The first thing I saw was the "Die Fags Die" banner across the top of the tunnel. I winced and felt my body shudder just a bit when I saw that D.'s beautifully drawn Keith Harring figure had been marred by the epitaph "Kill all fags here." But I didn't start crying until I turned and saw that the "Glad" in "B-GLAD" had been marked out and replaced by the word "dead."
I hugged myself and managed to keep from wretching as I viewed the awful hate and violence that had spewed from the paint cans. "Have you killed a fag today?" "God hates fags." "You will all die of the gay disease." Pink triangles and intertwined men's and women's symbols had been given faces, complete with bullet holes in the foreheads. The chalk outline on the ground, again with a bullet hole in the forehead, chilled me nearly as much as the wind. I held myself tighter, shivering from anger and fear as much as from the cold.
"How could anyone do this? How can anyone still have so much ignorance and hate?" I asked myself, both aloud and in my head, over and over again. The guy from the equal opportunity office silently took notes, documenting each and every one of the over 50 death threats and the assorted icons and anti-gay slogans on the tunnel walls, ceiling, and floor. Students occasionally stopped to make a comment or to console me. A few guys giggled as they walked through and read stuff out loud. They only giggled once. I was in no mood to take shit from anyone.
At ASU the tunnels are used by a variety of groups and individuals for expression, advertisement, artwork, etc. B-GLAD painted those tunnels last Tuesday for NCOD. They were undisturbed until last night when "4-5 random looking guys" took it upon themselves to seek vengeance against us.
My B-Gladders were heart-wrenching. The expressions of pain, hurt, shock, anger, and fear made me tear up over and over again. We returned to the tunnels to vent and seek support as we viewed this verbal violence. Our cohesion helps us deal with the stress.
We've had some response. The university police have been less responsive than I'd like, but agreed to report it as a hate crime and seemed to understand that we have a risk for gay bashing on campus. They promise to follow up if there are any leads. We seem to be the only ones looking for leads. <:sigh, frown> The Equal Opportunity office sent the man mentioned above over to investigate. The president of the student senate and a few senators and cabinet members came over to view the crime scene and to take photographs.
We decided to leave it up for another day. We received a lot of support (and some information on the perpetrators) while we stood in the tunnels. We planned to paint over it on Thursday. But, the last time I went by the tunnel tonight two women I did not know were toiling away, painting over some of the stuff. I just backed out of the tunnel and started crying again, 'cos there are some really good people out there too.
Mary, whose life changed a bit today.
