March 22, 2023 • 51 mins
In the finale of this special four-part episode, Margaret continues her conversation with Shereen Younes about the early fight for LGBT rights and how it was a literal fight, fought on every front.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hellow, we're starting to fall apart without Sophie. We really are.
This is cool people who did cool stuff. I'm Maggie,
that's Sharine. There's no Sophie. There's no Sophie. There's no
power where you are, So that's true. I'm literally recording
this on my backup battery because I'm a prepper and
(00:21):
my power is out because I live. Yeah, and y'all
are worth it. This is what how do you mean
to us? That's right? Ian as our audio engineer on
Woman wrote our theme music, and Stonewall is why I
briefly had rights as a transperson. That's what we're talking
about today, Stonewall. This is part four. Go listen to
the other parts. Yes, or you're a sucker. What are
(00:44):
you fucking doing if you're not doing that together? So
Stonewall is sort of used to getting rated. They paid
off the cops, so they usually had a heads up
when the cops rolled in. The bartenders would jump over
the bar and pretend to be patrons so they wouldn't
get singled out, which is pretty clever, honestly. And usually
(01:04):
they got rated, like I said, early in the night
and on weeknights, but not this time. On weekends, the
bars crowded as fuck. The floor plans say maximum occupancy
was around one hundred and eighty people or some shit,
but there were usually at least two hundred people there
on weekends. At the time of the raid. There were
like different estimates put it between like two hundred two
hundred and ten or so people. And there's no fire
(01:27):
exits in this place that has already burned only a
few years back, like five years earlier. This place is burned.
There's no fire exits and no crowding it because people
are desperate fucking dance. Yeah, I mean life back then
wasn't exactly great. Yeah, you gotta get your kicks where
you or you could, right, right, So now we're going
to introduce this week's villain. Though he's kind of a
(01:50):
he's like an anti villain, Like he's still a villain,
but you know how like an anti hero is like
a hero who kind of sucks. Right, he's the villain,
but he's that doesn't suck completely. Yeah, I mean, he's
like doing awful, awful things. His actions absolutely suck, but
his like motivation is interesting. It's a clash of moralities.
(02:12):
His name is Deputy police Inspector seymour Pine, and he's
a veteran cop. He's been a cop almost thirty years
by nineteen sixty nine. He took a break from being
a cop to go fight the Nazis. And he had
the specific unique thing going for him that set him
aside from other cops at the time. He wasn't corrupt.
WHOA wow, ye, I didn't expect that to be what
(02:34):
you were going to say, to be honest, surprise, surprise.
And what I find so interesting about this guy, what
I kind of like about him is, from my point
of view, this is like strong evidence against the institution
of police, because this guy should have ruled. He wanted
to do what was right. He was actually and genuinely
a lawful person as far as I can tell, but
since laws are shitty, judges a morality, he runs around
(02:57):
and puts people into cages for a living. And and
he probably wasn't personally a bigot, but he was an
agent of a bigoted system. And the difference matters inasmuch
as we can understand those systems and dismantle them. And
years later he said, quote, if what I did helped
gay people, then I'm glad. Well yeah, and he's not
(03:19):
being self congratulatory. I think he's acknowledging his role in
this like bad system. In a later documentary, he says, quote,
you knew they broke the law, but what kind of
law was it? Well, okay, see wore Okay, yeah, I know.
I mean he's about to go beat up people and
fondle their genitals and shit. Like he's not like, he's like,
(03:40):
I didn't know it's gonna going that far down. Okay, Yeah,
I mean like because because that's because he's rating the place, right,
and that's was involved in rating a place. And he
talks a bunch on TV shows and shit about that
night about how they saw themselves as fighting the mafia,
but that they arrested gay people as a part of
it to boost their arrest numbers, because arresting gay people
was so easy because quote, they never gave you any trouble. Well,
(04:03):
but you know, so he raided Stonewall specifically what happened
first as two women undercover went in posing as a
butch fem couple. At least one of them had been
coming to the bar for a while. It's just pretend
they're ganging. In quotes, they just love to do that,
loves to role play. Okay, yeah, exactly. Yeah, So this
(04:23):
woman posing as a gay woman who may or may
not have been posing, you know who knows. Yeah, one
twenty in the morning, they raid. They've given no warnings.
The bars crowded as fuck, everyone's drunk, and the night
was like really getting going, and a tiny handful of
cops think they could take the place down, like literally,
that guy Pines walks in and says police were taking
the place him. I think it's so. I've read four
(04:48):
and I've read eight, and there's a I'm sure someone
knows the exact actual answer, but still very little people. Wait,
So at this point, sorry if I'm dropping around. At
this point, the mafia is a protecting them anymore, Like
they're not getting paid off, So they are. But what
it is is he works for the vice squad the
public morality right, okay squad or whatever, and so he
(05:11):
is not part of the paid off cops. An actually
tension between the paid off cops and him play a
role in it later Okay, okay, good to know. And
so Maggie Jigs are acid dealing bartender. She jumps over
the bar with the money when and then when the
cops question her, she's like, oh, this is my money
as a cigarette girl, and they let her go. And
(05:33):
later later the mafia is like, all right, you got
away with the money, right, and she's like, oh no,
I'm sorry. They they got it all fucking badass, I know. Um,
So they demand ID s making to make sure everyone
is dressed in gender appropriate clothing, and the cops are
(05:53):
saying all kinds of homophobic shit that I'm not going
to repeat. Mister Pine is clearly not stopping them. Maybe
he's doing it himself, and and some of the queens
are like, you know what, fuck you fuck this, And
people start refusing to show ID, and they like pull
all the queens aside to one place and like show
ID and like start being really shitty and and they're
(06:14):
like not fuck you. And so the cops like, fine,
we're resting basically everyone, but a crowd is starting to
gather outside. This is the fucking gighborhood. And so as
arrested people are let out of the bar, they start
like striking poses and the bar and the crowd is
like shouting out, like applause meter range, I give it
a seven. You know, as the incredible. Yeah, yeah, And
(06:39):
a pigmobile shows up to take the arrest rested people
a van arrest vanum, and the crowd starts changing and
people start to boo no. Someone shouts gay power and
they start singing we shall overcome okay, and the cops
they call for backup. They get on their radio, they
(07:00):
offer backup, and then, as I've heard it, someone unknown
with a police radio was basically like, never mind that
order ignore it. Well, that is some I mean, that's
like cinematic shit, you know, it's just like, yeah, sneaky.
And so there's like two main guesses about what this is,
(07:21):
and the most likely one is that the corrupt cops
from I can't remember what precincts, six precincts or something,
they're like, what the fuck, don't shut down? Or a
cash cow they're like, no, don't send back up, you know,
because they get paid a fuck ton of money. Do
he takes place from going down? Yeah? They get paid
enough to never worry about anything ever again. Yeah, totally. Um,
(07:42):
if you pay me two thousand dollars a week now,
i'd be set, you know, yeah, I would protect you
until I tie. Yeah, And it's also possible that there
was a gay activist with a radio in the place,
and then the the like least likely but sort of
fun thing that I've someone says maybe it was that
gig the lady cop was like getting second thoughts, you know,
(08:05):
that very likely. I think my first thought was that
like someone stole the radio, but it probably was one
of the cops. That that's also possible. Yeah, my thought
was like someone sold the radio and they were like nope,
just kidding, yeah, no, which which would be that would
be the coolest thing. Yeah, you know. And so there's
an awful lot of what sit off the riot talk.
(08:26):
It's part of the everyone trying to own stonewall thing
because people want to not also because people want to
not be left out right. So a lot of it
is like oh, this trans woman through the first brick
or whatever, or you know, um, and there's a lot
of different but there's a lot of different inciting incidents
and what I think matters. So I'm not going to
say this one was first. This one wasn't first. What
(08:47):
I'm going to say is that this riot was something
else participated in by the larger queer community. Um, there's
like almost not an identity that isn't represented in this riot.
And there were a lot of inciting incidents, and first
and foremost, I will also say some of the stuff
I've seen about this is like, and then the violence
started when someone punched back, and I'm like, that's not No.
(09:08):
Violence starts when someone hits someone, which the cops are
doing already. The cops started the violence. What gets called
the violence is when it suddenly becomes two way violence. Interesting,
I mean checks out as far as cop behavior goes,
yea wi yeah, And so you know, because okay, the police.
There's not only the violence of forcing people to strip
(09:30):
so you can like see or grab their fucking junk,
but also, for example, a queen who was being let
out the door was punched in the face by a cop.
In response, queens started throwing coins at the cop. A reference,
they started throwing pennies, basically being like, hey, we already
bought you bitches, Like what the fuck are you doing?
You know, here's the more money, fuck you? You know. Yeah, yeah,
there's a butch lesbian in men's clothes who really actively
(09:53):
wanted to not get arrested. This was probably a black
lesbian named Stormy de Laverney. She denied this for years,
and then later she was like, yeah, it was me.
She got led to the policeman, but she broke free
and got back to the crowd, so the cops grabbed
her again, took her to the police fan, so she
broke free again. This happened repeatedly. Finally she shouted, why
(10:17):
don't you guys do something, and then probably decked a cop. Well,
another inciting incident, and that last one is the one
that has the most eyewitness accounts. Another inciting incident was
a stocking and high healed leg kicked a cop in
the chest from inside the arrest wagon. But the image
is beautiful to me. And then another queen smashes a
(10:40):
cop with her purse. Meanwhile, some handcuffed people escape, including
our man, the skull, the mother ed Murphy. I would
be surprised if they were able to keep him in restraint.
It I know custody at all well, And the way
he gets away, at least the way he says that
they got away, and there's no reason to disbelieve him,
is he's handcuffed to another guy. And so they hop
(11:03):
in a cab and the cabby is gay and speeds
them off. To another gay bar that's like a kink bar,
like a fetish bar, and the fetish guys are like, yeah,
of course we have handcuff keys and let them go.
That is so funny. I'm I know. Um. So back
at Stonewall, the cops are like, oh, this is this
(11:27):
is bad. We are outnumbered and also bad people. They
might not have realized the second part they should have,
but right not yeah, um, but they realized they're outnumbered.
Copwagons speed off with whoever they could get some speed
away on slash tires. One of the people who was
in this crowd is this anarchist folk singer named Dave
(11:47):
von Ronk, and he's straight. He just fucking hated cops. Yeah,
he was at the restaurant down the street. He's like,
oh shit, it's on. So this guy, Dave and Ronk,
he's not really remembered much now, but his mentees like
Bob Dylan are much more famous. Okay. And he wrote
(12:10):
the arrangement for House of the Rising Sun that everyone plays.
I'm usually kind of sick. Yeah. Yeah. The version of
the Animals play, which is the same as Bob Dylan's version,
is his version of it. Okay, I'm pretty sick of
that story. But then I listened to his version after
learning this fact, I actually really like it. He's a
(12:30):
way fucking better singer than Bob Dylan, although that doesn't
take a lot. Dan is a contentious I don't think
this is like he's a songwriter, you know, Oh yeah, yeah,
let's let's go with that. He's my evidence that as
a man, you don't have to be good at singing
in order to make it, but women have to be
both good songwriters and fucking amazing vocalists. Yes, there are
(12:53):
many evidences of that. I think, yeah, both ways, So
I agree. I agree, Oh, Dave, he's in the crowd
and the cops grab him and they drag him inside
stonewall and they handcuff him to a radiator and beat
him almost to unconsciousness, and then they barricade the door
(13:16):
and lock themselves in from the rioting crowd outside so
they can beat him in peace. Like you know, I
think what it is is that they're like, they're scared
and outnumbered by this crowd that's become a riot, and
so they're like, fuck, get inside, get inside. And they're
like in the middle of arresting this guy, this is
my best yes, And so they drag him inside with
them and also locked in there with them as like
(13:38):
a reporter from I think The Village Voice who was
just like happy to be there and was like ah,
I was like hiding and then was like in the
bar well And so characters show up for this Yeah, yeah, totally,
and so they're all fucking the cops are barricaded inside
the place, and later, since they've beaten our guy dave up,
they have to charge him with assault. Because that's like literally,
(14:00):
whenever I hear someone got arrest for assaulting officer, I
assume it means they got assaulted by an officer. Yes,
that's very good to assume. Yeah. And Pine, that cop
who you know, the one who was seeing more Pine, Yeah,
seemore Pine. He'd been in combat, right, And later he
said that being barricaded inside the club was the most
scared he'd been in his life. WHOA. And to that,
(14:20):
I say, good, Yeah, I mean I know he said
some nice things later, but that moment fucking good. Yeah.
I'm glad he survived, I guess, right, But like, uh,
you know what, I don't think it's helpful to have
that good apple because that's more are going to have
a good apple, Like I obviously I wish I mean,
(14:42):
that's what. That's not true. I was gonna say I
wish death to no one. That's not true. But I
do think sometimes that narrative and also just like it's
it's very convenient in retrospect to have that point of view. First,
there is no good thing at a good cop everywhere,
and so I think the narrative of like being like, oh, this,
(15:05):
this is an example of why we need them and
they have they're good yeah, morels or whatever, it's like, no,
it's just a fucking that's more prope cop shit. I
don't know. Well, from my point of view, the fact
that he's a good cop is exactly why copying is bad, right,
And that's why there is no good cop is because
this person who should have been a good cop by
all standards. Yeah yeah, yeah, not corrupt, like literally all
(15:29):
this went down because he was trying to not be corrupt.
He went and oppressed the ship out of some people,
you know, and like literally the corrupt cops are like
more on the side of gays and even though they
probably hate gays more yeah, right, and all but they're
all selfishly financially motivated, right, they would never support the
mother was like, yeah, right, totally. So anyway, they're barricaded
(15:54):
inside the building. The crowd breaks out the window and
starts escorting lighter fluid into the room. Whoa. Um. But
then in the nick of the time, and just in
the nick of time from the cops point of view,
and probably from the folk singer's point of view, more
riot cops show up before they all get burned alive
in the building. Um, well that's the thing. It's like,
(16:16):
so that because he's handcuffed to a radiator and the
crowd's about to burn the building down, is it just
him inside with the cops and the greenwich the village voice,
Oh right, okay, yeah, no, all all of the patrons
have all been kicked out by now. Yeah, okay, so
the riot squad shows up, and they show up with
amazing deals on goods and services. I was genuinely hanging
(16:42):
on that word. I was like, what do you what
did they go with? No, they came bearing ads. I
guess I don't know. Okay, that's that's good, that's good.
Just go with it. All right, we're back and the
(17:03):
crowd didn't run. The riot cops show up, and they're
probably like, ow, stomp these fucking queers. I mean, they've
already gone through so much, like what backing down it?
Then it's like, right, yeah, yeah, why fucking bother in
for a penny and for throwing pennies at cops, in
for pounding cops. Yeah, So they form a kick line.
(17:24):
I think it's only a couple of people, but they
form a kick line and start doing like high kicks
and singing these songs as the riot cops approach. Because
I love queers, That's why they these all these imagery
is beautiful, you know, like, yeah, damn queers know how
to riot, I know, especially with this next line in
the melee, one source claims that a cop was a
(17:44):
bit so hard he needed medical treatment. That makes me
so happy, And I think that makes me sick, but
it makes me feeally happy to hear that. Yeah, I
feel like that's my fighting style, to be honest. YEA
of all the fighting styles I've heard, I don't think
I would be able to like beat graceful or anything.
But I could bite someone, I believe you. So that's
(18:05):
that's my role. But yeah, beautiful, beautiful tactics all around. Yeah.
The most grievous injury that happened at Stonewall riots as
a teenager, a queer teenager lost two fingers that were
slammed into a card door U. And that was the
and that was I mean, you know, it was more
ins and outs. But at three thirty five am, the
(18:26):
first day's riot was over, but the media covered it,
so crowds came out the next night also, And at
first it was like a big block party. The veterans
of the previous night took center stage and they like
kissed and posed for photos, and cheerleaders led chance of
gay power and it fucking rules. Right. The riot police came,
(18:48):
but there were thousands of people because the media basically
gave them promotion or like attention. Yeah, yeah, and so
the riot cops would attack, but these people already knew
what twenty twenty protesters later learned. B water when the
police approach, back up and reconvene, you know, so the
cops would like make an attack and everyone just back off. Yeah.
(19:11):
Martha P. Johnson, she's the super red Black queen. She's
often credited as throwing the first brick at stone wall
or something, or sometimes she's credited as throwing a shot
glass at the mirror and screaming I've got my civil rights.
But she's very clear that the night before she wasn't
there when the riots started. She showed up at two
am and threw down. But the next day, the second
(19:34):
night of riots, I have a question. Sorry, yeah, what
does she say she did? She says she showed up
at two am and threw down, but she doesn't say
like I threw the first note rick or like shock. Okay, okay,
interesting to know. Yeah, No, although Sylvia Rivera, who will
talk about in a second, That'll be an interesting question
with her. Okay, So Martha P. Johnson, second night of riots,
(19:57):
climbs a lamp post with a with a bag with
a brick in it and drops it on a cop
car and smashes up the window. And the sheer athleticism
of climbing a lamppost with a bag with a brick
in it. Wow, I'm in fucking awe. That's Olympic type shit.
I that's athleticism used correctly. Yeah, totally. And then Sylvia
(20:22):
Rivera is a Puerto Rican transwoman who identified as a
queen at the time who was part of all of
this too, And she's she's one of Marsha's best friends,
and she probably wasn't at the first night of riots.
She was, by most accounts high and or asleep in
a park nearby, Okay, and she spent an awful lot
(20:44):
of time telling people that she was there. However, I'm
not trying to talk shit on her. She rules and
did a fuck ton of amazing activism and I hate
bringing her up only to point out that she wasn't there.
I'm just trying to mythbust a little bit because these
are the two people horse sort of like often presented
as the right, the people who kicked it off. I mean,
(21:04):
and it's curious to know how that rumor or whatever
starts right or like how that information starts to get spread. Yeah,
And I think with her, I think it's her being like, oh, yeah,
that's totally there, right exactly, And I mean, whatever, I'm
fucking I could see myself doing that too. So night too,
there's a big riot. Queers and allies are fighting cops
(21:25):
and there's a lot of contentious stuff about who did
what fighting, and like there's like one part that's like
and then the anarchists fucked up everything by showing up
or whatever, and like every time I read that, I'm like, yeah,
of course, yeah, Like I never heard that one before.
But then all the gays started getting along and everyone
(21:46):
got their rights because of Stonewall. Just kidding, And I'm
sure we'll I'll, I'm sure on future episodes I'll talk
more about post Stonewall stuff too. But Stonewall wasn't the
first gay riot, but it was a turning point and
the queer movement moved from assimilationist deliberationist. But there's one
more riot story I want to tell you, one that
(22:07):
I didn't know about, and one that's left out of
mainstream discourse time and time again, because this riot on
Stonewall wasn't the only riot on that street that night
that was directly related to all of this. I don't
know that. So Okay, there's a thing that I've either
talked about on the show or I wrote it in
(22:27):
one of the scripts I haven't recorded yet. I don't
remember because my brain doesn't work that way. There's a
thing called the Panther twenty one. There's a group of
people called the Panther twenty one. The short of it
is that they're twenty one Black Panthers in New York
City in nineteen sixty nine, same time all this stuff happens,
they were framed up on some bullshit charges that kept
them tied up in jails and courts for years. And
it was part of this whole thing that split the
(22:50):
Black Panthers, specifically the New York East Coast in general,
but New York in particular. One of these Panthers she's
most famous now is Tupac Shakur's mom. And her name
is Yes, Yeah, I love her, love them Yeah, And
she's gonna she's gonna be even cooler. Well, she was
already this cool, but I learned more cool stuff about
(23:11):
her that I didn't know. She already fucking rules. She
joined the movement, She converted to Islam, She became a leader.
She helped establish the Harlem Breakfast program for kids. She
was twenty one when she was arrested as one of
the Panther twenty one in April nineteen sixty nine in
a coordinated series of thirteen raids on Panther houses. So
about I can't do math, but like two or so
(23:32):
months before before Stonewall and This is a frame up right.
The Panther twenty one didn't do these things. I'm sure
they were doing illegal things, but this is not what
they were framed up for. And I was saying that
they were going to like bomb department stores. And no
dynamite was found in any of the thirteen raids, but
that doesn't matter to cops. They got tips in court
(23:52):
for years. She got locked up into a place called
the Women's House of Detention, which overlooks Christopher's Street and
the Stonewall In In fact, she was locked up across
the street when the Stonewall riots happened. Okay, And a
part of the story of the riot that's left out
is that the women in the House of Detention saw
(24:15):
the riot and started rioting. How is that left out?
That is crucial info that I should have known, especially
because it's like two box your core's mom, Like, I know,
come on, I assume a combination of leaving out black people,
leaving out lesbians, leaving out with struggles, and leaving all
anti carcerol. Right, that's that all the above, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(24:40):
and you know, and also a lot of people like
I didn't know this until I actually shout out to
Hugh Ryan, who wrote a book called The Women's House
of Detention. I think that's what's called. And he Ryan's
a former guest on this podcast. You can listen to
me talk to him about stuff, and you know, he
was like, oh cool. I hit him up and I
was like, what am I going to miss about Stonewall?
And he's like, of the part about you know, a
(25:02):
phemie sheicorps rioting across the street. And I was like,
I do not. You know, that's so cool. That's so
cool to Nill, Like she was already so fucking cool. Yeah,
I don't know. I thought she couldn't get cooler. I
was wrong. Yeah, And so at during Stonewall, women in
the prison started burning shit, throwing burning mattresses out of
(25:23):
the windows of the prison, screaming gay rights at the
top of their lungs, so that's they could be heard
from the street below. Like one of the one of
the people who showed up later to the riots, it
was like, oh fuck it, like ran off to go
to the riots, like heard the first rioting that that
this person heard was women in the prison screaming gay
power or gay rights. Eight women used that night to
(25:47):
Try and Escape. Author Hugh Ryan, veteran guests the Pod,
wrote the book him Women's House of Detention. He wrote, quote,
for far too long, our frame of reference for Stonewall
has been too small, cropping the story down to a
narrow slip of its true self, and then enlarging that
image until it blosts out everything else. The memory of
these eight women has fallen into the crack between what
(26:07):
happened and what we remember. Research as I might, I
cannot bridge the divide, which is to say that those
eight women, he knows their first names, and he never
he wasn't able to find out more information about them.
You know, it's hard to know the sexuality of all
the women in the prison, though their shouts of gay
power could be heard from the street, so it probably
wasn't just one or two gay people in there. But
(26:28):
we do know the sexuality of at least two of
the women in the House of Detention, a Fani Shakur
and her fellow panther twenty one arrestee Joan Bird spoiler
they're queer. Hey. After the panther arrests and Stonewall, some
leftist queers were like, hey, the gay movement should protest
the Women's House of Detention and support of the Panthers,
(26:50):
and the conservative folks were like, no, we can't do that.
That rocks the boat. Yeah, exactly, so the rowdy queers.
They formed the Gay Liberation Front. Usually people talk about
the glf's first protest being at the Village Voice demanding
the right to advertise in the paper. I think, but
(27:10):
months earlier the first protest they did. They protested alongside
the Panthers at the House of Detention. Because prison abolition
and support for black power get written out of history.
They returned to the House of Detention, I believe weekly
just being like, no, but these motherfuckers go And in response,
(27:30):
perhaps in response to this, or maybe just off his
own volition, Hughey Pugh Newton, co founder of the Panthers,
announced in nineteen seventy that the Panthers were making common
cause with the feminists and with gay liberation and Affhoenech
Corps spent months in solitary confinement without even a bathroom
in her cell. I think it might have actually been
like regular in the prison. I got a lobe confused
(27:51):
about this. Either in solitary or just regularly in prison.
There was no fucking bathroom in the cell, and you
have to be escorted by two guards in order to
go piss, which wasn't allowed very often. Yeah, it's really
fucking bad. And for anyone out there who's playing cool
people bingo, she acted as her own attorney. Yes, I
(28:11):
think I knew that part. Yeah, and this is the
part that shocked me. It worked. I think this is
like the only person I've covered a lot of people
who've defended themselves right to quote Hugh Ryan again quote
today it is largely believed that it was Shakur's statements
and her perceptive questioning of government infiltrators on the witness
(28:32):
stand that exposed FBI corruption and save the Panther twenty one.
That's amazing, that's great. Love her. Yeah, and I read
and again I don't have this in my script, so
it's me my faulty memory. But it's like she convinced
I think, either an infiltrator or a cop on the
stand to like admit that he was like hurting his
own people, he was a black man, and like got
(28:56):
him to like admit he had like done bad trying
to fuck with the tan. Yeah. Yeah, and she was
pregnant with Tupac in the prison, and it was the
women in prison I guess when she wasn't in solitary,
they gave her strength for her court battles. Like every
day she'd be like, oh, I don't know if I
(29:17):
can fucking do this, and people like you fucking got this.
You can fucking do it, you know. And her and
her other panther prisoner friend, also found something else in jail.
They found gay love, not even just the like kind
of classic getting laid behind bars. Affinie met a woman
named Carol Crooks or Crooksie, and when the two of
(29:38):
them got out they started dating. Joan Bird met a
butch named Burne, who she also dated once they got out,
So it wasn't even just like jailhouse love. Right. Well,
that's beautiful, cool enough, I know. I mean, that's a
nice ending to hear after Like, I mean, obviously I
know that she wasn't there forever, but to know that
like she left and like had happiness with someone, that's nice. Yeah, totally.
(30:03):
And if you want happiness you can buy it from
the ads. That's what they say. Money buys happiness. Yeah,
if you don't have any money, you're fucked. Yeah, I
don't know. I guess you should have thought of that
before participating by force into an economic system that rewards
(30:25):
people who already have things. Why don't you think of that?
Think about that during the break? Yeah, And we're back
from that break, and I hope you've thought about what
you've done long and hard. Yeah. Sorry, it's like sex,
(30:47):
and so I just want it remembered that all this
shit is connected. The gay women prisoners, including Tupac Shakur's mom,
are among the Stonewall rioters, and that the Gay Liberation
Front formed to be in solidarity with those women, that
sex workers and trans people and sis people and people
of every sexuality, even straight folk singers were all involved.
(31:08):
And then all of our struggles are connected. The Gay
Liberation Front formed and it did its thing. I hope
we talked about it more in the future Star. I
promised you a s oh yeah throwback to however long
ago that the episode one. Yeah, the Street Transvestite Action
Revolutionaries were formed by Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera,
(31:29):
and they provided housing and helped LGBT youth and sex
workers in New York. And they were an organization whose
charity was funded largely through sex work. Well, that's cool.
On the first anniversary of Stonewall, a parade was called
for the Christopher Street Liberation Day. Every gay group in
town like got together and voted for it in their
(31:51):
big conferences. They would have accept the Machine Society. Oh god,
they really went downhill, they really did? They abstained? Yeah?
How the how the mighty Fall's? Yeah, I know, I
know there's a there're saying I was trying to get right,
but I know sayings correctly in English, though I should
(32:13):
have tried. That's fine. Um you say, is there a
good Arabic phrase for it? That's pretty on the spot.
I can't there's something that directly translates into that. But
there's a lot of like disappointments and stuff like, I
don't know, I'll think about it. Hit like, let's circle
(32:33):
back to that after the show. All right, all right,
So the Christopher Street Liberation Day parade, more than two
thousand people came. Most numbers say between three and five thousand.
More and more people join the march as it went on.
Some people say twenty thousand. I usually when people provide numbers,
none of them are true, right, frankly, we're all made up. Yeah,
(32:57):
oh my god, one day there's going to be like
a little like a eye drones that actually count every
single person. I feel like we're already there. We're just
don't know. Yeah, that's actually probably true. Other cities followed suit.
And this is why Pride is in June, because we
remember that we can bite cops and kick them in
the chest with high heels, and we can scare them
(33:19):
into barricading themselves into buildings, and we can fucking come
close to studying them on fire if we need to.
So that we can dress how we want and love
who we want to love. That's that's something to be
proud for. I think, yeah, yeah, I you know, it's
funny because I like I never really thought I was
like queer enough. Yeah, same, And you know, even like
(33:42):
like when I identified as like a transvestite for a
long time, as I was like, oh, I'm just a
cross dresser, you know, I'm a cross dresser named Margaret whatever,
you know, And and so I never really felt super
connected to a lot of the Like I don't regularly
go to Pride or anything like that. I don't love
cribs same like I I like riots more than I
(34:05):
like calm celebrations, um and like and so yeah like
I but I you know, the more I hear about
the history, the more I read about the history and stuff,
the more I am like, No, I really am actually
like proud, like because of how fucking hard the human
(34:28):
battery and rams have fought, you know. Yeah, No, I think,
I mean the origins of it are really good to
know because I think there was a good amount of
time before I got like just into like a pure
marketing scheme. Like I feel like pride is just like
not what it needs to be. It's genuinely like used
(34:51):
against us. Yeah, but yeah, I think, uh, knowing the
history of what it actually started as before fucking corporations
caught on to the total to the thing is important
because I think now it's almost like I know, he
just kind of gets some like well deserved hate because
it's just become like rainbow pins and rainbow lugs from
(35:16):
so and so company and like whatever, yeah, made by
people who working for terrible pages in other countries, and
like it's the new gayola. Like we used to pay
off the mafia and now we pay corporations who are
doing more evil for the world than the mafia could
ever dream of, not because the mafia is good, but
because giant corporations are because capitalism is the biggest evil.
(35:38):
That's really what it is. It's just like, if it
all boils down to people doing things for money, you
know that you were fun. Yeah, yeah, but that said,
it went from two thousand people in nineteen seventy the
fiftieth anniversary in twenty nineteen, more than five million people
celebrated in New York City. And this is the largest
(36:00):
aid in New York City's history. Wow. And that's just
fucking as as messy as it is. Yeah, it's still
fucking rules that like, and it's just so and we
thought we made it. We're like that interviewer in nineteen
ninety eight who was like, Hey, Harry, Harry, isn't it
great that we've made it? And he's like, no, they
(36:20):
will rip that away from you. You know, he was right. Yeah,
I didn't realize it was the biggest riot or a
parade rather in New York history. That's really amazing to
hear that. I know, Yeah, I know, I like, yeah,
I didn't know that either until I was just like, yeah,
doing that research and I'm like, oh shit, yeah, and
(36:41):
I'll close out by returning to the skull. Oh yes,
oh I forgot Okay, tell me what happened to the skull?
To mother to mother. For his part, the Skull turned
a new leaf after Stonewall, he became a community organizer.
He spent all of his time helping street youth, working
hard with the AIDS crisis, and teaching condom use. He
(37:03):
possibly he was like one of the founders at the
Christopher Street Festival that became Pride. He came out it's
a big part of all of us, and he became
the kind of guy who like dress up at Santa
as Santa Claus for events, Like he just became like
everyone's like fucking an endearing man. And at that point
he's like older because he like spent multiple times in
prison and like whatever. Yeah, he fought in World War Two, right,
(37:26):
oh yeah, so he's like getting there, Santa Claus, Santa Claus. Yeah, yeah,
yeah totally. And he works really hard to keep Pride
focused exactly what we were just talking about. He works
hard to include people of color and working class white
folks and Pride and also to make sure that X
cons feel welcome and basically like he pride like not
(37:51):
for rich people. Right, he gets one of his ex
cop buddies from when he was like when he was
doing that scam with the corrupt cops. He gets one
of them to turn a new leaf and become a
community activist instead of a couple. That's pretty cool. That's
pretty cool. Skull he fucking he fucking yeah. Like, and
he died of aids on February twenty eighth, nineteen eighty nine,
(38:15):
sixty three years old. At his funeral at Saint Veronica's
Roman Catholic the priest said, if ed Murphy is not
with God, then there is no God. Wow. If you
can get it full, yeah, if you can live your
cat your like gay Catholic life or like you know,
like like if you can get a Catholic priest to
(38:38):
say this at your funeral after everything you've done good
and bad, you know what I mean? He was not
a saint by Eddy Saplings, and the fact that he
did so much good that almost outweighed all of that.
It's pretty amazing, right well, and like and I think
that actually really like, um, I try not to like
overly talk about religion on this podcast. I'm actually not
(38:58):
particularly religious, will come across it very differently. I'm very
interested in religious radicals. I'm very interested in people have
different worldviews and how they apply them to the world.
And that is like why I find so find so
much interest in all of this. But it's like the
Catholic whole thing is theoretically about forgiveness and people who
have like been bad do good is like kind of
(39:21):
almost the core of it. And like, at its best,
I think it's anti carcerol, and I think at its
best it is like yeah, saying like look if this
guy didn't get in, I mean, I don't think it's
like it's like like getting freed or like redemption is
like a huge part of that that journey for a
lot of people. That makes sense. Yeah, and to keep
(39:42):
it all super irish. The funeral march included someone singing
the song Danny Boy, and the longest piece I was
able to find about him, there's like one long article
that someone wrote about his life and it's this like
gay Catholic piece. It presents him really cynically. It's doesn't
like him. I think it's like um and it it
(40:03):
basically claims he is involved in charity work for like
money and clout, and I'm like, what's money? Yeah? And
and I okay, and here's this this I might regret
saying this. I think in his heart he was a
class warrior, and the extortion of rich gays is like,
(40:24):
he's a poor criminal. He robs rich people. He's in
the gay scene, so he robs rich gay people. Like
that's not good, but it sounds like a quality. I know.
It's not greedy or selfish to rob rich people. It's
just a sign that your system is economically broken. I
agree with you one hundred percent. I really do. Like
(40:46):
I think kind of similarly, maybe this is also propose
that I shouldn't say, but like similarly, how I think
being a cop trump's everything. I think being rich sometimes
can trump everything else because if a certain point where
you kind of lose touch or not even just lose touch,
but like there's just it's too much of a discrepancy.
(41:07):
You know, it's just I don't I don't feel bad
for you. Yeah, so I do think you're right. I
think stealing from rich people, regardless of who they are,
is never bad because they'll get over it and still
be rich. Yeah, I mean to a point extorting them
obviously extorting them about their sexuality, yes, not that lead
(41:28):
into their suicide and stuff is more gay people killing
themselves because of that, and that is a yeah, yeah,
obviously not talking about that being no, no, I know.
But as far as like the bad things he did,
which were horrible, they were horrible. I think in his
life potentially maybe he was conscious of it and led
(41:49):
it differently from that point, because it sounds like later
in his life he kind of focused on being like
an activist and helping people from what it sounds like. Yeah,
And one of the pieces I've read a couple of
different things about his snitching, and one of them was like, oh,
he's stayed informant for the police until the NYPD beat
the shit out of him, and then he stopped informing
for them. Yeah. And then in his own words, he's like, no,
(42:12):
fuck that, I ain't no rat or whatever. But I
mean that's you guess yeah everyone. Yeah. And then Harry
hay To go more full circle, the communist who started
the Mattachine Society and then got run out of it.
He went on to form another movement in nineteen seventy nine,
this one that is pretty much immune to co option.
The Radical Fairies. Have you heard the Radical Fairies? I have?
(42:35):
Should I have? I don't know much about anything. I
have not heard of the routine. I knew about them
from like being a weird queer hitchhiker and hanging out
in rural spaces and stuff. And I'm not going into
them deeply, but they're a kind of a new age
pagan gay rural counterculture, wow, with like all kinds of
messy stuff. Yeah, and many of the people who I'm
(42:56):
presenting uncritically in this episode have things that could be
said about them whatever. And in nineteen seventy four, the
Gay Liberation Front successfully got the which is the group
that kind of came most immediately out of Stonewall, got
the American Psychiatric Association to take being gay out of
the Big Book of Mental Disorders, the DSMOR, the Diagnostic
(43:17):
and Statistical Manual. I have opinions on that that we
can't get into, but yeah, it was replaced with being
upset about being gay was the new disorder in nineteen
seventy four. Wow, until twenty thirteen when we finally got
rid of that. I mean, you could just call that
shame at a certain point and just like not making
(43:37):
a mental disease to feel one way or the other
about yourself. That's so stupid whatever. Yeah, no, what I mean,
it's like, why would people be ashamed of being gay
because society is exactly exactly society's disease. Yeah, be a
different book, The Conquest of Bread. I don't know, I've
(43:57):
never read The Conquest of Bread. Because progress isn't linear.
We're now entering an age where if I went and
gave this as a talk in Tennessee, it would have
to be at a strip club. Yeah, because I can't
give a public talk in a bunch soon a bunch
of states. That's we talked. We talked about this throughout
(44:20):
the whole story of this. But like genuinely, history does
not change. It just changes, like it just the flavor
is different, but the content is the same. Like it's
just so scary because we want to believe, like, oh
my god, there's been improvement in there has Yeah, but
that reality is terrifying that like still like a century later,
(44:42):
you're it's not safe for you to yeah, to beat
in public essentially, Like that's fucked up. It's just unreal.
I yeah, but I I will say, I think it's
not that nothing changes. I think it's that progress isn't
linear and we actually have to fight. That's true, That's
that's a less cynical way to think about it. And
(45:03):
when we fight, we win. We win both often we
win specific strategic victories, everything from the reformist convincing the
New York Marrier to stop and trapping gay men to
entire huge movements that transform the cultural face of the
world like Stonewall, did you know? And yeah, but also
(45:24):
we win literally because like if you pelt cops with
donuts and they drive away without arresting your friends, you
will never forget that feeling. Yeah, And when you die,
you will have done something amazing. You will have one
because we all fucking die, but not everyone has scared
cops away with donuts. That's apparently my takeaway that it
(45:45):
didn't end intend to land on. I but I think
you're completely right that that's the highest point of life
that anyone could achieve. Yeah, but I no, no, no,
I think your take is better. I'm very cynical, and
I think the only way of progress is even made
is not to be that way. Like if you have
like hope that it isn't linear, but it's still progressing.
(46:06):
That's the only way we're ever going to get out
of this fucking hole we're in, right, So I think
that's a better way to look at it, for sure.
I just I'm so I need to not be a cynical.
I know that about myself. But this is uncaird session
that we signed up. No, But I mean, like I
think about this a lot too, right, Like, I'm very um,
I think some bad stuff were coming. I run a
prepper podcast, But I like, I believe in strategic optimism
(46:33):
because we can't win unless we think we can win,
and so I believe that it is worthwhile and useful
even if we are like cynical, to at least fight
like we can win, even if we don't expect to win, right,
Because it's like my wind condition is really unlikely, right,
(46:54):
my wind condition is a stateless society without capitalism or
like systemic oppression of any sort along race and you
know whatever lines right, and like, so my win condition
is really unlikely to happen in my lifetime or anyone's lifetime,
but it is absolutely worth fighting for. And I think
it informs my life and gives my life. It makes
(47:14):
my life better. So even though it's cynical, not that
you know that's cliche, but yeah, yeah, strategic optim No, no,
I mean, I'm just gonna strategic optimism everyone. That's that's
what I'd like to plug. Yeah, even if you don't
believe you'll win, you can still act like you might
(47:35):
and you will have a better time. It's like going
into plane a board game and being like, whatever, I
give up, you're not going to have any fun playing
the board game. I thought you were going to say,
because I also think this applies going on to a plane,
and I thought you were going to say going out
to a plane and I thinking it's going to crash
versus like things gonna be okay. You're gonna have a
better time on the plane if you think it's gonna
be okay versus it's gonna c Also, but uh, having
(48:01):
meaning in your life or like purpose or whatever, I
think it gets kind of like annoying to talk about.
But you're right in that, Like what is the point
of this existence if not to like constantly evolve and
be okay doing it? Like why be miserable if we
cannot If we have the opportunity not to obviously there
(48:22):
are there are exceptions to that when it comes to
mental health and all that stuff. But if our brains
are so powerful, like so powerful, and I think we
don't give them enough credit to to make our to
shape our reality. Again, exceptions yet, but I think about
that all the time, especially recently. Like I I've just
(48:44):
been in this phase of like philosophy and like whatever,
and it's maybe I'm just looking at it from a
really like I don't know, intense way, but I think
I I think I think I'm mad at myself for
making fun of having me, because that's exactly why I
don't want to happen, because it could be cliche. Yeah,
(49:05):
but literally being alive and being like even if I
help one person or like whatever it is, my life
has meaning. I can be a spec on this giant
fucking universe galaxy. But I'm a spec that's going to
be here as long as I can and do as
much as I can. Like what else is there? There's
no other option? So yeah, we should have ended when
(49:26):
you stopped at the optimism selective optimism or no no, no, yeah, anyway, well,
guiding the plug sides meaning you could follow me on
the internet Shiro hero six six six on Twitter and
then just Shiro hero on Instagram. I rarely post on
(49:49):
them anymore, to be honest, to circle back to like
what is the point of all of that? Because that's
how I I just got into that little cycle of
like what is the point in a facial media? Nothing? Yeah,
exactly exactly. I just think for a long time it
was especially like in our quote unquote line of work,
it feels like the only way to stay relevant sometimes, yeah,
(50:11):
and you have to just kind of step back and
be like who cares? Yeah, you know, but what what
is your line of work? Do you do any podcasts
or anything? I do do podcast I do do podcasts.
I occasionally will host on It could happen here. I
have my own podcast called Ethnically Ambiguous, and I guess
on a bunch of other shit that you can listen to,
(50:33):
and I make films when I can, and you can
watch those two if you want to. So that's what
I got today. Hell yeah, And you can listen to
other cool Zone podcasts such as Hood Politics, Internet Hate Machine,
Behind There, Behind the Behind the Bullies, Yeah, Batties, pteful meanings,
(51:00):
The hateful meanis hateful meanis pod um and hateful meanis
that's that's on me. When you wait, when you use it,
remember me. Yeah, when you remember hateful meanis remember this's
the words cute. All right. We will see you. I
will see you all next week. Bye everyone. Cool People
(51:21):
Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts on cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hellow, we're starting to fall apart without Sophie. We really are.
This is cool people who did cool stuff. I'm Maggie,
that's Sharine. There's no Sophie. There's no Sophie. There's no
power where you are, So that's true. I'm literally recording
this on my backup battery because I'm a prepper and
(00:21):
my power is out because I live. Yeah, and y'all
are worth it. This is what how do you mean
to us? That's right? Ian as our audio engineer on
Woman wrote our theme music, and Stonewall is why I
briefly had rights as a transperson. That's what we're talking
about today, Stonewall. This is part four. Go listen to
the other parts. Yes, or you're a sucker. What are
(00:44):
you fucking doing if you're not doing that together? So
Stonewall is sort of used to getting rated. They paid
off the cops, so they usually had a heads up
when the cops rolled in. The bartenders would jump over
the bar and pretend to be patrons so they wouldn't
get singled out, which is pretty clever, honestly. And usually
(01:04):
they got rated, like I said, early in the night
and on weeknights, but not this time. On weekends, the
bars crowded as fuck. The floor plans say maximum occupancy
was around one hundred and eighty people or some shit,
but there were usually at least two hundred people there
on weekends. At the time of the raid. There were
like different estimates put it between like two hundred two
hundred and ten or so people. And there's no fire
(01:27):
exits in this place that has already burned only a
few years back, like five years earlier. This place is burned.
There's no fire exits and no crowding it because people
are desperate fucking dance. Yeah, I mean life back then
wasn't exactly great. Yeah, you gotta get your kicks where
you or you could, right, right, So now we're going
to introduce this week's villain. Though he's kind of a
(01:50):
he's like an anti villain, Like he's still a villain,
but you know how like an anti hero is like
a hero who kind of sucks. Right, he's the villain,
but he's that doesn't suck completely. Yeah, I mean, he's
like doing awful, awful things. His actions absolutely suck, but
his like motivation is interesting. It's a clash of moralities.
(02:12):
His name is Deputy police Inspector seymour Pine, and he's
a veteran cop. He's been a cop almost thirty years
by nineteen sixty nine. He took a break from being
a cop to go fight the Nazis. And he had
the specific unique thing going for him that set him
aside from other cops at the time. He wasn't corrupt.
WHOA wow, ye, I didn't expect that to be what
(02:34):
you were going to say, to be honest, surprise, surprise.
And what I find so interesting about this guy, what
I kind of like about him is, from my point
of view, this is like strong evidence against the institution
of police, because this guy should have ruled. He wanted
to do what was right. He was actually and genuinely
a lawful person as far as I can tell, but
since laws are shitty, judges a morality, he runs around
(02:57):
and puts people into cages for a living. And and
he probably wasn't personally a bigot, but he was an
agent of a bigoted system. And the difference matters inasmuch
as we can understand those systems and dismantle them. And
years later he said, quote, if what I did helped
gay people, then I'm glad. Well yeah, and he's not
(03:19):
being self congratulatory. I think he's acknowledging his role in
this like bad system. In a later documentary, he says, quote,
you knew they broke the law, but what kind of
law was it? Well, okay, see wore Okay, yeah, I know.
I mean he's about to go beat up people and
fondle their genitals and shit. Like he's not like, he's like,
(03:40):
I didn't know it's gonna going that far down. Okay, Yeah,
I mean like because because that's because he's rating the place, right,
and that's was involved in rating a place. And he
talks a bunch on TV shows and shit about that
night about how they saw themselves as fighting the mafia,
but that they arrested gay people as a part of
it to boost their arrest numbers, because arresting gay people
was so easy because quote, they never gave you any trouble. Well,
(04:03):
but you know, so he raided Stonewall specifically what happened
first as two women undercover went in posing as a
butch fem couple. At least one of them had been
coming to the bar for a while. It's just pretend
they're ganging. In quotes, they just love to do that,
loves to role play. Okay, yeah, exactly. Yeah, So this
(04:23):
woman posing as a gay woman who may or may
not have been posing, you know who knows. Yeah, one
twenty in the morning, they raid. They've given no warnings.
The bars crowded as fuck, everyone's drunk, and the night
was like really getting going, and a tiny handful of
cops think they could take the place down, like literally,
that guy Pines walks in and says police were taking
the place him. I think it's so. I've read four
(04:48):
and I've read eight, and there's a I'm sure someone
knows the exact actual answer, but still very little people. Wait,
So at this point, sorry if I'm dropping around. At
this point, the mafia is a protecting them anymore, Like
they're not getting paid off, So they are. But what
it is is he works for the vice squad the
public morality right, okay squad or whatever, and so he
(05:11):
is not part of the paid off cops. An actually
tension between the paid off cops and him play a
role in it later Okay, okay, good to know. And
so Maggie Jigs are acid dealing bartender. She jumps over
the bar with the money when and then when the
cops question her, she's like, oh, this is my money
as a cigarette girl, and they let her go. And
(05:33):
later later the mafia is like, all right, you got
away with the money, right, and she's like, oh no,
I'm sorry. They they got it all fucking badass, I know. Um,
So they demand ID s making to make sure everyone
is dressed in gender appropriate clothing, and the cops are
(05:53):
saying all kinds of homophobic shit that I'm not going
to repeat. Mister Pine is clearly not stopping them. Maybe
he's doing it himself, and and some of the queens
are like, you know what, fuck you fuck this, And
people start refusing to show ID, and they like pull
all the queens aside to one place and like show
ID and like start being really shitty and and they're
(06:14):
like not fuck you. And so the cops like, fine,
we're resting basically everyone, but a crowd is starting to
gather outside. This is the fucking gighborhood. And so as
arrested people are let out of the bar, they start
like striking poses and the bar and the crowd is
like shouting out, like applause meter range, I give it
a seven. You know, as the incredible. Yeah, yeah, And
(06:39):
a pigmobile shows up to take the arrest rested people
a van arrest vanum, and the crowd starts changing and
people start to boo no. Someone shouts gay power and
they start singing we shall overcome okay, and the cops
they call for backup. They get on their radio, they
(07:00):
offer backup, and then, as I've heard it, someone unknown
with a police radio was basically like, never mind that
order ignore it. Well, that is some I mean, that's
like cinematic shit, you know, it's just like, yeah, sneaky.
And so there's like two main guesses about what this is,
(07:21):
and the most likely one is that the corrupt cops
from I can't remember what precincts, six precincts or something,
they're like, what the fuck, don't shut down? Or a
cash cow they're like, no, don't send back up, you know,
because they get paid a fuck ton of money. Do
he takes place from going down? Yeah? They get paid
enough to never worry about anything ever again. Yeah, totally. Um,
(07:42):
if you pay me two thousand dollars a week now,
i'd be set, you know, yeah, I would protect you
until I tie. Yeah, And it's also possible that there
was a gay activist with a radio in the place,
and then the the like least likely but sort of
fun thing that I've someone says maybe it was that
gig the lady cop was like getting second thoughts, you know,
(08:05):
that very likely. I think my first thought was that
like someone stole the radio, but it probably was one
of the cops. That that's also possible. Yeah, my thought
was like someone sold the radio and they were like nope,
just kidding, yeah, no, which which would be that would
be the coolest thing. Yeah, you know. And so there's
an awful lot of what sit off the riot talk.
(08:26):
It's part of the everyone trying to own stonewall thing
because people want to not also because people want to
not be left out right. So a lot of it
is like oh, this trans woman through the first brick
or whatever, or you know, um, and there's a lot
of different but there's a lot of different inciting incidents
and what I think matters. So I'm not going to
say this one was first. This one wasn't first. What
(08:47):
I'm going to say is that this riot was something
else participated in by the larger queer community. Um, there's
like almost not an identity that isn't represented in this riot.
And there were a lot of inciting incidents, and first
and foremost, I will also say some of the stuff
I've seen about this is like, and then the violence
started when someone punched back, and I'm like, that's not No.
(09:08):
Violence starts when someone hits someone, which the cops are
doing already. The cops started the violence. What gets called
the violence is when it suddenly becomes two way violence. Interesting,
I mean checks out as far as cop behavior goes,
yea wi yeah, And so you know, because okay, the police.
There's not only the violence of forcing people to strip
(09:30):
so you can like see or grab their fucking junk,
but also, for example, a queen who was being let
out the door was punched in the face by a cop.
In response, queens started throwing coins at the cop. A reference,
they started throwing pennies, basically being like, hey, we already
bought you bitches, Like what the fuck are you doing?
You know, here's the more money, fuck you? You know. Yeah, yeah,
there's a butch lesbian in men's clothes who really actively
(09:53):
wanted to not get arrested. This was probably a black
lesbian named Stormy de Laverney. She denied this for years,
and then later she was like, yeah, it was me.
She got led to the policeman, but she broke free
and got back to the crowd, so the cops grabbed
her again, took her to the police fan, so she
broke free again. This happened repeatedly. Finally she shouted, why
(10:17):
don't you guys do something, and then probably decked a cop. Well,
another inciting incident, and that last one is the one
that has the most eyewitness accounts. Another inciting incident was
a stocking and high healed leg kicked a cop in
the chest from inside the arrest wagon. But the image
is beautiful to me. And then another queen smashes a
(10:40):
cop with her purse. Meanwhile, some handcuffed people escape, including
our man, the skull, the mother ed Murphy. I would
be surprised if they were able to keep him in restraint.
It I know custody at all well, And the way
he gets away, at least the way he says that
they got away, and there's no reason to disbelieve him,
is he's handcuffed to another guy. And so they hop
(11:03):
in a cab and the cabby is gay and speeds
them off. To another gay bar that's like a kink bar,
like a fetish bar, and the fetish guys are like, yeah,
of course we have handcuff keys and let them go.
That is so funny. I'm I know. Um. So back
at Stonewall, the cops are like, oh, this is this
(11:27):
is bad. We are outnumbered and also bad people. They
might not have realized the second part they should have,
but right not yeah, um, but they realized they're outnumbered.
Copwagons speed off with whoever they could get some speed
away on slash tires. One of the people who was
in this crowd is this anarchist folk singer named Dave
(11:47):
von Ronk, and he's straight. He just fucking hated cops. Yeah,
he was at the restaurant down the street. He's like,
oh shit, it's on. So this guy, Dave and Ronk,
he's not really remembered much now, but his mentees like
Bob Dylan are much more famous. Okay. And he wrote
(12:10):
the arrangement for House of the Rising Sun that everyone plays.
I'm usually kind of sick. Yeah. Yeah. The version of
the Animals play, which is the same as Bob Dylan's version,
is his version of it. Okay, I'm pretty sick of
that story. But then I listened to his version after
learning this fact, I actually really like it. He's a
(12:30):
way fucking better singer than Bob Dylan, although that doesn't
take a lot. Dan is a contentious I don't think
this is like he's a songwriter, you know, Oh yeah, yeah,
let's let's go with that. He's my evidence that as
a man, you don't have to be good at singing
in order to make it, but women have to be
both good songwriters and fucking amazing vocalists. Yes, there are
(12:53):
many evidences of that. I think, yeah, both ways, So
I agree. I agree, Oh, Dave, he's in the crowd
and the cops grab him and they drag him inside
stonewall and they handcuff him to a radiator and beat
him almost to unconsciousness, and then they barricade the door
(13:16):
and lock themselves in from the rioting crowd outside so
they can beat him in peace. Like you know, I
think what it is is that they're like, they're scared
and outnumbered by this crowd that's become a riot, and
so they're like, fuck, get inside, get inside. And they're
like in the middle of arresting this guy, this is
my best yes, And so they drag him inside with
them and also locked in there with them as like
(13:38):
a reporter from I think The Village Voice who was
just like happy to be there and was like ah,
I was like hiding and then was like in the
bar well And so characters show up for this Yeah, yeah, totally,
and so they're all fucking the cops are barricaded inside
the place, and later, since they've beaten our guy dave up,
they have to charge him with assault. Because that's like literally,
(14:00):
whenever I hear someone got arrest for assaulting officer, I
assume it means they got assaulted by an officer. Yes,
that's very good to assume. Yeah. And Pine, that cop
who you know, the one who was seeing more Pine, Yeah,
seemore Pine. He'd been in combat, right, And later he
said that being barricaded inside the club was the most
scared he'd been in his life. WHOA. And to that,
(14:20):
I say, good, Yeah, I mean I know he said
some nice things later, but that moment fucking good. Yeah.
I'm glad he survived, I guess, right, But like, uh,
you know what, I don't think it's helpful to have
that good apple because that's more are going to have
a good apple, Like I obviously I wish I mean,
(14:42):
that's what. That's not true. I was gonna say I
wish death to no one. That's not true. But I
do think sometimes that narrative and also just like it's
it's very convenient in retrospect to have that point of view. First,
there is no good thing at a good cop everywhere,
and so I think the narrative of like being like, oh, this,
(15:05):
this is an example of why we need them and
they have they're good yeah, morels or whatever, it's like, no,
it's just a fucking that's more prope cop shit. I
don't know. Well, from my point of view, the fact
that he's a good cop is exactly why copying is bad, right,
And that's why there is no good cop is because
this person who should have been a good cop by
all standards. Yeah yeah, yeah, not corrupt, like literally all
(15:29):
this went down because he was trying to not be corrupt.
He went and oppressed the ship out of some people,
you know, and like literally the corrupt cops are like
more on the side of gays and even though they
probably hate gays more yeah, right, and all but they're
all selfishly financially motivated, right, they would never support the
mother was like, yeah, right, totally. So anyway, they're barricaded
(15:54):
inside the building. The crowd breaks out the window and
starts escorting lighter fluid into the room. Whoa. Um. But
then in the nick of the time, and just in
the nick of time from the cops point of view,
and probably from the folk singer's point of view, more
riot cops show up before they all get burned alive
in the building. Um, well that's the thing. It's like,
(16:16):
so that because he's handcuffed to a radiator and the
crowd's about to burn the building down, is it just
him inside with the cops and the greenwich the village voice,
Oh right, okay, yeah, no, all all of the patrons
have all been kicked out by now. Yeah, okay, so
the riot squad shows up, and they show up with
amazing deals on goods and services. I was genuinely hanging
(16:42):
on that word. I was like, what do you what
did they go with? No, they came bearing ads. I
guess I don't know. Okay, that's that's good, that's good.
Just go with it. All right, we're back and the
(17:03):
crowd didn't run. The riot cops show up, and they're
probably like, ow, stomp these fucking queers. I mean, they've
already gone through so much, like what backing down it?
Then it's like, right, yeah, yeah, why fucking bother in
for a penny and for throwing pennies at cops, in
for pounding cops. Yeah, So they form a kick line.
(17:24):
I think it's only a couple of people, but they
form a kick line and start doing like high kicks
and singing these songs as the riot cops approach. Because
I love queers, That's why they these all these imagery
is beautiful, you know, like, yeah, damn queers know how
to riot, I know, especially with this next line in
the melee, one source claims that a cop was a
(17:44):
bit so hard he needed medical treatment. That makes me
so happy, And I think that makes me sick, but
it makes me feeally happy to hear that. Yeah, I
feel like that's my fighting style, to be honest. YEA
of all the fighting styles I've heard, I don't think
I would be able to like beat graceful or anything.
But I could bite someone, I believe you. So that's
(18:05):
that's my role. But yeah, beautiful, beautiful tactics all around. Yeah.
The most grievous injury that happened at Stonewall riots as
a teenager, a queer teenager lost two fingers that were
slammed into a card door U. And that was the
and that was I mean, you know, it was more
ins and outs. But at three thirty five am, the
(18:26):
first day's riot was over, but the media covered it,
so crowds came out the next night also, And at
first it was like a big block party. The veterans
of the previous night took center stage and they like
kissed and posed for photos, and cheerleaders led chance of
gay power and it fucking rules. Right. The riot police came,
(18:48):
but there were thousands of people because the media basically
gave them promotion or like attention. Yeah, yeah, and so
the riot cops would attack, but these people already knew
what twenty twenty protesters later learned. B water when the
police approach, back up and reconvene, you know, so the
cops would like make an attack and everyone just back off. Yeah.
(19:11):
Martha P. Johnson, she's the super red Black queen. She's
often credited as throwing the first brick at stone wall
or something, or sometimes she's credited as throwing a shot
glass at the mirror and screaming I've got my civil rights.
But she's very clear that the night before she wasn't
there when the riots started. She showed up at two
am and threw down. But the next day, the second
(19:34):
night of riots, I have a question. Sorry, yeah, what
does she say she did? She says she showed up
at two am and threw down, but she doesn't say
like I threw the first note rick or like shock. Okay, okay,
interesting to know. Yeah, No, although Sylvia Rivera, who will
talk about in a second, That'll be an interesting question
with her. Okay, So Martha P. Johnson, second night of riots,
(19:57):
climbs a lamp post with a with a bag with
a brick in it and drops it on a cop
car and smashes up the window. And the sheer athleticism
of climbing a lamppost with a bag with a brick
in it. Wow, I'm in fucking awe. That's Olympic type shit.
I that's athleticism used correctly. Yeah, totally. And then Sylvia
(20:22):
Rivera is a Puerto Rican transwoman who identified as a
queen at the time who was part of all of
this too, And she's she's one of Marsha's best friends,
and she probably wasn't at the first night of riots.
She was, by most accounts high and or asleep in
a park nearby, Okay, and she spent an awful lot
(20:44):
of time telling people that she was there. However, I'm
not trying to talk shit on her. She rules and
did a fuck ton of amazing activism and I hate
bringing her up only to point out that she wasn't there.
I'm just trying to mythbust a little bit because these
are the two people horse sort of like often presented
as the right, the people who kicked it off. I mean,
(21:04):
and it's curious to know how that rumor or whatever
starts right or like how that information starts to get spread. Yeah,
And I think with her, I think it's her being like, oh, yeah,
that's totally there, right exactly, And I mean, whatever, I'm
fucking I could see myself doing that too. So night too,
there's a big riot. Queers and allies are fighting cops
(21:25):
and there's a lot of contentious stuff about who did
what fighting, and like there's like one part that's like
and then the anarchists fucked up everything by showing up
or whatever, and like every time I read that, I'm like, yeah,
of course, yeah, Like I never heard that one before.
But then all the gays started getting along and everyone
(21:46):
got their rights because of Stonewall. Just kidding, And I'm
sure we'll I'll, I'm sure on future episodes I'll talk
more about post Stonewall stuff too. But Stonewall wasn't the
first gay riot, but it was a turning point and
the queer movement moved from assimilationist deliberationist. But there's one
more riot story I want to tell you, one that
(22:07):
I didn't know about, and one that's left out of
mainstream discourse time and time again, because this riot on
Stonewall wasn't the only riot on that street that night
that was directly related to all of this. I don't
know that. So Okay, there's a thing that I've either
talked about on the show or I wrote it in
(22:27):
one of the scripts I haven't recorded yet. I don't
remember because my brain doesn't work that way. There's a
thing called the Panther twenty one. There's a group of
people called the Panther twenty one. The short of it
is that they're twenty one Black Panthers in New York
City in nineteen sixty nine, same time all this stuff happens,
they were framed up on some bullshit charges that kept
them tied up in jails and courts for years. And
it was part of this whole thing that split the
(22:50):
Black Panthers, specifically the New York East Coast in general,
but New York in particular. One of these Panthers she's
most famous now is Tupac Shakur's mom. And her name
is Yes, Yeah, I love her, love them Yeah, And
she's gonna she's gonna be even cooler. Well, she was
already this cool, but I learned more cool stuff about
(23:11):
her that I didn't know. She already fucking rules. She
joined the movement, She converted to Islam, She became a leader.
She helped establish the Harlem Breakfast program for kids. She
was twenty one when she was arrested as one of
the Panther twenty one in April nineteen sixty nine in
a coordinated series of thirteen raids on Panther houses. So
about I can't do math, but like two or so
(23:32):
months before before Stonewall and This is a frame up right.
The Panther twenty one didn't do these things. I'm sure
they were doing illegal things, but this is not what
they were framed up for. And I was saying that
they were going to like bomb department stores. And no
dynamite was found in any of the thirteen raids, but
that doesn't matter to cops. They got tips in court
(23:52):
for years. She got locked up into a place called
the Women's House of Detention, which overlooks Christopher's Street and
the Stonewall In In fact, she was locked up across
the street when the Stonewall riots happened. Okay, And a
part of the story of the riot that's left out
is that the women in the House of Detention saw
(24:15):
the riot and started rioting. How is that left out?
That is crucial info that I should have known, especially
because it's like two box your core's mom, Like, I know,
come on, I assume a combination of leaving out black people,
leaving out lesbians, leaving out with struggles, and leaving all
anti carcerol. Right, that's that all the above, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(24:40):
and you know, and also a lot of people like
I didn't know this until I actually shout out to
Hugh Ryan, who wrote a book called The Women's House
of Detention. I think that's what's called. And he Ryan's
a former guest on this podcast. You can listen to
me talk to him about stuff, and you know, he
was like, oh cool. I hit him up and I
was like, what am I going to miss about Stonewall?
And he's like, of the part about you know, a
(25:02):
phemie sheicorps rioting across the street. And I was like,
I do not. You know, that's so cool. That's so
cool to Nill, Like she was already so fucking cool. Yeah,
I don't know. I thought she couldn't get cooler. I
was wrong. Yeah, And so at during Stonewall, women in
the prison started burning shit, throwing burning mattresses out of
(25:23):
the windows of the prison, screaming gay rights at the
top of their lungs, so that's they could be heard
from the street below. Like one of the one of
the people who showed up later to the riots, it
was like, oh fuck it, like ran off to go
to the riots, like heard the first rioting that that
this person heard was women in the prison screaming gay
power or gay rights. Eight women used that night to
(25:47):
Try and Escape. Author Hugh Ryan, veteran guests the Pod,
wrote the book him Women's House of Detention. He wrote, quote,
for far too long, our frame of reference for Stonewall
has been too small, cropping the story down to a
narrow slip of its true self, and then enlarging that
image until it blosts out everything else. The memory of
these eight women has fallen into the crack between what
(26:07):
happened and what we remember. Research as I might, I
cannot bridge the divide, which is to say that those
eight women, he knows their first names, and he never
he wasn't able to find out more information about them.
You know, it's hard to know the sexuality of all
the women in the prison, though their shouts of gay
power could be heard from the street, so it probably
wasn't just one or two gay people in there. But
(26:28):
we do know the sexuality of at least two of
the women in the House of Detention, a Fani Shakur
and her fellow panther twenty one arrestee Joan Bird spoiler
they're queer. Hey. After the panther arrests and Stonewall, some
leftist queers were like, hey, the gay movement should protest
the Women's House of Detention and support of the Panthers,
(26:50):
and the conservative folks were like, no, we can't do that.
That rocks the boat. Yeah, exactly, so the rowdy queers.
They formed the Gay Liberation Front. Usually people talk about
the glf's first protest being at the Village Voice demanding
the right to advertise in the paper. I think, but
(27:10):
months earlier the first protest they did. They protested alongside
the Panthers at the House of Detention. Because prison abolition
and support for black power get written out of history.
They returned to the House of Detention, I believe weekly
just being like, no, but these motherfuckers go And in response,
(27:30):
perhaps in response to this, or maybe just off his
own volition, Hughey Pugh Newton, co founder of the Panthers,
announced in nineteen seventy that the Panthers were making common
cause with the feminists and with gay liberation and Affhoenech
Corps spent months in solitary confinement without even a bathroom
in her cell. I think it might have actually been
like regular in the prison. I got a lobe confused
(27:51):
about this. Either in solitary or just regularly in prison.
There was no fucking bathroom in the cell, and you
have to be escorted by two guards in order to
go piss, which wasn't allowed very often. Yeah, it's really
fucking bad. And for anyone out there who's playing cool
people bingo, she acted as her own attorney. Yes, I
(28:11):
think I knew that part. Yeah, and this is the
part that shocked me. It worked. I think this is
like the only person I've covered a lot of people
who've defended themselves right to quote Hugh Ryan again quote
today it is largely believed that it was Shakur's statements
and her perceptive questioning of government infiltrators on the witness
(28:32):
stand that exposed FBI corruption and save the Panther twenty one.
That's amazing, that's great. Love her. Yeah, and I read
and again I don't have this in my script, so
it's me my faulty memory. But it's like she convinced
I think, either an infiltrator or a cop on the
stand to like admit that he was like hurting his
own people, he was a black man, and like got
(28:56):
him to like admit he had like done bad trying
to fuck with the tan. Yeah. Yeah, and she was
pregnant with Tupac in the prison, and it was the
women in prison I guess when she wasn't in solitary,
they gave her strength for her court battles. Like every
day she'd be like, oh, I don't know if I
(29:17):
can fucking do this, and people like you fucking got this.
You can fucking do it, you know. And her and
her other panther prisoner friend, also found something else in jail.
They found gay love, not even just the like kind
of classic getting laid behind bars. Affinie met a woman
named Carol Crooks or Crooksie, and when the two of
(29:38):
them got out they started dating. Joan Bird met a
butch named Burne, who she also dated once they got out,
So it wasn't even just like jailhouse love. Right. Well,
that's beautiful, cool enough, I know. I mean, that's a
nice ending to hear after Like, I mean, obviously I
know that she wasn't there forever, but to know that
like she left and like had happiness with someone, that's nice. Yeah, totally.
(30:03):
And if you want happiness you can buy it from
the ads. That's what they say. Money buys happiness. Yeah,
if you don't have any money, you're fucked. Yeah, I
don't know. I guess you should have thought of that
before participating by force into an economic system that rewards
(30:25):
people who already have things. Why don't you think of that?
Think about that during the break? Yeah, And we're back
from that break, and I hope you've thought about what
you've done long and hard. Yeah. Sorry, it's like sex,
(30:47):
and so I just want it remembered that all this
shit is connected. The gay women prisoners, including Tupac Shakur's mom,
are among the Stonewall rioters, and that the Gay Liberation
Front formed to be in solidarity with those women, that
sex workers and trans people and sis people and people
of every sexuality, even straight folk singers were all involved.
(31:08):
And then all of our struggles are connected. The Gay
Liberation Front formed and it did its thing. I hope
we talked about it more in the future Star. I
promised you a s oh yeah throwback to however long
ago that the episode one. Yeah, the Street Transvestite Action
Revolutionaries were formed by Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera,
(31:29):
and they provided housing and helped LGBT youth and sex
workers in New York. And they were an organization whose
charity was funded largely through sex work. Well, that's cool.
On the first anniversary of Stonewall, a parade was called
for the Christopher Street Liberation Day. Every gay group in
town like got together and voted for it in their
(31:51):
big conferences. They would have accept the Machine Society. Oh god,
they really went downhill, they really did? They abstained? Yeah?
How the how the mighty Fall's? Yeah, I know, I
know there's a there're saying I was trying to get right,
but I know sayings correctly in English, though I should
(32:13):
have tried. That's fine. Um you say, is there a
good Arabic phrase for it? That's pretty on the spot.
I can't there's something that directly translates into that. But
there's a lot of like disappointments and stuff like, I
don't know, I'll think about it. Hit like, let's circle
(32:33):
back to that after the show. All right, all right,
So the Christopher Street Liberation Day parade, more than two
thousand people came. Most numbers say between three and five thousand.
More and more people join the march as it went on.
Some people say twenty thousand. I usually when people provide numbers,
none of them are true, right, frankly, we're all made up. Yeah,
(32:57):
oh my god, one day there's going to be like
a little like a eye drones that actually count every
single person. I feel like we're already there. We're just
don't know. Yeah, that's actually probably true. Other cities followed suit.
And this is why Pride is in June, because we
remember that we can bite cops and kick them in
the chest with high heels, and we can scare them
(33:19):
into barricading themselves into buildings, and we can fucking come
close to studying them on fire if we need to.
So that we can dress how we want and love
who we want to love. That's that's something to be
proud for. I think, yeah, yeah, I you know, it's
funny because I like I never really thought I was
like queer enough. Yeah, same, And you know, even like
(33:42):
like when I identified as like a transvestite for a
long time, as I was like, oh, I'm just a
cross dresser, you know, I'm a cross dresser named Margaret whatever,
you know, And and so I never really felt super
connected to a lot of the Like I don't regularly
go to Pride or anything like that. I don't love
cribs same like I I like riots more than I
(34:05):
like calm celebrations, um and like and so yeah like
I but I you know, the more I hear about
the history, the more I read about the history and stuff,
the more I am like, No, I really am actually
like proud, like because of how fucking hard the human
(34:28):
battery and rams have fought, you know. Yeah, No, I think,
I mean the origins of it are really good to
know because I think there was a good amount of
time before I got like just into like a pure
marketing scheme. Like I feel like pride is just like
not what it needs to be. It's genuinely like used
(34:51):
against us. Yeah, but yeah, I think, uh, knowing the
history of what it actually started as before fucking corporations
caught on to the total to the thing is important
because I think now it's almost like I know, he
just kind of gets some like well deserved hate because
it's just become like rainbow pins and rainbow lugs from
(35:16):
so and so company and like whatever, yeah, made by
people who working for terrible pages in other countries, and
like it's the new gayola. Like we used to pay
off the mafia and now we pay corporations who are
doing more evil for the world than the mafia could
ever dream of, not because the mafia is good, but
because giant corporations are because capitalism is the biggest evil.
(35:38):
That's really what it is. It's just like, if it
all boils down to people doing things for money, you
know that you were fun. Yeah, yeah, but that said,
it went from two thousand people in nineteen seventy the
fiftieth anniversary in twenty nineteen, more than five million people
celebrated in New York City. And this is the largest
(36:00):
aid in New York City's history. Wow. And that's just
fucking as as messy as it is. Yeah, it's still
fucking rules that like, and it's just so and we
thought we made it. We're like that interviewer in nineteen
ninety eight who was like, Hey, Harry, Harry, isn't it
great that we've made it? And he's like, no, they
(36:20):
will rip that away from you. You know, he was right. Yeah,
I didn't realize it was the biggest riot or a
parade rather in New York history. That's really amazing to
hear that. I know, Yeah, I know, I like, yeah,
I didn't know that either until I was just like, yeah,
doing that research and I'm like, oh shit, yeah, and
(36:41):
I'll close out by returning to the skull. Oh yes,
oh I forgot Okay, tell me what happened to the skull?
To mother to mother. For his part, the Skull turned
a new leaf after Stonewall, he became a community organizer.
He spent all of his time helping street youth, working
hard with the AIDS crisis, and teaching condom use. He
(37:03):
possibly he was like one of the founders at the
Christopher Street Festival that became Pride. He came out it's
a big part of all of us, and he became
the kind of guy who like dress up at Santa
as Santa Claus for events, Like he just became like
everyone's like fucking an endearing man. And at that point
he's like older because he like spent multiple times in
prison and like whatever. Yeah, he fought in World War Two, right,
(37:26):
oh yeah, so he's like getting there, Santa Claus, Santa Claus. Yeah, yeah,
yeah totally. And he works really hard to keep Pride
focused exactly what we were just talking about. He works
hard to include people of color and working class white
folks and Pride and also to make sure that X
cons feel welcome and basically like he pride like not
(37:51):
for rich people. Right, he gets one of his ex
cop buddies from when he was like when he was
doing that scam with the corrupt cops. He gets one
of them to turn a new leaf and become a
community activist instead of a couple. That's pretty cool. That's
pretty cool. Skull he fucking he fucking yeah. Like, and
he died of aids on February twenty eighth, nineteen eighty nine,
(38:15):
sixty three years old. At his funeral at Saint Veronica's
Roman Catholic the priest said, if ed Murphy is not
with God, then there is no God. Wow. If you
can get it full, yeah, if you can live your
cat your like gay Catholic life or like you know,
like like if you can get a Catholic priest to
(38:38):
say this at your funeral after everything you've done good
and bad, you know what I mean? He was not
a saint by Eddy Saplings, and the fact that he
did so much good that almost outweighed all of that.
It's pretty amazing, right well, and like and I think
that actually really like, um, I try not to like
overly talk about religion on this podcast. I'm actually not
(38:58):
particularly religious, will come across it very differently. I'm very
interested in religious radicals. I'm very interested in people have
different worldviews and how they apply them to the world.
And that is like why I find so find so
much interest in all of this. But it's like the
Catholic whole thing is theoretically about forgiveness and people who
have like been bad do good is like kind of
(39:21):
almost the core of it. And like, at its best,
I think it's anti carcerol, and I think at its
best it is like yeah, saying like look if this
guy didn't get in, I mean, I don't think it's
like it's like like getting freed or like redemption is
like a huge part of that that journey for a
lot of people. That makes sense. Yeah, and to keep
(39:42):
it all super irish. The funeral march included someone singing
the song Danny Boy, and the longest piece I was
able to find about him, there's like one long article
that someone wrote about his life and it's this like
gay Catholic piece. It presents him really cynically. It's doesn't
like him. I think it's like um and it it
(40:03):
basically claims he is involved in charity work for like
money and clout, and I'm like, what's money? Yeah? And
and I okay, and here's this this I might regret
saying this. I think in his heart he was a
class warrior, and the extortion of rich gays is like,
(40:24):
he's a poor criminal. He robs rich people. He's in
the gay scene, so he robs rich gay people. Like
that's not good, but it sounds like a quality. I know.
It's not greedy or selfish to rob rich people. It's
just a sign that your system is economically broken. I
agree with you one hundred percent. I really do. Like
(40:46):
I think kind of similarly, maybe this is also propose
that I shouldn't say, but like similarly, how I think
being a cop trump's everything. I think being rich sometimes
can trump everything else because if a certain point where
you kind of lose touch or not even just lose touch,
but like there's just it's too much of a discrepancy.
(41:07):
You know, it's just I don't I don't feel bad
for you. Yeah, so I do think you're right. I
think stealing from rich people, regardless of who they are,
is never bad because they'll get over it and still
be rich. Yeah, I mean to a point extorting them
obviously extorting them about their sexuality, yes, not that lead
(41:28):
into their suicide and stuff is more gay people killing
themselves because of that, and that is a yeah, yeah,
obviously not talking about that being no, no, I know.
But as far as like the bad things he did,
which were horrible, they were horrible. I think in his
life potentially maybe he was conscious of it and led
(41:49):
it differently from that point, because it sounds like later
in his life he kind of focused on being like
an activist and helping people from what it sounds like. Yeah,
And one of the pieces I've read a couple of
different things about his snitching, and one of them was like, oh,
he's stayed informant for the police until the NYPD beat
the shit out of him, and then he stopped informing
for them. Yeah. And then in his own words, he's like, no,
(42:12):
fuck that, I ain't no rat or whatever. But I
mean that's you guess yeah everyone. Yeah. And then Harry
hay To go more full circle, the communist who started
the Mattachine Society and then got run out of it.
He went on to form another movement in nineteen seventy nine,
this one that is pretty much immune to co option.
The Radical Fairies. Have you heard the Radical Fairies? I have?
(42:35):
Should I have? I don't know much about anything. I
have not heard of the routine. I knew about them
from like being a weird queer hitchhiker and hanging out
in rural spaces and stuff. And I'm not going into
them deeply, but they're a kind of a new age
pagan gay rural counterculture, wow, with like all kinds of
messy stuff. Yeah, and many of the people who I'm
(42:56):
presenting uncritically in this episode have things that could be
said about them whatever. And in nineteen seventy four, the
Gay Liberation Front successfully got the which is the group
that kind of came most immediately out of Stonewall, got
the American Psychiatric Association to take being gay out of
the Big Book of Mental Disorders, the DSMOR, the Diagnostic
(43:17):
and Statistical Manual. I have opinions on that that we
can't get into, but yeah, it was replaced with being
upset about being gay was the new disorder in nineteen
seventy four. Wow, until twenty thirteen when we finally got
rid of that. I mean, you could just call that
shame at a certain point and just like not making
(43:37):
a mental disease to feel one way or the other
about yourself. That's so stupid whatever. Yeah, no, what I mean,
it's like, why would people be ashamed of being gay
because society is exactly exactly society's disease. Yeah, be a
different book, The Conquest of Bread. I don't know, I've
(43:57):
never read The Conquest of Bread. Because progress isn't linear.
We're now entering an age where if I went and
gave this as a talk in Tennessee, it would have
to be at a strip club. Yeah, because I can't
give a public talk in a bunch soon a bunch
of states. That's we talked. We talked about this throughout
(44:20):
the whole story of this. But like genuinely, history does
not change. It just changes, like it just the flavor
is different, but the content is the same. Like it's
just so scary because we want to believe, like, oh
my god, there's been improvement in there has Yeah, but
that reality is terrifying that like still like a century later,
(44:42):
you're it's not safe for you to yeah, to beat
in public essentially, Like that's fucked up. It's just unreal.
I yeah, but I I will say, I think it's
not that nothing changes. I think it's that progress isn't
linear and we actually have to fight. That's true, That's
that's a less cynical way to think about it. And
(45:03):
when we fight, we win. We win both often we
win specific strategic victories, everything from the reformist convincing the
New York Marrier to stop and trapping gay men to
entire huge movements that transform the cultural face of the
world like Stonewall, did you know? And yeah, but also
(45:24):
we win literally because like if you pelt cops with
donuts and they drive away without arresting your friends, you
will never forget that feeling. Yeah, And when you die,
you will have done something amazing. You will have one
because we all fucking die, but not everyone has scared
cops away with donuts. That's apparently my takeaway that it
(45:45):
didn't end intend to land on. I but I think
you're completely right that that's the highest point of life
that anyone could achieve. Yeah, but I no, no, no,
I think your take is better. I'm very cynical, and
I think the only way of progress is even made
is not to be that way. Like if you have
like hope that it isn't linear, but it's still progressing.
(46:06):
That's the only way we're ever going to get out
of this fucking hole we're in, right, So I think
that's a better way to look at it, for sure.
I just I'm so I need to not be a cynical.
I know that about myself. But this is uncaird session
that we signed up. No, But I mean, like I
think about this a lot too, right, Like, I'm very um,
I think some bad stuff were coming. I run a
prepper podcast, But I like, I believe in strategic optimism
(46:33):
because we can't win unless we think we can win,
and so I believe that it is worthwhile and useful
even if we are like cynical, to at least fight
like we can win, even if we don't expect to win, right,
Because it's like my wind condition is really unlikely, right,
(46:54):
my wind condition is a stateless society without capitalism or
like systemic oppression of any sort along race and you
know whatever lines right, and like, so my win condition
is really unlikely to happen in my lifetime or anyone's lifetime,
but it is absolutely worth fighting for. And I think
it informs my life and gives my life. It makes
(47:14):
my life better. So even though it's cynical, not that
you know that's cliche, but yeah, yeah, strategic optim No, no,
I mean, I'm just gonna strategic optimism everyone. That's that's
what I'd like to plug. Yeah, even if you don't
believe you'll win, you can still act like you might
(47:35):
and you will have a better time. It's like going
into plane a board game and being like, whatever, I
give up, you're not going to have any fun playing
the board game. I thought you were going to say,
because I also think this applies going on to a plane,
and I thought you were going to say going out
to a plane and I thinking it's going to crash
versus like things gonna be okay. You're gonna have a
better time on the plane if you think it's gonna
be okay versus it's gonna c Also, but uh, having
(48:01):
meaning in your life or like purpose or whatever, I
think it gets kind of like annoying to talk about.
But you're right in that, Like what is the point
of this existence if not to like constantly evolve and
be okay doing it? Like why be miserable if we
cannot If we have the opportunity not to obviously there
(48:22):
are there are exceptions to that when it comes to
mental health and all that stuff. But if our brains
are so powerful, like so powerful, and I think we
don't give them enough credit to to make our to
shape our reality. Again, exceptions yet, but I think about
that all the time, especially recently. Like I I've just
(48:44):
been in this phase of like philosophy and like whatever,
and it's maybe I'm just looking at it from a
really like I don't know, intense way, but I think
I I think I think I'm mad at myself for
making fun of having me, because that's exactly why I
don't want to happen, because it could be cliche. Yeah,
(49:05):
but literally being alive and being like even if I
help one person or like whatever it is, my life
has meaning. I can be a spec on this giant
fucking universe galaxy. But I'm a spec that's going to
be here as long as I can and do as
much as I can. Like what else is there? There's
no other option? So yeah, we should have ended when
(49:26):
you stopped at the optimism selective optimism or no no, no, yeah, anyway, well,
guiding the plug sides meaning you could follow me on
the internet Shiro hero six six six on Twitter and
then just Shiro hero on Instagram. I rarely post on
(49:49):
them anymore, to be honest, to circle back to like
what is the point of all of that? Because that's
how I I just got into that little cycle of
like what is the point in a facial media? Nothing? Yeah,
exactly exactly. I just think for a long time it
was especially like in our quote unquote line of work,
it feels like the only way to stay relevant sometimes, yeah,
(50:11):
and you have to just kind of step back and
be like who cares? Yeah, you know, but what what
is your line of work? Do you do any podcasts
or anything? I do do podcast I do do podcasts.
I occasionally will host on It could happen here. I
have my own podcast called Ethnically Ambiguous, and I guess
on a bunch of other shit that you can listen to,
(50:33):
and I make films when I can, and you can
watch those two if you want to. So that's what
I got today. Hell yeah, And you can listen to
other cool Zone podcasts such as Hood Politics, Internet Hate Machine,
Behind There, Behind the Behind the Bullies, Yeah, Batties, pteful meanings,
(51:00):
The hateful meanis hateful meanis pod um and hateful meanis
that's that's on me. When you wait, when you use it,
remember me. Yeah, when you remember hateful meanis remember this's
the words cute. All right. We will see you. I
will see you all next week. Bye everyone. Cool People
(51:21):
Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts on cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Margaret Killjoy
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.