Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
How the homophobic media covered the 1969 Stonewall uprising
One of the long-standing myths of Stonewall — that it was sparked by the death of gay icon Judy Garland — springs from that coverage.
Link to tweet
Retropolis
How the homophobic media covered the 1969 Stonewall uprising
The New York Daily News and the Village Voice used slurs in their reporting about the police raid that galvanized the gay rights movement
By Gillian Brockell
June 8 at 7:00 AM
The most striking thing about the media coverage of the Stonewall riots — the 1969 uprising that was a turning point in the gay rights movement — is how offensive much of it was.
“Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees Are Stinging Mad” blared the headline on the front page of the New York Daily News. “Lilies of the valley” “pranced out to the street” when the cops showed up, the paper said.
“The police had difficulty keeping a dyke in a patrol car,” reported the Village Voice. And from inside the bar, where police and the Village Voice reporter were briefly trapped, “the sound filtering in doesn’t suggest dancing faggots any more.”
And if you’re wondering if those words were as derogatory then as they are now — “Yeah, these were not friendly words,” said historian Hugh Ryan after reading both articles. Ryan is the author of the book “When Brooklyn Was Queer.”
....
Jerry Lisker, who wrote the Daily News article, died in 1993. Howard Smith, who wrote the Village Voice article and was a noted chronicler of the hippie movement, died in 2014. His New York Times obituary says many people first heard words like “Stonewall” from his reporting, without mentioning that Smith used gay slurs in the same report.
....
Gillian Brockell is a staff writer for The Washington Post's history blog, Retropolis. She has been at The Post since 2013 and previously worked as a video editor. Follow https://twitter.com/gbrockell
How the homophobic media covered the 1969 Stonewall uprising
The New York Daily News and the Village Voice used slurs in their reporting about the police raid that galvanized the gay rights movement
By Gillian Brockell
June 8 at 7:00 AM
The most striking thing about the media coverage of the Stonewall riots — the 1969 uprising that was a turning point in the gay rights movement — is how offensive much of it was.
“Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees Are Stinging Mad” blared the headline on the front page of the New York Daily News. “Lilies of the valley” “pranced out to the street” when the cops showed up, the paper said.
“The police had difficulty keeping a dyke in a patrol car,” reported the Village Voice. And from inside the bar, where police and the Village Voice reporter were briefly trapped, “the sound filtering in doesn’t suggest dancing faggots any more.”
And if you’re wondering if those words were as derogatory then as they are now — “Yeah, these were not friendly words,” said historian Hugh Ryan after reading both articles. Ryan is the author of the book “When Brooklyn Was Queer.”
....
Jerry Lisker, who wrote the Daily News article, died in 1993. Howard Smith, who wrote the Village Voice article and was a noted chronicler of the hippie movement, died in 2014. His New York Times obituary says many people first heard words like “Stonewall” from his reporting, without mentioning that Smith used gay slurs in the same report.
....
Gillian Brockell is a staff writer for The Washington Post's history blog, Retropolis. She has been at The Post since 2013 and previously worked as a video editor. Follow https://twitter.com/gbrockell
There was this comment:
a liberal humanist
13 minutes ago
Yeah, the good old days. The social upheavals of the 1960s happened for a reason as this story reminds us. A cautionary tale for those addicted to nostalgia and the wearing of rose colored glasses: think twice before deciding you want to re-live the past, because a good part of it wasn't really all that pleasant the first time around.
