Talk:Stonewall riots
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[edit] What actually happened?
Reading this article, I see a lot of discussion on the possible causes of the riot, and the consequences, but there's almost no information on the riots themselves :P There was a fight with the police, it seemed? How big? Any people injured? Did it last long? I can't see any clear information in the article (I may try to work on it later on when I have moe time, but I don't know anything about the riots and haden't heard of them before today; I'm sure there's someone more knowledgeable in the assistance). Flammifer 11:40, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
- Difficult though it is to believe today, there were violent confrontations between cops and protest groups in the 1960s lost by the cops. The Black Panthers even had shootouts in which the cops retreated and left. That was before SWAT teams, and would never happen today. In the 1993 Waco Siege, there was a retreat by the Feds, but then the Feds brought up Armored vehicles and crushed the Branch Davidians. If something like Stonewall were tried today, some of the people involved would die and the rest would go to jail for years. --John Nagle 06:29, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I feel the use of an unsupported and unfootnoted assertion from John D'Emilio's 1983 book, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities brings in material that is inaccurate and misleading. He wrote regarding the Stonewall raid: "New York was in the midst of a mayoral campaign - always a bad time for the city's homosexuals - and John Lindsay, the incumbent who had recently lost his party's primary, had reason to agree to a police cleanup." He also alludes in the next sentence to a recent action of "initiating a series of raids on gay bars" by the Village police precinct prior to the Stonewall raid.
The so-called "cleanup" going on at the time specifically targeted a small group of Mafia run bars -- it was not a general "cleanup". And it was being conducted by the First Division Morals unit, which covered all of southern Manhattan from Midtown to the Battery, not by the Village 6th precinct. These bars were suspected of being the base for an extortion ring which was connected with the theft of bonds. What was involved was not a matter of city-wide policy, but rather a concerted series of police actions focused on a single crime problem. I do not recall the bars we thought were non-Mafia at the time being touched, and David Carter does not name any of them in this connection in his book, though he does list three Mafia bars in the Village.
Furthermore, the police department absolutely loathed Mayor John Lindsay, and in no way would the department have initiated a campaign such as D'Emilio implies which might have provided an assist in getting Lindsay re-elected. Jfpessoa 15:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I was in the Stonewall just minutes before the incident that started the riot. I have spoken to many but this is the first that I am putting my own words in print.
I think it is very important to remember the context of the times: The anti-war Peace Movement was still a groundswell movement without specific individuals claiming to be Leader and Head Honcho, Police brutality due to Anti-potsmoking Laws were also being heavily protested. Uptown from the stonewall and over in the "Village" proper hippies by the droves congregated every weekend passing out flowers in the streets - even to cops who commonly crossed to the other side of the street just to avoid the encounters. *Unless they were en mass and harassing the Hippies* The Hippies definatly had the advantage of numbers.
If it was not the Salvadorian that impaled himself on the fence then it was one or the other of numerous incidents of the time that had the Gay community upset. In street level view, the cops and th Mafia were in cahoots. Non-controlled gay bar income was harassed just as much as individual Gays and much conversation centered on which business was mafia and which was gay owned. New York newspaper front pages commonly headlined events similar to the Salvadorian impalement.
I was on the Board of Directors of a Hartford Connecticut Gay Liberation Organization and was in company with another Board Director and we were going from bar to bar enjoying a night out in the big city. We went into the stonewall. In the stonewall I ran into an acquaintance that I frequently sociably conversed with. As usual for a weekend this person was in drag. The person was not in a good mood and "needed" a hug and I joined at the bar and had a beer and listened to a monologue not just about this person's private problems but about the city's heavy handed harassment of many groups. The harassment towards other than gays was a factor disrupting the person in drag's personal relationships that weekend. The person in drag was already upset and in a rare mood long before the raid is what I am trying to establish here. Besides myself and the friend I was with and the person in drag there was a forth person there in our little gathering that I remember very well. He was a little well built spunky blond named Ronny. Ronny was a friend of the person in drag but I ran into Ronny in the city much more frequently than the person in drag.
My friend and I departed and went to a different bar. I did not notice anything unusual at all as I left the Stonewall. At the different bar Ronny soon came running in and sighted us. He is the one that told me what I have as my version. Ronny claimed that there already were known undercover cops in the Stonewall before I left but that shortly after I left they went and blocked off the entrance and let a uniformed officer in. The Uniform went to the person in drag and asked for ID. The context being that the ID would say male but the person was dressed as a female and thus would be a crime and cause for an arrest. The person in drag 'spit out the words:"Fuck You" to the officer' so the officer attempted to strike the person in drag but the person in drag was faster and not only deflected the blow but struck the officer. Then all pandemonium ensued as everyone jumped into action. Ronny said that during the fight when the person in drag was being attempted to be subdued by several officers, the person gave Ronny a look and a head nod to tell Ronny to get out of there and Ronny had run off as the officers were trying to take patrons out to an arrived Police Vehicle. I had already called another place uptown and found out a friend I was meeting was already there and had a cab on the way. Ronny joined us in the cab and we left the "dangerous area" and went to a nice respectable Mafia place where trouble was much more rare. I saw the person in drag one more time after that but the incident was merely still just another event in the ongoing general Fight For Freedoms of the times. Ronny moved to Washington DC then to Atlanta where I last saw him I think about 1974 when he owned a restaurant. I have no idea where he is now.
I have read many "History"s of the fateful night and mostly I wonder why it seems that few that were actually there have ever given their their versions. --Jeorgan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.178.96.44 (talk) 03:16, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] "ambiguous and editorial statements"
I dislike doing full reverts on registered users' edits, since I want to give others' motives and judgment the benefit of the doubt, but I disagree completely with all three components of the most recent edit. The "Friday night-Saturday morning, June 27-28" statement that was simplified may have been unwieldy but was nonetheless correct, since the riots commenced before midnight and continued into the next calendar day. Perhaps someone can find a more elegant way to phrase it, but meanwhile it really isn't ambiguous at all. The change from "did battle" to "was hostily [sic] engaged" replaces a perfectly acceptable usage with an absurdly awkward construction. The deleted statement, "Anger and outrage against the way police had treated gay people for decades previous burst to the surface", was not an editorial statement; it was a fact that has been amply documented in interviews with Stonewall participants (this can been verified in multiple books and documentaries). For these reasons, I'm reverting. Rivertorch 04:55, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
- I will address your issues.
- 1. The sentence: "On Friday night-Saturday morning, June 27-28, 1969, not long after 1:20 a.m., police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village" is internally inconsistent. One of two possibilities exist: either the police raided the Inn before 1:20 a.m. (which could possibly have occured on June 27) or that the raid occured after 1:20 a.m. which could only be on June 28.
- 2. Perhaps the wording on the second issue is a problem, but I still object over the "did battle" statement because it is not encyclopedic. The article should discuss only the events as they occured and we should resist editorializing. An article on the history of the Stamp Act riots would not say that the colonists "did battle" with anyone unless they unambiguously were involved in a battle. In this case the rioters obviously weren't battling the police in the conventional sense so weasel quotes were used to diminish the meaning of the phrase "did battle."
- 3. The third statement needs strong references to indicate that the events were due to actions occuring over decades rather than over a couple days or weeks. Another statement in this same article implies that this is not an entirely uncontested point of view:
| “ | What may have made the June 1969 raid different was the death a week earlier of Judy Garland, an important cultural icon with whom many in the gay community identified. The palpable grief at her loss culminated with her funeral on Friday, June 27, attended by 22,000 people, including perhaps 12,000 gay men. Many of the Stonewall patrons may have been emotionally distraught when the raid occurred that night, and refused to react passively. | ” |
- Cheers. --Burzum 07:38, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Some doofus put 'QUENTIN HOWARD JOHNSON=HOMOSEXUAL' up on here, reverting the edit seems to have gotten rid of it.
[edit] Organizations named after Stonewall
The article mentions bars named after Stonewall - including one in Allentown, PA - but no mention of numerous organizations which took it's name honoring the Stonewall Rebellion. For example, the Stonewall Democrats, a political club, and the Stonewall Chorale - New York City's mixed gender g/l/b/t chorus. Perhaps most notable is the Stonewall Library and Archives, in Fort Lauderdale, FL, the largest library and archives devoted to g/l/b/t studies in the southeastern United States. 69.139.182.222 07:22, 17 January 2007 (UTC)buddmar
- Please feel free to add this information to the article if you think it would be a valuable addition. Rivertorch 01:04, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Did a man die on a spike fence?
I was first told the story of the Stonewall riot a long time ago, and what I remember the clearest is the tragic episode of a young gay man who was arrested that night, a Salvadoran, and who was so terrified of his family's impending wrath that he leapt from a window at the police station and impaled himself on an iron fence, and died. I was told that the other gay/lesbian people were especially outraged by his death, and that this was a key factor in the whole subsequent movement for gay rights. Is this true or is it an urban legend? BobHelms 20:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
The above story conflates two events: the raid on the Stonewall in June, and the raid on the Snake Pit the following March. The impalement occurred at the second raid and not at Stonewall. The young man was Diego Vinales, an Argentinian, who threw himself from the window of the police station and was impaled on an iron fence. He did not die, though part of the fence had to be cut down and he was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital with it still imbedded in him. He died many years later of AIDS. There were in the past images of the front page of the NY Daily News which had a photo of Vinales impaled on the fence.Jfpessoa 16:17, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I remember well that a Hispanic man jumped out of the police station window and impaled himself on a fence after being arrested for "Frequenting a place where known homosexuals were known to congregate" If he did not actually die as soon as impaled, The NY Daily News article with his picture claimed he did. I was on the board of directors of a Gay Liberation Society in Hartford Connecticut and saved a copy of that NY Daily News edition for years. --Jeorgan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.178.96.44 (talk) 02:18, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
- It's too bad you don't still have it. That would be a good reference to cite. Rivertorch (talk) 06:33, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Minor Clarification
I haven't heard of the incident before; I think the article can be a little clearer earlier on that the riots did in fact take place at a place called "The Stonewall Inn". Paragraph 5 in the "History" section mentions "a bar" and then "the Stonewall", but it's still unclear at that point whether the author is talking about "Stonewall, the riots", or "Stonewall, the bar", or if the bar is even CALLED Stonewall. "Stonewall Inn" should probably be internally linked in the first paragraph of the article, not in the third section. 24.21.149.53 22:39, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Judy Garland/Stonewall refs
Judy Garland's death most definitely played a role as her tragic life was empathized by many queens (remember that celebrities generally were a lot less tragic in those days) and she was a gay icon for her character Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz - "A friend of Dorothy" as in any friend of Dorothy is a friend of mine. Her funeral was the topic of the day and had just ended hours earlier.
:I think the following puts it best:
| “ | Insert the text of the quote here, without quotation marks. | ” |
- To get a sense of what the street kids, patrons and queens were like here is an excerpt from Martin Duberman's book "Stonewall"[1]
More:
- Thousands Line Up to View Judy Garland's Body[2]
- Madonna As Postmodern Myth: How One Star's Self-Construction Rewrites Sex, Gender, Hollywood and...[3]
- Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility[4]
- The Arena of Masculinity: Sports, Homosexuality, and the Meaning of Sex[5]
- End of the Rainbow[6]
- Talking Stonewall - Stonewall Inn riot; gay rights movement, Interview magazine, June 1994 by Jeffrey Slonim[7]
- The 1960s: The Stonewall Riots and Their Aftermath[8]
I will try to work in appropriately. Benjiboi 10:52, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
