In Memory of Sakia Gunn


I remember hearing about the killing of this young person in Newark three years ago. Well, it's the three year anniversary and it is good to see some people still remember. Kim Pearson writes in a May 11 post on her blog:

Today is the third anniversary of the murder of Sakia Gunn, the 15-year-old African American lesbian from Newark whose killing ignited a movement and led to New Jersey's first bias-murder prosecution. Gunn was stabbed to death when she and four friends were attacked by two menafter rejecting their sexual advances by declaring themselves to belesbians. In April, 2005, Richard McCullough, 32, drew a 20-year prison sentence after admitting that he stabbed the Westside High 10th-grader in the heart whileyelling homophobic slurs.According to poet, scholar and activist Cheryl Clarke, "[Sakia's] death was symbolic, or emblematic instead, of the psychic and emotional death of so many of our young people." Gunn did not conform to the expectations of how she should behave, [her killer's] expectations of what women should do. For that ... she was slaughtered."

Everyone seems to fixate on more media-ready images of "innocent homosexual" deaths like Matthew Shepard. It's worth reading about what happened to Sakia...and remembering.

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