Trigger Warning
Over the weekend, Miles DeNiro, a gay man, was at a a Washington, D.C. pizzeria after a drag performance at the Black Cat. Two women approached him and harassed him, calling him slurs like “tranny” and “faggot” and then attacked him. This is unacceptable!
What’s also unacceptable is that several bystanders stood by cheering the women on and some even filmed the incident and posted it on sites like YouTube, before it was taken down for having offensive content.
““There were five or six workers behind the counter or in the kitchen area and none of them did anything to stop it,” DeNiro said.
The assault ended, according to DeNiro, when two men walked into the restaurant from the sidewalk and pulled the two women away from him.
“I don’t know who they are but they appeared to have seen what was happening through the window and came in to help,” he said.
DeNiro said two friends who were with him drove him home. He said he chose not to call police at the time of the incident but reported the attack to police Monday afternoon at the Third Police District at 17th and V Street, N.W.”
Police are investigating the incident and it’s expected they will treat it as a hate crime.
As a society, as a community, we need to do more to be respectful and to stand up for human rights!
After the attack, DeNiro, who is white, tweeted messages about it and used racial slurs to describe the women of color who attacked him. He later deleted them and apologized.
This is such a very real example of how we each have some privileges but not others (e.g. he had race privilege but not sexual orientation/gender expression privilege) and how we need to try hard not to oppress others or discriminate against them, including not while standing up for our rights and working to end the discrimination we face.
H/T Collective Action for Safe Spaces
