Solidarity In Practice: CeCe McDonald Sentencing and Press Conference
Today I went to the sentencing hearing and press conference for CeCe McDonald. Despite the rather somber occasion, I was uplifted by the large number of community supporters who had shown up in solidarity. By now, many people know the story. CeCe McDonald is a young, black, transwoman who while walking with her friends, was attacked by a group of racist and transphobic White people. According to the Support CeCe Website:
Around 12:30 am, CeCe was walking to the grocery store with some friends, all of them young, African American, and either queer or allied. As they passed a local bar, the Schooner Tavern, a group of older, white people who were standing outside the bar’s side door began hurling racist and transphobic slurs at them, without provocation. They called CeCe and her friends ‘faggots,’ ‘niggers,’ and ‘chicks with dicks,’ and suggested that CeCe was ‘dressed as a woman’ in order to ‘rape’ Dean Schmitz, one of the attackers. When CeCe approached the group and told them that her crew would not tolerate hate speech, one of the women said, “I’ll take you bitches on,” and then smashed her glass into CeCe’s face. She punctured CeCe’s cheek all the way through, lacerating her salivary gland. A fight ensued, during which one of the attackers, Dean Schmitz, was fatally stabbed.
