A good friend of mine, Byron, known also in the performance community as Lord Byron, was attacked by two men outside of his home after walking back from an event Friday night. This unprovoked assault led to a night in the hospital for Byron, who returned home on Saturday to recover from a concussion.
Byron's home is not so far away from mine; his neighborhood populated with many other residences. Byron is a beautiful dancer, performer, belly dancer, and active in many events with Gothic Maine, as well as Vivid Motion. His is also been a very important person to me for a long time now; I have always been thankful for his friendship.
So when I was told that he was injured for no other reason because he is gay I felt heart-sick and confused. Isn't Portland supposed to be one of the biggest supporting cities for gays and lesbians? How could this have happened to this gentle, creative friend and neighbor? Will it happen again?!? Myself, my roommate, and many other friends walk alone late at night through our home city; I'd never felt threatened or unsafe before. Now we're being cautioned not to walk home alone, as many of us are very active in what people consider "alternative lifestyles." Suddenly home seems a lot less homey.
This event did not happen somewhere else, to someone else, in a large crime-riddled city; this happened here, to a friend, in my community--and if you're reading this probably in yours as well. Not because you live in Portland, though most of my contacts on this list are local, but because anywhere, and EVERYWHERE, you hear stories about discrimination, racism, and intolerance. Every time a fundamentalist screams about damnation; every time a pagan goes on a Christian-bashing tirade; every time a person is yelled at, attacked, or worse because of their culture, religion, or lifestyle--this is fucking intolerance people. We see it every day, we hear it every day. And now, it's become a very real issue for someone that I care about.
Was this reported in the local newspaper? Probably not; I looked through the Portland Press Herald online and didn't find anything mentioning the disgusting behavior of the two men who have gained nothing but the contempt of an entire community. Will awareness of the crimes that are happening in our lives, and in our neighbors lives, make a difference. Yes; because our local environment, our local-culture, our co-habitors and our city needs to know that we are NOT just strangers, that this effects living, loving, people, and that this situation can not be ignored. There is not one person I have spoken to who knows Byron that is not outraged by this event. We want these criminals caught; we do not want to see another friend in the hospital.
I am guilty of being lost in my own world, and less aware of my community that I live in. Not just my little gothic community but the homes and the people and the city that I live within. I realize that I can't not care what happens to others around me, because human beings are connected to each other. This horrible incident is sadly not the first of tragedies that have happened in Portland recently; and I'm saddened even more to think it won't be the last.
I'm not a number and my friends aren't statistics. It's cold to say "one out of five people will become the victim of a hate-crime" because you always think, "Well, I'll be one out of the remaining four." This is a lie; if one person out of five is a victim, one of the other four is the aggressor, and all of the other three are affected by this spreading hatred.
