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From: Democracy Now!
Re: Rundown 7-14-03
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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
“You Can Do It For Everybody Else, Why You Can’t
Do It For Her?”: The Sakia Gunn Story
INTRO: Two months after a 15-year-old African-American lesbian
is stabbed to death in Newark, NJ in a vicious hate crime,
friends, family members and community leaders take on the
mayor of New Jersey, the Principal of West Side High School,
the school board, and the national media.
Africa Aftertmath
INTRO: As Bush returns from his five-nation tour of Africa
we go to Uganda to speak with Hellen Wangusa of African Women’s
Economic Policy Network and Nigeria to speak with Environmental
Rights Action’s Oronto Douglas.
8:01-8:10 Headlines
8:10-8:11 One Minute Music Break
8:11-8:20 “You Can Do It For Everybody Else, Why You
Can’t Do It For Her?”: The Sakia Gunn Story
Some 300 people gathered at Sheridan Square in New York City’s
West Village on Friday to remember Sakia Gunn.
Sakia was a fifteen-year-old African-American lesbian. Two
months ago Friday, in the early hours of May 11, she was murdured.
That night, Sakia and her friends traveled from their hometown
of Newark, New Jersey to Chelsea Piers in Manhattan. Scores
and young queer people of color spend their weekend nights
there, where they feel safe and part of a community.
After their evening on the piers, the young group took the
train back to Newark. They walked to the bus stop and waited.
A large police booth stood at the corner. It was unoccupied.
A white station wagon with two men in it pulled up to the
curb. According to one of Sakia’s closest friends, Valencia,
the men started harassing the girls and asking them to come
closer. The girls said no, they weren’t interested.
They explained they are gay.
One of the men got out of the car. He attacked the girls,
holding one of them in a choke-hold. Sakia and Valencia started
fighting him. Sakia hit him. Then he stabbed her in the chest.
The man ran back to his car and sped away. The girls raced
to a car that had stopped at a red light and asked the driver
to take them to the hospital. He did. Sakia died in her friend
Valencia’s arms in the emergency room.
After Sakia’s death, Sakia’s friends created
a memorial where Sakia was stabbed. Hundreds of lesbians of
color turned out there every night until the police cleaned
the sidewalk of Sakia’s blood and dismantled the memorial
of candles, balloons and a basketball (Sakia wanted to become
a professional basketball player with the WNBA). Some three
thousand people turned out for Sakia’s funeral, many
of them young queer people of color.
Since Sakia’s death, the community in Newark has been
demanding the city establish a community center for gay, lesbian
and transgender young people in Newark, so young people don’t
feel they have to go to the City to have a safe place to hang
out. Newark Mayor Sharpe James has promised to establish a
center, but community members say he hasn’t made good
on his promise.
And they are also demanding a greater police presence in
downtown Newark. Mayor James had promised in his election
campaign that police would man the police booth at the very
intersection where Sakia was killed, 24 hours a day.
Community members are also angry at the news media. A professor
at The College of New Jersey compared the number of stories
in major newspaper and broadcast outlets in the two months
after Sakia’s death, with the number of stories on Matthew
Shepard in the two months after his death. In Matthew Shepard’s
case, there were 507 stories. In Sakia Gunn’s case,
there were 11.
On Friday in Manhattan, the vigilers marched from Sheridan
Square in the West Village through the heart of New York City’s
gay district down Christopher Street, to the Piers where Sakia
spent her last night.
There, one of Sakia’s closest friends, Spanky Ross,
did her best to address the crowd.
- Spanky Ross, one of Sakia’s best friends, speaking
at the vigil in Manhattan on Friday, July 11. She left the
stage in tears.
- Laquetta Nelson, founder of New Jersey Stonewall Democrats,
and organizer of the Newark Pride Alliance.
Contact: email: gpc1999@aol.com
mail: P.O. Box 1717, Newark, NJ 07106.
The Mayor of Newark, Mayor Sharpe James can be reached at:
Mayor Sharpe James
920 Broad Street
Room 200 City Hall
Newark, New Jersey 07102
973-733-6400 (office)
973-733-5325 (fax)
And the New Jersey governor can be reached at:
Governor James E. Mc Greevey
The State House
P.O. Box 001
Trenton, New Jersey 08625
609-777-2459 (office)
609-777-4082 (fax)
- Catherine Cuomo-Cecere, Director of Health and Human
Services for the City of Newark. Can also call her Cathy
Link: www.ci.newark.nj.us
- Jamon Marsh, one of Sakia Gunn’s girlfriends
- Kim Pearson, Professor, The College of New Jersey. Professor
Pearson did a media analysis of the number of stories on
the murder of Matthew Shepard, vs. the murder of Sakia Gunn.
In the 2 months after Shepard’s death, she discovered
507 stories on Matthew Shepard in the major newspapers and
broadcast outlets. In the 2 months after Sakia Gunn’s
death, she found 11 on Sakia Gunn.
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:21-8:40 Sakia Gunn, Part II
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:45 – 8:58 Africa Aftertmath
INTRO: As Bush returns from his five-nation tour of Africa
we go to Uganda to speak with Hellen Wangusa of African Women’s
Economic Policy Network and Nigeria to speak with Environmental
Rights Action’s Oronto Douglas.
President Bush wrapped up his five-day, five-nation tour
of Africa in Nigeria on Saturday.
Bush swept through his first, highly-publicized visit to
the continent. He started off in Senegal where he spent just
15 minutes in the Slave House on Goree Island after visiting
the capital, Dakar. After encountering large protests in Pretoria,
South Africa, he traveled to Botswana where he stayed a total
of 6 hours. The next stop was Uganda where he was scheduled
to stay for just 3 hours, 15 minutes – less time than
it took him to fly there from South Africa. This according
to The New York Times.
Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer, cranking
out more than 2 million barrels a day. Nearly 750,000 barrels
of Nigeria’s oil go to the United States every day.
That is 8 percent of total U.S. crude oil imports.
Activists noted one of the goals of the visit was to persuade
Nigeria to opt out of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries, known as OPEC.
Bush was accompanied by a large entourage of corporate executives
in Abuja, including Chevron Texaco CEO and chairman Dave O’Reilly.
Other transnational corporations represented included Exxon-Mobil
and Shell Petroleum.
Bush did not publicly raise concerns about human rights in
Nigeria or last year's elections, which most foreign observers
said were fraudulent.
As Bush left Nigeria he repeated his demands that the Liberian
President, Charles Taylor, resign to pave the way for a new
administration in the troubled West African nation.
More information about the events surrounding Bush’s
visit to Goree Island are emerging.
An email to Democracy Now! from ABANTU for Development, a
non-governmental organization focused on development in Africa,
described Bush’s visit to Goree Island:
“The local population was chased out of their houses
from 5 to 12 AM. They were forced by the American security
to leave their houses and leave everything open, including
their wardrobes to be searched by special dogs brought from
the US. The ferry that links the island to Dakar was stopped
and offices and businesses closed for the day.
“According to an economist who was interviewed by a
private radio, Senegal which is a very poor country, has lost
huge amount of money in this visit, because workers have been
prevented from walking out of their homes.
“In addition to us being prevented to go out, other
humiliating things happened also. Not only Bush brought did
not want to be with Senegalese but he did not want to use
our things. He brought his own armchairs, and of course his
own cars, and meals and drinks. He came with his own journalists
and ours were forbidden inside the airport and in place he
was visiting.
Our president was not allowed to make a speech. Only Bush
spoke when he was in Goree. He spoke about slavery. It seems
that he needs the vote of the African American to be elected
in the next elections, and wanted to please them. That's why
he visited Goree.
- Hellen Wangusa, African Women’s Economic Policy
Network speaking from Kampala, Uganda.
- Oronto Douglas, Environmental Rights Action speaking
from Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Contact: www.eranigeria.org
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie
Karran, Sharif Abdul Kouddous, Lenina Nadal, Ana Nogueira,
and Elizabeth Press. Mike Di Filippo is our music maestro
and engineer.
[Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Rafael delaUz, Gabriel Weiss, Johnny Sender,
Rich Kim, Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Jenny
Filipazzo and Ionnis Mookas.
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