an unaccustomed shape

Papaver orientale ‘Queen Alexandra’ & Stipa lessingiana

WTAF?

eclipse sickness

I was told by my professors that Kitty Genovese was a 28-year-old unmarried woman who was attacked, raped, and brutally murdered on her way home from her shift as manager of a bar. I was told that numerous people witnessed the attack and her cries for help but didn’t do anything because they “assumed someone else would”. Nobody intervened until it was too late. 

What I was not told was that Kitty Genovese was a lesbian who lived more or less openly with her partner in the Upper West Side and managed a gay bar. 

Now… is it likely that people overheard Kitty’s cries for help and ignored them because they thought someone else would deal with it? Or, perhaps, did they ignore her because they knew she was a lesbian and just didn’t care?

Maybe that’s not the case. Maybe it was just a random attack. Maybe her neighbours didn’t know she was gay, or didn’t care.

But it’s a huge chunk of information to leave out about her in a supposedly scientific study of events, since her sexuality made her much more vulnerable to violent crimes than the average person. And it’s a dishonour to her memory.

RIP Kitty Genovese. Society may only remember you for how you died, but I will remember you for who who were.

One shouted out his window for the attacker to leave her alone, which did successfully scare the man off temporarily.

Another called the police but, seeing her still on her feet, said only that there had been a fight but the woman seemed to be okay.

And when Kitty Genovese was finally attacked in a vestibule where she couldn’t be seen from outside, Karl Ross, a neighbor, saw what was happening but was too frightened himself to go to her rescue–so he started calling other neighbors to ask what he should do. Eventually one of them told him to call the police, which he did, and the woman he called, Sophie Farrar, rushed out to help Kitty even though she didn’t know whether the attacker was gone.

Kitty Genovese died in the arms of a neighbor who tired to help and comfort her while they waited for the police and ambulance to arrive. Kitty was in fact still alive, although mortally wounded, when the ambulance reached the scene.

The man who saw the final stabbing? Who panicked and called other neighbors first instead of the police? The man who said, infamously, that he “didn’t want to get involved” because he was reluctant to turn to the police for help? He was thought to be gay himself. He was a friend of Kitty and Mary Ann’s. After being interviewed by the police he took a bottle of vodka to Mary Ann and sat with her, trying to comfort her.

So, no. I don’t think the evidence indicates that Kitty Genovese’s neighbors let her die because she was a lesbian, because Kitty Genovese’s neighbors tried to help.

See also: Debunking the Myth of Kitty Genovese (The New York Post)

A Call for Help (The New Yorker)

At the time, the NYPD was coming under quite a bit of criticism about rising crime rates and the seeming ineffectiveness of the police’s response to the problem. In the Kitty Genovese case, even though people did in fact call the police, it took about an hour for them to show up and the first detectives didn’t arrive until three hours later (at which point they mostly spent their time interrogating Kitty’s girlfriend about their relationship, because for “some reason” they considered her to be the most likely suspect for the murder. In fact, the police wouldn’t catch the actual killer until six days later when he was picked up for having a stolen TV in the trunk of his car, at which point he admitted to having committed a total of three murders). It’s not an accident that one of the things to come out of the Genovese case was the establishment of the 9-1-1 system, because at the time that the attack happened, you had to call the specific number of a particular police precinct and it was up to the duty sergeant on the desk to take action - which was usually to send someone out from the precinct to the address reported, because cops on foot patrol wouldn’t be outfitted with two-way radios for several years. It’s more than a little convenient that at a time when the NYPD is coming in for public scrutiny about its ability to do the basic job of responding to reports of crimes in a timely fashion, the Police Commissioner happens to hand the City Editor of the city’s most prominent newspaper a story which puts the blame for the slow response on the apathy and inaction of New Yorkers, neatly absolving the NYPD for its ridiculously poor performance in this case in particular and its response to the rise in crime in general. 

Through centuries of hardship, displacement, and challenge, Jewish women have carried the flame of hope and strength, dancing not only with our bodies but also with our spirits. We are adorned in tradition and rich with history, carrying the unbreakable joy that has sustained our people through it all.

Despite everything, from exile to persecution to the daily trials of life, we find reasons to celebrate. Because joy is a form of resistance. There is power within each of us to to embrace both our past and our future with grace and hope.

May we all be inspired to find light even in the darkest times, and to celebrate the boundless, beautiful spirit that is Jewish joy. 🩵

nyishaloraine:

A few housekeeping notes before the comments arrive:

No need to announce your departure. This isn’t an airport. ✌🏾

An insult in place of an argument is an ad hominem. Look that up while you’re looking up actual history.

Being gullible isn’t a flex.

Ghislaine Maxwell’s father acquired a textbook publisher in 1988. Holocaust evidence was presented at Nuremberg more than 40 years earlier. Chronology matters.

Israel is criticized every day. Stop saying it’s not allowed 😂🤦🏾‍♀️

Research requires testing your belief against contradictory evidence. Automatically declaring every document, witness, historian, and institution part of the conspiracy creates a closed loop where your belief can never be disproven. That’s called intellectual insulation.

And please retire “Enjoy your $7K, goy.” It’s played out. I wish someone would pay me $7K to share basic common sense.

Jewish people are human beings. Turning them into a shadowy explanation for everything you dislike is ancient scapegoating repackaged as independent thought. We can do better.

(sorry that somehow these didn’t come out uniform in size!)

what’s really remarkable is her combatting it. most don’t do that, which is entirely understandable. Jews on social media aren’t even expending the energy to respond to hate like this anymore (also understandable, I don’t either, you really can’t reason with people like this), it is exhausting, but it still means a lot to see someone be brave and try. 🤍