New York –
This evening, Clarence Patton, the Executive Director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project will participate in Intolerance, Injustice & Intersectionality: Opening a Dialogue, a panel discussion being hosted by the Princeton University Black Graduate Caucus and other campus groups.
The panel will explore the roles that the media, the police and the public play in creating a climate that normalizes violence and intolerance against individuals that stand at the intersection of marginal identities. The launching point for the discussion will be the still-unsolved murder of 19 year-old Rashawn Brazell. Brazell, a gay, black Brooklyn native, was killed in February 2005; his dismembered body parts were found in subway tunnels stuffed into garbage bags.
"One year after the horrible discovery of Rashawn's murder, this panel is one testament to the impact that his death has had on so many of us," said Patton. "Which victims receive broad attention and which ones do not is an ongoing discussion and source of frustration within the Anti-Violence Project, but one that we know occurs much less frequently in the general public," continued Patton. "However, this panel is evidence that Rashawn's murder has helped to change the silence greeting so many tragedies in our community, particularly those involving younger people, poorer people and people of color," concluded Patton.
Besides Patton, other panel participants will include Kai Wright, a freelance journalist and contributor to the Village Voice, Out Magazine and Poz magazine, Kwame Anthony Appiah, the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, and Desire Brazell, the mother of Rashawn Brazell.
Other Princeton sponsors of the panel are: The Queer Graduate Caucus, The Black Student Union, The LGBT Center, The Carl Fields Center, and The Graduate School Office.
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In 2005, the Anti-Violence Project served over 2,000 victims of violence. AVP's annual reports on hate and domestic violence can be accessed online at www.avp.org.
The Anti-Violence Project is the nation's largest service agency for victims of bias crimes against the lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, and HIV-affected communities. Since 1980, AVP has provided counseling and advocacy for tens of thousands of survivors of bias-motivated and domestic violence, rape and sexual assault, HIV-related violence, and police misconduct. AVP documents incidents of violence against and within LGTB communities, educates the public about the effects of violence, against or within our communities, and works to reform public policies impacting all lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, and HIV-affected people.
AVP provides free and confidential assistance to crime victims through its 24-hour bilingual hotline (212-714-1141).
