VIOLENCE + VIDEO: Portrait of Duanna Johnson (1968-2008) Portrait of Duanna Johnson (1968-2008) by Mark Weber One of the stories in the book [Queer (In)justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States] that I think is particularly powerful is that of Duanna Johnson, a Black transgender woman who was arrested for a prostitution-related offense in Memphis, Tennessee, whose brutal beating by a police officer in the local jail was caught on videotape, and whose murder less than a year later, the third in as many years of a Black transgender woman in Memphis, remains unsolved. The reason it is so compelling is because it raises so many central themes – the grinding discrimination transgender people face in virtually every aspect of life - employment, housing, access to drug treatment, homeless shelters, and other supportive services - the pervasive profiling and policing of transgender people, and particularly transgender women of color, as being engaged in sex-related offenses, the viciousness and impunity of police violence against LGBT people of color, and the endemic violence and lack of police protection LGBT people of color face in our communities. It also highlights the relative invisibility of these experiences – Johnson’s case, despite the existence of a “smoking gun” video of the police beating, did not garner national attention or generate widespread outrage among mainstream racial justice, anti-police brutality, and civil rights organizations as Rodney King’s did. Her murder did not draw the nationwide calls for justice Matthew Shepard’s did. Local organizers’ valiant and thoughtful efforts to do justice by her experiences and her memory went largely unsupported by national organizations of all stripes beyond a sound bite here and there, usually in service of their larger agenda of advancing “hate crimes” laws – which have done nothing to protect Johnson from either form of “hate violence” she experienced. And ultimately, while the officer who beat her was ultimately prosecuted under federal civil rights laws, Johnson was not able to achieve justice through the legal system in her lifetime for the multiple forms of violence and criminalization she endured. Duanna bravely confronted the Memphis Police Department officers who brutalized her while she was in police custody. At great personal cost, Duanna was the public face of our community’s campaign against racism, homophobia, and transphobia. There was no justice for Duanna Johnson in life. via afrodiaspores.tumblr.com
