Ebisu Publications

This is what was, and what might have been.

Ebisu Publications black and white header image of vines and flowers

Tag: FBI

  • Hate Crimes and Dubious Statistics

    Gay Liberation Front Gay Liberation Front members, NYC–the police were major perpetrators of hate crimes against us

    I don’t remember exactly when Lydia French was murdered, but I’m sure it was a hate crime. It had to be either 1969 or 1970, during the early days of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). What we know is that she let someone into her apartment and he shot her in the back of the head. We know that her father was a right-wing army officer, and that he was appalled to find what his daughter had become—not only a lesbian, but a member of that “commie” group, the GLF. After the murder he left the country and was rumored to be in Canada, hiding out.

    The New York City police came to a GLF meeting, asking for bits of information that might help them find the perpetrator. No one came forward. I doubt if anyone knew anything, but if we did, why would we give it to people who might turn around and use it against us? The sworn officers were our sworn enemies. Gay sex was illegal in those days, as was cross dressing or even dancing close with a member of your own sex. The police frequently raided gay bars, arrested the patrons, beat us, and disclosed our identities to employers, landlords, and parents—which usually resulted in loss of jobs and homes, and alienation from family. If a gang of gay-bashers attacked one of us, the last thing we’d do is report it to law enforcement.

    People didn’t use the term hate crime in those days, and the FBI didn’t collect hate crime statistics until legally mandated to do so in 1990. Based on my previous experience, though, I can’t put much credence in their numbers. This week, for example, the NY Times quoted FBI statistics for 2014: “…anti-Muslim hate crimes represented 16.3 percent of the total of 1,092 reported offenses motivated by religious bias. Antisemitism still led the way as a motive for these crimes, at 58.2 percent.”

    Really? Since 9/11 the FBI and various local police forces have spent a lot of taxpayer money spying on Muslim communities and sending agents provocateurs to entrap people into crimes they would not have committed otherwise. (In a previous post, I wrote about the FBI trying to entrap me in 1970.) If I were a Muslim, I would want to avoid the authorities as much as possible. American Jews, on the other hand, have moved up the social scale and generally feel that the authorities are on our side, so we are more likely to report. Antisemitic crimes may not be more frequent than anti-Muslim crimes, just more reported.

    The same is likely true of other minorities, such as blacks or Hispanics. Would you call the police about a hate crime, when you or a member of your family could easily end up beaten, jailed, shot, or deported? And what about women? Rape and sexual assaults are hate crimes, though they aren’t classified as such because misogyny surrounds us like the air we breathe. Most women don’t report rape because they know it’s likely that they’ll be blamed and the rapist will go free.

    As long as we have a social hierarchy and cops who are paid to enforce it, as long as we have politicians who batten on sadism and encourage it among their followers, we won’t know the true prevalence of hate crimes. Or at any rate, we won’t get that information from the authorities.

    Reminder: holiday sale price for The Stars in Their Courses continues through the end of December. Send $10 to Ebisu Publications, 9026 N. Syracuse Street, Portland OR 97203. No extra charge for postage this month.

  • The FBI and me

    FBI agent

    This month I read about a young Muslim couple—he is 22 and she, 19—arrested in Mississippi. Their crime was trying to travel abroad to join the Islamic state. Apparently they had been exchanging emails with an FBI agent pretending to be an Islamist, and he’d encouraged them in this endeavor. These young people hadn’t committed any violent acts or even, as far as I know, crossed the street against the light, but they are facing 20-year sentences.

    In 2010, 19-year-old Mohamed Mohamud was charged with attempting to bomb the Christmas tree lighting in Portland, OR. Some months before, his father had contacted the FBI, asking for help, because Mohamud was exchanging emails with an Islamist recruiter. Instead of confronting the youth and warning him to keep his nose clean, FBI agents masqueraded as Islamists, concocted the plot, supplied him with a fake bomb, and then arrested him. He is now serving 30 years.

    After Mohamud’s arrest, I happened to have a conversation with an FBI employee about it. He was distressed on behalf of the young man’s family, who felt betrayed by our government. However, he said, a few people must be sacrificed to convince the majority that there is an FBI agent hiding on every corner. I argued with him, but in the end, I believe, he had to rationalize what the organization had done so he could keep working for them.

    In 1969 I was part of the women’s collective that published Rat, a so-called “underground” newspaper. Our members had different points of view, and the articles we published reflected that. I came from the Gay Liberation Front. Other members were oriented toward the Cuban revolution, or militant socialism, or radical feminism; one followed Yippie politics, and I think three were part of the Weather Underground. These last three never used their real names and kept to themselves. In November 1969 one member—Jane Alpert—was arrested for blowing up buildings. I was 25 then, and it was the height of the Vietnam War. At times I doubted my own antiwar convictions, wondering if the Weather Underground was right, and I simply lacked the courage to “bring the war home.”

    During my time at Rat, an elderly neighbor told me that the FBI had tried to question her about me. She had told them nothing—reasonably enough, since all she did know was that we lived in the same building. Then a man I can only assume was an FBI agent provocateur offered to teach me how to assassinate people. I got away from him as fast as I could.

    Maybe it was cowardice, or embryonic smarts. Maybe it was the awareness of my own limitations that kept me writing and speaking and going to demonstrations, rather than committing acts of violence. Whatever the reason, I managed to avoid entrapment and prison. I feel sorry for those young people who have been entrapped, whose lives have been sacrificed to feed the reputation and swell the budget of the national security state.