If you've not seen the video, here's this blogger's video commentary and the incident itself:
McDonald's Corporation was quick to issue this statement on its website:
Our Concern Regarding the Baltimore Incident
We are shocked by the video from a Baltimore franchised restaurant showing an assault. This incident is unacceptable, disturbing and troubling. McDonald’s strives to be a safe, welcoming environment for everyone who visits. Nothing is more important to us than the safety of customers and employees in our restaurants. We are working with the franchisee and the local authorities to investigate this matter. We are doing everything possible to make sure the right thing is done.
Indeed, as this space reported in the video, and in the first blog post, there's a larger problem of violence at McDonald's by teenagers regardless of color. In McDonald's fight video, after video, whites, Latinos, and Asians, mostly young women and girls, are getting into fights at McDonald's Restaurants.
That's too much for people who are already racist to hear; they want to use the McDonald's Baltimore Beating as a reason to support their own home-spun racist ideas on blacks, and have took to YouTube videos to vent their issues. But fortunately, their voices are countered by many who see the real problem, and it's not race, creed, or color.
Some say this incident is a hate crime, but a second review of it looks like it's actually a report of two girls who say a man dressed as a woman, but a man, not a tranny, had got into the woman's restroom.
The video was made by McDonald's Restaurant employee Vernon "Charm" Hackett, who explained, on his now-removed Facebook page, that the "woman" in the video wasn't a woman at all, but a guy with a wig trying to sneak into the woman's bathroom, and did so. The fight reportedly started in the women's bathroom.
Moreover, Hackett said the woman who was on the ground shaking with a seizure, got up when police arrived. But the video version with sound reports that the woman was "Bleeding, YO," by the Hackett, the cameraman.
Even if that's the case and the teenage girls though they were protecting themselves, the beating was still the wrong answer: calling the police was. In fact, what's galling about the video is no one is shown immediately calling the police at all. But there are people in the video who try to intervene and stop the teenagers, who seem intent on carrying out their anger.
ut, given the unfolding evidence, it's hard to believe what some racists want to think: that the two black girls were beating the white "woman" or man just because she or he was white.
There's more to this story; let's hope the truth isn't blocked by racists.
Stay tuned.
Here are the facts.
ReplyDeleteWhite (trans)woman is viciously attacked and beated by two black women.
Black employees do nothing to help, but simply stand back and watch.
One black male videotapes the attack and tells the black attackers on how to escape the coming police.
The only person to offer aid and protection is a white woman.
Now, are you going to try to tell me this had nothing to do with race?
*CONTINUED from previous comment*
ReplyDeleteBy the time you read my comments, you probably will have seen the video interview of Ms. Chrissy Lee Polis which is posted on the Baltimore Sun's website and elsewhere, including LezGetReal.com, in which she discusses her understanding of the attacks. Clearly, she presents fairly authentically as a woman, and not as a 'man' with a prurient interest in sneaking into women's public bathrooms.
Not only does she present as a woman, but she has also undergone sex-reassignment therapy and surgeries, and self-identifies and lives fully as a woman. People who transition are generally required to live and identify fully as their intended post-op gender for at least a year, often much longer, before they can undergo gender re-assignment surgery. This necessarily means that they will use their intended gender's designated restrooms and other gender-specific facilities. Whether they fully present 'authentically' as their intended gender is entirely irrelevant to the factual basis of their gender-identity. In fact, a growing body of scientific evidence suggests a complex neuro-biological basis for gender identity and expression, independent of primary and secondary sexual traits.
I'll leave you links to 2 YouTube videos which explain in excellent detail the scientific basis for our current understanding of gender-identity and expression. The 1st gives a fairly comprehensive explanation and visual demonstration of the neurological basis for transgenderism; the 2nd video discusses the findings of several studies, complete with links to the articles and sources he discusses. Both videos also feature some acerbically funny and brilliant analysis of recent controversies/drama within the YouTube community that are serious, yet are epically lulzworthy, lol!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-3F4IE597M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbP-rVyphrA
Gender-identity and expression are issues no less complex than are issues of race, class, and ethnicity. Ironically, as researchers continue to develop data in these areas, these issues may become more complicated, even as we acquire better answers to these existential questions.
Anyway, thank you for your work covering this story on your YT channel and your blog. I'm sure there'll be many chapters to this story.
PostSurgeOperative
NOTE: This is posted because it was mistakenly delete:
ReplyDeletePostSurgeOperative has left a new comment on your post "Violent Beating In McDonalds Baltimore County; McD...":
Hey Zennie,
I don't think that the allegations of racially-motivated hate crimes in this case suggest simply that the attackers alone were motivated or influenced by the fact that the victim is Caucasian; there is strong evidence of gross criminal negligence on the part of the McDonald's restaurant management, and there are indicia of criminal indifference on the part of many of the witnesses. Additionally, it is clear that there are witnesses who actively abetted these crimes, and unfortunately there is also the appearance of patterns of behavior suggesting the possibility that race may have been a factor in this situation, whether it was overt and intentional racism, or something deeper, either culturally or perhaps even on a subconscious level. Whether case law or criminal statutes affecting the jurisdiction of Baltimore, MD, will allow prosecutors to bring criminal charges against bystanders in this case, I don't know. However, I have little doubt that such evidence will be devastating for the defendants in any possible criminal or civil litigation brought against them.
With regard to your blog post, I have a criticism I must share with you. Zennie, depending on the context in which it is used, the term 'tranny' is considered to be derogatory and offensive by many, if not most, people in the transgender community. In your post you state that the victim appears to be "a man, not a tranny". This makes absolutely no sense in the context of this story because:
a) men can be transgender or transvestite (or even both at the same time), and;
b) strictly speaking, a man who is dressed as a 'woman' is, in the broadest sense (sexist pun intended), literally the definition of 'transvestite'.
Furthermore, the use of the term 'tranny' does not conform to accepted journalistic standards. I hope you will consider revising this blog post for purposes of clarity, and decency.
Consider this snippet from an article posted on the website, LezGetReal.com:
"Fortunately, despite the terrifying amount of physical abuse towards her in the attack, Ms. Polis seems to have suffered no major physical damage. Understandably she is afraid to go out after the attack, a sentiment shared by many other trans woman for who simply going out or using the restroom can put them at risk of violence.
"Despite the boogeyman idea of trans women being men who prey on women in the women’s restroom -- an idea used by people to shoot down trans non-discrimination legislation -- there have been no recorded incidents of it happening. Instead, there are incidents like this, where trans women are attacked or arrested solely for using the restroom."
http://lezgetreal.com/2011/04/mcdonalds-attack-victim-speaks-out/
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