Saelune said:
...And this proves me wrong...how?
You're pushing the stonewall myth, which is actually an historically-revisionist thermonuclear take that
underestimates the level of victimization suffered by the LGBT community at the time and the institutional forces arrayed against them, giving the Stonewall protesters
less credit than they deserve, and calling the
actual background of it anti-LGBT fake news? If you're only looking at the actions of the NYPD you're not even telling half the story, and you're not even telling the
important part of the story.
Stonewall wasn't just a protest against anti-gay laws or police raids. They were protesting mob exploitation of the gay community, and police corruption as well. That's why the gathered crowd threw fistfuls of coins at the cops, and why the words that actually kicked off the riot were "they didn't pay off the cops". Because the cops were fucking dirty, and the raid was thought to be a shakedown.
Stonewall was a mob property, and the mob was blackmailing patrons, forcing them into prostitution, running child sex trafficking out of it, and paying off the cops to look the other way and stage fake raids to maintain appearances. Meanwhile, the Wagner mayoral admin was eager to look tough on organized crime during an election year, and was targeting gay bars because they made for easy, politically-acceptable, mob targets.
And indeed, the level of violence at Stonewall
by the members of the gay community has been greatly exaggerated. The NYT article I linked earlier was a retrospective by the Village Voice writer who originally covered the story. Here's his original article [https://www.villagevoice.com/2010/07/21/stonewall-gay-power-comes-to-sheridan-square/] -- mind the language, it was written in '69 after all.
It began as a small raid ? only two patrolmen, two detectives, and two policewomen were involved. But as the patrons trapped inside were released one by one, a crowd started to gather on the street. It was initially a festive gathering, composed mostly of Stonewall boys who were waiting around for friends still inside or to see what was going to happen. Cheers would go up as favorites would emerge from the door, strike a pose and swish by the detective with a ?Hello there, fella.? The stars were in their element. Wrists were limp, hair was primped, and reactions to the applause were classic. ?I gave them the gay power bit, and they loved it, girls.? ?Have you seen Maxine? Where is my wife ? I told her not to go far.?
Suddenly the paddywagon arrived and the mood of the crowd changed. Three of the more blatant queens ? in full drag ? were loaded inside, along with the bartender and doorman, to a chorus of catcalls and boos from the crowd. A cry went up to push the paddywagon over, but it drove away before anything could happen. With its exit, the action waned momentarily. The next person to come out was a dyke, and she put up a struggle ? from car to door to car again. It was at that moment that the scene became explosive. Limp wrists were forgotten. Beer cans and bottles were heaved at the windows, and a rain of coins descended on the cops. At the height of the action, a bearded figure was plucked from the crowd and dragged inside. It was Dave Van Ronk, who had come from the Lion?s Head to see what was going on. He was charged with throwing an object at the police.
Three cops were necessary to get Van Ronk away from the crowd and into the Stonewall. The exit left no cops on the street, and almost by signal the crowd erupted into cobblestone and bottle heaving. The reaction was solid: they were pissed. The trashcan I was standing on was nearly yanked out from under me as a kid tried to grab it for use in the window smashing melee. From nowhere came an uprooted parking meter ? used as a battering ram on the Stonewall door. I heard several cries of ?Let?s get some gas,? but the blaze of flame which soon appeared in the window of the Stonewall was still a shock. As the wood barrier behind the glass was beaten open, the cops inside turned a firehose on the crowd. Several kids took the opportunity to cavort in the spray, and their momentary glee served to stave off what was rapidly becoming a full-scale attack.
[...]
The real action Saturday was that night in the street. Friday night?s crowd had returned and was being led in ?gay power? cheers by a group of gay cheerleaders. ?We are the Stonewall girls/ We wear our hair in curls/ We have no underwear/ We show our pubic hairs!? The crowd was gathered across the street from the Stonewall and was growing with additions of onlookers, Eastsiders, and rough street people who saw a chance for a little action. Though dress had changed from Friday night?s gayery to Saturday night street clothes, the scene was a command performance for queers. If Friday night had been pick-up night, Saturday was date night. Hand-holding, kissing, and posing accented each of the cheers with a homosexual liberation that had appeared only fleetingly on the street before. One-liners were as practiced as if they had ben used for years. ?I just want you all to know,? quipped a platinum blond with obvious glee, ?that sometimes being homosexual is a big pain in the ass.? Another allowed as how he had become a ?left-deviationist.? And on and on.
[...]
The people on the street were not to be coerced. ?Let?s go down the street and see what?s happening, girls,??someone yelled. And down the street went the crowd, smack into the Tactical Patrol Force, who had been called earlier to disperse the crowd and were walking west on Christopher from Sixth Avenue. Formed in a line, the TPF swept the crowd back to the corner of Waverly Place where they stopped. A stagnant situation there brought on some gay tomfoolery in the form of a chorus line facing the helmeted and club-carrying cops. Just as the line got into a full kick routine, the TPF advanced again and cleared the crowd of screaming gay powerites down Christopher to Seventh Avenue. The street and park were then held from both ends, and no one was allowed to enter ? naturally causing a fall-off in normal Saturday night business, even at the straight Lion?s Head and 55. The TPF positions in and around the square were held with only minor incident ? one busted head and a number of scattered arrest ? while the cops amused themselves by arbitrarily breaking up small groups of people up and down the avenue.
To that you can add this firsthand account [https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/what-stonewall-means-to-the-people-who-were-there].
Stonewall has become a symbol of the LGBTQ rights movement, but its storied history has also been mythologized in some ways. Jay said the violence at the Stonewall riots was not as intense as has been portrayed.
She said the accounts of what happened at the Stonewall have been greatly exaggerated. ?The window was intact. The door was intact. There were no parking meters lying around in the street. I didn?t see any overturned cars or burnt cars. But there was a lot of anger. And people were just talking and shouting and saying, ?What do we do? What do we do??? ?But people were not agreeing with the Mattachine sentiment anymore that we should just go home and be good and eventually straight people would accept us,? said Jay.
However real the violence
by police, the two-day all-out Jets vs. Sharks street brawl it's made out to be today it was not. We're discussing a protest that can be summarized by the showdown of riot cop phalanxes versus...impromptu chorus lines.
