I'm going to start with something that I already mentioned on my blog but I wanted to bring up here because I had a variety of reactions to the story and I was wondering if anyone else felt the same way.Marco McMillian, 34, was found dead recently. His body had been dragged under a fence and left near a levee on the Mississippi River. McMillian, who was both black and openly gay, was a viable candidate for mayor of Clarksdale, Mississippi, a town of 20-something thousand in the northwest corner of the state, mostly known for some significance in the history of the blues.
Police have charged 22-year-old Lawrence Reed with murder in the case. No motive has been established, but McMillian's godfather, Carter Womack, said the County coroner had told them McMillian was beaten and burned.
When I first heard about this, my reaction was "oh please don't let this be what it looks like." Let it be a robbery gone bad, let it be some kind of "ordinary" tragedy rather than the vicious hate crime it looks like. Let it be this sort of base motive rather than that sort of baser motive.
But at the same time, a thought kept turning over and over in my mind:
An openly gay black man was a viable candidate for mayor in Mississippi.
An openly gay black man was a viable candidate for mayor in Mississippi.
We know that we still have a long, long way to go - but sometimes, just sometimes, it's good to stop for a moment to realize how far we have come.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/28/marco-mcmillian-dead_n_2780698.html
http://abcnews.go.com/US/miss-mayor-candidate-marco-mcmillian-found-dead/story?id=18614617
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/04/marco-mcmillian-beaten-burned_n_2806435.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/26/17103321-a-year-after-killing-trayvon-martins-father-says-parents-will-never-move-on?lite
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