I saw a disturbing post on Facebook that had a reaction from a new friend. The kind of awful post where you might go unfriend this new person but certainly unfollow. So I had a look at the page and there was worse, to me, much worse – there was a post suggesting violence.
So, simple enough no big deal FB makes a way to report and so click and it will be done and dusted.
No, not quite. There was a click for hate speech but nothing specifically that fit throwing bricks at cops – so I clicked the hate speech and thought violence must be under one umbrella and click and send.
I am not a cop and I am not a black lady but something about this post depicting a black lady suggesting dreaming of thrown bricks at law enforcement smacked of white supremacist propaganda, contrived to make blacks look bad and scary – as I read it.
The post does not have Marsha’s name on the photograph and how I found this anonymous woman was Marsha P Johnson was a story in itself – it was like she wanted to be found. It was like the genealogist Facebook friend clicked on a rude page and I stumbled across a dead gay activist who reached out of the page – I believe – not wanting her face on any propaganda like this. – I googled… this and then that and the other and I’ll be darn the picture came up.
And then more and more of the story fell out of the digital searches and like many family history stories there is often a snippet of fact. There is a brick and police story, if it is to be believed, two of them, bricks, in a drag queen’s, as she called herself, handbag, and based on the Facebook post having a shred of the tale 50 years later, she never lived it down. But once I discovered the whole story, I believe that in fact she had.
The picture and the new pictures also didn’t have Malcolm Michaels Jr’s name but Wikipedia did and the tragic story leads to mental health crisis, not as much in Marsha’s life as Marsha and before Marsha, born as Michael, the crisis was a country and heath care system that thought horrible things should be done to gay and transsexuals to cure them.
From all I read, the activism Marsha lived after the 1960s was all without violence for the cause, but in later years, a personal life that faded and died with agony and anger and finally in a suspicious death after being fished out of the Hudson River. Suicide as it was called? Taught a lesson? Hate crime victim?
The story of the post changed as fast as Marsha did, I was dumbstruck how much more there was to the story. Her life already in a movie but following the story once she had a job in the 1970s it seemed all would be well but it was not to last.
I will not believe Marsha would want to be remembered for brick banging – she would not want her face being used to turn people against each other and promote violence she wanted the opposite – no matter the tragedies in her life.
I think she needs a hug and she needs defending and I want to believe she knows cops need defending too and I bet she had regrets like we all do and I bet she hopes we will read more about her life and remember her for something other than a brick in a bag myth or brick on a car rumor.
For me, it should not have been so hard to flag a picture that promoted violence, no matter what the story is. The condemnation of the post is pushing hate as a solution but we need acceptance and health care. The post wants to turn people against black and gay and transsexual how can that be OK?
The page and the post are just mean spirited to say the least. Yes, I blocked it, it seems to promo a weird sort of activism that includes violent visuals. FBs reply was they looked at the page and didn’t see anything that was a problem and said to flag something specific in the future. I did as I was asked, flagged the picture promoting violence, and a week later, the violent suggestion remains along with hate everything on the page…
I will remember Marsha for loving to wear flowers in her hair. Remember her peaceful and smiling and a STAR no matter how fleeting. She was co-founder of STAR which was at the forefront of the change for all LGBTQ organizations that would follow.
https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&biw=1280&bih=882&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=U6foW_n-J6Pc5gKN2pGIAg&q=marsha+johnson&oq=marsha+johnson&gs_l=img.12..0l3j0i7i30l7.77479.78767..81047…0.0..0.71.386.6……1….1..gws-wiz-img…….0i7i10i30.PvqGCuGmdsY#imgrc=fmE1Z7eGSx62nM:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha_P._Johnson
Photograph of Marsha by Diana Davies
Marionetta Strung-Out 