Moving this post up to ensure that people see it . . .
Angie Zapata is a woman who was murdered in July 2008. I have written about her before. Her alleged murderer, Allen Andrade, is believed to have killed her because she was trans. The jury selection in the trial is set to begin on Tuesday, April 14th.
The video above was made by Angie’s family and friends as a part of a campaign to end the hate that caused someone to brutally take her life. These advertisements, via Questioning Transphobia, were also created by Angie’s family and a coalition of 50 civil rights and anti-violence organizations, and are running in 22 Colorado newspapers. The ads won’t be run in areas where the juror selection pool will be drawn from, so as not to be seen as attempting to influence them, but the aim is to raise awareness of violence against transgender people and encourage the hate to end.
It bears strong noting that Angie Zapata’s is the first murder of a transgender person that will be tried as a hate crime. This is a monumental moment for that reason, and also a highly sobering one — the Transgender Day of Remembrance is held ever year because of the fact that such astonishing numbers of transgender people are murdered as a result of hate. The murders of so many should have been tried this way before. It’s a disgrace that they were not. And now, all we can do is hope for the best in Angie’s case, that the crime will be recognized for the act of hate and bigotry that it was, and that justice will be done.
Angie’s friends and family are asking you to light a candle for her. They don’t mean in your home, though you may choose to do so as well. They mean publicly. Become a fan of the page on Facebook, or a friend on MySpace. Then, change your profile picture to that of a lit candle. It can be one of the ones provided, or you can take a picture of yourself with a candle. It’s up to you. But change it, encourage your friends to do the same, and leave it there until the trial is over (it is currently set to last two weeks). I’ve done it. You can, too. It’s the least that all of us can do. It’s an online vigil, take part.
Also, visit the Angie Zapata website and follow them for updates on Twitter. Put this badge in your own blog sidebar by saving the image, and putting the link to the facebook page around it (idea created by Autumn):
And check out the GLAAD Angie Zapata resource kit to learn more about why national hate crime legislation which protects on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation is desperately needed.
Just do something, anything, and preferably all that you can, to spread the word. This deadly hate has to end.
Cara—is there a ready-made code for the button that we can just copy and paste into a WordPress widget? I’m not the most adept at HTML. :-)
I really hope to see this button all over the internet. What happened to Angie was terrible. She deserves justice.
Is there a way to keep this at the top of the page for a while so it doesn’t get buried under posts about troll brackets and popular media?
Light a Candle for Angie Zapata…
Angie Zapata, an 18-year old Colorado woman, was murdered last July. The man accused of her murder, Allen Andrade, claims that he became “enraged” when he discovered that Angie was transgendered, and ……
I’m disappointed that this post hasn’t had a lot of traffic. I hope its the reflect of a busy weekend and nothing more.
I am also not adept at HTML, how do a I get a copy of the button?
Unfortunately, without encouraging people to hotlink images off of our server, which sounds like a bad idea to me considering the fact that we’re often having server problems, I unfortunately can’t give you a code to copy and paste.
I will, however, do my best to walk you through it:
1. Right click on the image to save it to your computer.
2. Upload the image to your blog. I think that in both wordpress and blogger, there is a little button when you go to write a post. Click it, and it will give you the instructions to upload the image to your blog.
3. Copy the code surrounding the image URL that your blogging platform gives you after uploading the image. The code should probably start with IMG SRC and end in .jpg (of course excluding the carrots. copy those, too.) i.e. IMG SRC=”http://imageurl.jpg”
4. Paste this image code into your sidebar.
5. In front of the IMG code, use A HREF code to create a link to the facebook page. Which will look like A HREF=”http://www.facebook.com/pages/Light-a-Candle-for-Angie-Zapata/55051188422?ref=mf” but with opening and closing carrots.
5. Close the A HREF tag at the end of the image tag. So after the closing carrot after .jpg, type /a with carrots surrounding it.
I am definitely not the world’s best explainer, nor am I particularly adept at HTML myself, but I hope that helped :/
Also, Butch Fatale, I will try to remember to move it up to the top of the page every day for the next several days.
I wish hate crimes laws actually did anything, even a little bit, to stem the kind of hatred and bigotry that ended Angie Zapata’s lives and the lives of so many other trans women. Instead they have the potential to make life more brutal and dangerous for far too many marginalized trans folks. Those problems always bear mentioning in this context too, even as we deplore hate-fueled killings and the cultural atmosphere that makes them possible. I’m glad people are also talking about education and memorializing and spreading the word.
Yikes :( I missed the posts about this before. That poor woman. :( :( People shouldn’t have to put up with this stuff; she was just trying to live her life. I’m glad its finally being tried as what it is, a hate crime.
I joined the facebook group.
Thanks Cara! I thought it was a specific widget or something. I can do the html code for images with links. Lol.
Ugg, you’d think that it would be pretty hard to be an asshole about a case like this, but you’d be wrong. One of the more socially “conservative”/batshit insane bloggers at the (usually very good) Volokh Conspiracy legal blog is basically making the case that Zapata was guilty of “Rape by deception.” Thankfully it seems like a lot of the commenters jumped down his throat, but still…what the fuck is wrong with people?
Link:
http://volokh.com/posts/1239643197.shtml
Oh god I take that back about the comments….
[...] in the murder trial of Angie Zapata, who is believed to have been murdered simply for being trans, started yesterday. Please see more details at Questioning [...]
I don’t have a blog, but bump.
I didn’t think to mention this here (though in retrospect I should have), but I lit a candle for Angie on Facebook and posted the link to my feed.