commitment to ending all forms of social and systemic violence.

I also believe that we need to teach self defense to those who are targets of violence. Queer people walking the street need to know how to defend ourselves from gay bashers. We need to know what to do and how to protect our bodies and each other. We need to be able to fight back and hold our own when someone or a group of people are attacking us. We also need lots of community education about these issues of violence. Rather than folks walking away from situations of violence we need people to go up to the situation, not call the police, but make their presence known in an effort to stop the attackers from what they are doing, a little non-violent intervention.

After attacks have occurred we also need to come up with processes that meet the needs of everyone involved in the situation. We need to do healing for those physically attacked. Fear is a really destructive force and can impact our ability to make healthy choices. We must offer healing to those who have been attacked. We also need to figure out what transformative/restorative justice looks like in each situation. How can we address the individual(s) who caused harm? How do we walk with them on their journey to find human compassion? There are many systems we can learn from. Our own communities need to be stronger for us to be able to engage with these situations but we need to do the work to get there if we ever want to see the abolition of the prison industrial complex.

This Thursday people will show up to protest the judge’s decision not to send Brandao to prison. A message needs to be there that imprisoning bashers will not make us safer but rather relies on a system that causes so much harm. I pray we can come up with something different. Lets keep talking about it and start taking some action!

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