INjustice for CeCe McDonald: When Tools Rule

Today the long running farce of justice that has been the CeCe McDonald trial has come to a least a judicial close. Judge Daniel Moreno (dickhead), sentenced CeCe to 41 months in prison, as was expected as these were the terms of her plea bargain. CeCe has already been in custody for 366 days, but today the judge ruled that the time she spent under house arrest will not count towards her time served, and so she will only be credited with 275 days.

My friend Connie Kauppi posted on my Facebook wall:

Freeman and Moreno gives me an idea for children's books: The Hammer That Thought It Was A Lawyer and The Screwdriver That Thought It Was A Judge. They think they are servants of justice and practitioners of law... They are but TOOLS.

But wait, it gets worse.

The state of Minnesota is ALSO going to be housing CeCe as a male. With all of the data, including new Department of Justice (DOJ) guidelines regarding sexual violence and safety in prisons, particularly as it relates to transgender individuals, the state making a decision to house CeCe with folks that are NOT of her gender, is a critical injustice and a violation (again) of her human rights.

I am so angry at this level of gross and inhuman justice and power expression that for the first time in my life I am ashamed of being a Minnesotan. I LOVE MY STATE. I have spent a good chunk of my life fighting to keep shit like this from going down in my homeland, my friends still are, and this flagrant injustice, masked in Minnesota nice (Mike Freeman, I would be quite content to never hear from you again, thank you), is just too damn much.

Lemme be clear. This is about racism, transphobia, class, poverty and heterosexism, but its mostly about maintaining hegemonic power. CeCe is being punished because she was never meant to survive. She is being punished because she was never mean to live. She is being punished because she stood up for herself and by doing so left the place designated for her in this world for a moment and took back the power that was snatched from her ancestors. For a moment, she stood in her own skin and said to the universe, I WILL live.

Not too long ago we strung up black men and lit them on fire for whistling at a white woman.  CeCe's trial and sentence are just another type of lynching. Not only did she stand up for herself, but she committed the greatest sin a person of color can make, she killed a white man. In defense of her own life, she killed a white man, and POWER demands that CeCe pay the price. POWER would kill her if it could.  If CeCe had been acquitted it would have meant that the basis of POWER in this country was eroding, shifting, changing hands. They gave us Barack Obama to provide the illusion that race had changed in the U.S. Not a damn thing has changed at the most fundamental levels. I will know real change has come when a woman of color is assaulted, has her cheek sliced completely through, defends her life and JUSTICE comes down on her side.

Mike Freeman and Judge Moreno, no matter how many emails you send or how well you sleep at night changes the fact that you did NOT serve justice today. You served up injustice with a smile and a light apology.

CeCe, I love you, we love you, and we will not abandon you. See you soon. YOUR coming out party is going to be so damn fierce. 

HIV, Criminal Conduct, and Reality

A man in Minnesota has been charged with willfully spreading HIV. According to the story and video clip, the man had sex with multiple partners, did not disclose his status, and at least one person has tested positive. In the cases in the video clipped, the man is NOT charged with rape, though I have heard from a friend of mine that he is charged with sexual assault from an earlier incident in February. While I am not going to comment on this man's guilt or innocence, I sure as hell am going to comment on the situation. The following blog post may seem a little disjointed, as I co

Did you listen to the story? Mike Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, needs to check his facts. He said, "The man didn't have it [HIV] before, and a month later he did." Ummmm....any doctor will tell you that it takes, in general, a minimum of 3 months to have built up enough antibodies to detect HIV. Which means that the "victim" was having unprotected sex with more than just the accused.

Also, if the men were having unprotected sex with this guy and NOT asking his status, and there is no evidence that the dude lied, then it is not a leap to believe that they had unprotected sex with other men. How do they KNOW that this is the guy that transmitted HIV to them? Where the fuck is the responsibility on their end? Why is the blame/shame/burden always on the positive individual?

Also, were there drugs involved? I am going to go ahead and say most fucking likely. Regardless of the outcome, the accused's life is ruined.

As an HIV+ man that has struggled in the past with drug addiction, I can tell you that almost 99% of the time no one was asking anyone else about their HIV status when crystal meth was involved.

If you choose to have bareback sex then you CHOOSE the risk of contracting HIV. That choice is on you, the burden is on you, and the responsibility for the action is on YOU. Unless you can prove that you were RAPED or the sex was not consensual in some other way, the burden is on you. It was your choice to believe the man or to trust the man with your life, and now that you found out you made the wrong choice, you are going to lay the burden on someone else? BULLSHIT.

I am not perfect, but this case is more than just about the one dude (I hear that he is also charged with rape...that is another story all together)...but the precedent this will set if he is convicted on the spreading HIV charge as opposed to a rape charge is going to create such an overwhelming fear in positive people and a justified one...what if you don't disclose your status, you are having protected sex, and the condom breaks? Are you then a felon? What if you honestly believe you are HIV-, have unprotected sex, and then you find out you are after having infected someone else? Even your partner? Are you a felon? What if you and the party are both engaged in the use of illicit drugs....I am not perfect, and I carried a lot of guilt for a long time for my actions when actively using, but I will be damned if I carry the burden or the HIV+ community should carry the burden for the choices of others. It's just that simple, unfortunately the apparatus of the state and 20 years of fear mongering, gay baiting, and oppression are on the side of the Hennepin County attorney. And let's not forget that Mike Freeman is an elected official. The county attorney office led directly to the Senate for Amy Klobuchar. He is going to sensationalize this case as much as humanly possible to set himself up runs for hire office. The good tough attorney got this diseased predator off the street. What could be sweeter on the campaign trail?

I am curious to see what other cases Mike has made sure got into the paper? What other cases are on his case load? Why this case? Why this incident? I will tell you...H-I-V.

The continued stigmatization and scapegoating of positive people for the actions of negative people is based in shame and fear--the shame of the positive person that leads him or her to not disclose and the shame of the newly positive person that seeks to shed his shame by blaming everyone else for his HIV status except the person responsible: himself.

Let the witch hunts begin.