Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: Not Even A Month Into The New Year

Monday, January 09, 2017

Not Even A Month Into The New Year

And the death toll mounts.

Trans Woman Murdered in Mississippi; First of 2017
Mesha Campbell was found shot to death along a rural road Wednesday.
The Advocate
By Trudy Ring
January 06, 2017

A transgender woman was found shot to death on a road in Mississippi this week, and her killing is being investigated as a homicide, meaning she is the first trans murder victim of 2017.

Mesha Campbell’s body was found Wednesday afternoon near Canton in Madison County, in the central part of the state, Jackson TV station WLBT reports. She had been shot several times. Police have not made statements about a motive, but friends believe she may have been killed for being transgender.

Then out in North Dakota,

Jamie Lee Wounded Arrow Is Second Trans Woman Killed in 2017
Community members in North Dakota are mourning the loss of the two-spirit transgender woman.
The Advocate
By Daniel Reynolds
January 08 2017

Another transgender life has been taken in 2017.

Jamie Lee Wounded Arrow is the second reported trans woman to be killed this year, following the homicide investigation of Mesha Campbell in Mississippi.

The native of Sioux Falls, N.D., was discovered by police Friday in her apartment, reports KSFY. Investigators believe her death to be a homicide.

The 28-year-old member of the Oglala Lakota tribe was part of the group Sioux Falls Two-Spirit and Allies, which released a statement on Facebook mourning her loss.

"Tunkasila has called another one of our community members home," the statement read, adding, "Our hearts are broken as we will miss her very much. So again, prayers are needed. Pilamaye."

In Pennsylvania…

Transgender man killed by police responding to domestic violence call
LGBTQ Nation
By Erin Rook
January 8, 2017

A Pennsylvania transgender man was shot and killed by police Friday night after officers responded to a domestic violence call, WKBN reports.

Sean Hake, 23, was killed in the home where he lived. Police have released few details except to confirm that the shooting was officer-involved and that the officer who shot Hake has been placed on administrative leave until the investigation is complete.

The police did not say what role, if any, Hake may have had in the domestic assault that prompted police to show up at his residence. Hake had been previously arrested for violating an order as recently as March 2016, according to WKBN.

Three killed one week in to the new year, it is a sad start.

This afternoon I am at a meeting in Hartford to discuss the 2017 Connecticut Legislative agenda.

No comments:

Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers

Monday, January 09, 2017

Not Even A Month Into The New Year

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