A friend of mine in New York wrote a few weeks ago to say a friend of his was murdered. My friend and his friend are both gay. He said that he is amazed that the police are actually investigating this murder (the guy was stabbed and bludgeoned in his own apartment). They never used to bother, or even pretend to bother about murders of gay men in New York City. Hate crimes happen all-too-freely in an environment like that. It requires a strident response from the community involved, and if the pendulum swings a bit close to your face, that's something you have to deal with. Same with activist Indians. People are talking about Hiroshima and Nagasaki on another thread--you want to see murder and genocide? You take a look at the policies of the American government and before that of the colonial powers in the first 500 years of colonial occupation of this North American continent. Many millions died through various means. Amherst and his smallpox blankets, Andrew Jackson and his death marches, those are only a drop in the bucket.

You'd best not pooh-pooh those noisy groups unless you are on incredibly firm footing yourself and are experiencing no personal benefit yourself from policies enacted to benefit earlier white and straight generations. People who live in glass houses, and all that.

SRS