sarah mascarah

and you know what? people say that it's classist, but the candidates who receive this defense are all rich! graham platner is a hobby farmer with a lawyer dad and a famous grandfather! donald trump's father was an ubersuccessful real estate developer (who let's not forget was found guilty of housing discrimination against black people).

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. 

and my research brought me to (gross photos warning!) Kismai's post on the very topic. apparently this stuff is called "scrud," and it's basically a residue that forms over time inside the nooks and crannies of a washing machine - leftover detergent reacting with mineral traces in tapwater to form a buildup that also traps dyes, grease, and other dirt, which bacteria then feeds on, because it wasn't already gross enough. it forms faster if you have hard water, use too much detergent (which most people do), use fabric softener, wash only on cold and the list goes on and on - point is, scrud is the reason that you have to actually clean your washing machine, or be super fastidious about how you do laundry.

(I'll take "things I wish school/my parents actually taught me" for 800)

it turns out that laundry sucks significantly less when your clothes and sheets and etc actually come out of the machine looking, feeling, and smelling clean, rather than looking, feeling, and smelling like despair dipped in slime

“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” - The 14 Words, white nationalist slogan (The Order)

The Great Replacement is a white nationalist conspiracy theory originating with French fascist Renaud Camus, which states that immigration and declining birthrates are an intentional act of demographic replacement of whites (“white genocide,” a related conspiracy) by the international Jewish conspiracy to subvert western civilization and capitalism, a modernization of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion/Judeo-Bolshevik/Cultural Marxism conspiracies. It is rooted in older fears of “white extinction” that began becoming popular in the 19th century. It is related to “the Demographic Question.”

The Great Replacement has been promoted repeatedly by Elon Musk on Twitter as owner and by fascist propagandist Tucker Carlson, including on his Fox News’ show (the highest rated cable program in U.S. History in 2020 with a peak of 4.4 million nightly viewers).

This Conspiracy Has a Bodycount: ‘The Great Replacement’ as Inspiration for Fascist Murders. These acts were organized and praised on 4/8chan where the attacker’s racist manifestos would be shared shortly before or after their attacks:

2017 Charlottesville ‘Unite the Right’ rally killing of antifascist Heather Heyer with a car by a white supremacist, was preceded by torch-lit chants of “blood and soil” (Nazi Germany reference) and “Jews will not replace us” (Great Replacement reference) the night before, they also harassed a Black church and synagogue in the area - 1 dead;

2018 Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue shooting was motivated by the conspiracy, with the shooter convinced the synagogue’s role in the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (20th century era organization that shifted focus from Jewish refugees to all refugees) was material evidence of the role of Jews in demographically replacing white people with migrants - 11 dead;

2019 Christchurch Mosque shootings targeting Muslims were motivated by the conspiracy, cited by name in the shooter’s manifesto - 51 dead;

2019 El Paso Walmart shooting targeting Latinos was motivated by the conspiracy, cited by name in the shooter’s manifesto - 23 dead;

2022 Buffalo supermarket shooting targeting the Black community was motivated by the conspiracy, cited by name in the shooter’s manifesto whose act was directly inspired by the Christchurch shootings - 10 dead.

Total deaths: 95 since 2017, 96 counting Heather Heyer.

How popular is this conspiracy? According to this 2022 poll by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a disturbing number of Americans across party lines agree with core fundamental aspects of the conspiracy.

But this is a conspiracy that is not merely referenced in white nationalist attacks on the public but has become an integral part of state recruitment propaganda for Department of Homeland Security and their ethnic cleansing efforts of migrants.

As you can see, DHS is directly appealing to the sensibilities and conspiratorial racism of open white nationalists in an explicit attempt to recruit them. Also notable is their "America after 100,000,000 deportations" post because there are only an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants. This was never about civil violations of immigration law, but about ethnically cleansing the nation to transform it into a demographically homogenous white ethnostate.

The Great Replacement conspiracy inspires mass murders, is believed by a significant portion of Americans, and is referenced in recruitment campaigns to hire more goons for the ethnic cleansing of migrants.