In the two years I’ve written The Sexist, I’ve offended Catholics, sorority sisters, former homosexuals, Tucker Max fans, breast massagers, a child’s sense of innocence, the Huffington Post, heterosexual men, librarians, and the producer of a novelty product designed to keep a man’s balls dry when receiving oral sex. And all I got was this CockBib.
Just after midnight on Sept. 8, 2008, D.C. police found Serbennia Chase hiding down the street from the Skylark Lounge strip club covered in her ex-boyfriend’s blood. Chase, who worked at the club as a dancer, admitted to stabbing the man in the neck with a knife outside the club. She was charged with assault with intent to kill and transferred to the D.C. Jail’s Correctional Treatment Facility to await trial.
Chase got a lawyer. And that gave a jail guard the opportunity, Chase claims, to subject her to an escalating series of sexual assaults. As he escorted her between legal visits, Chase claims, a jail employee named “Lt. Harris” repeatedly grabbed her buttocks and vagina, a pattern that culminated in Harris cornering Chase on a back staircase, grabbing her and saying, “When are you going to let me put this dick in you?”
Read more Safety Dance: When A Sexual Assault Allegation Makes Hard Time Harder
Creepiest wedding gift in human history? You decide:
The present I humbly send her today is this column; this public note, this irrevocable display of affection and support and gratitude; this worldly absolution from any guilt or sadness she felt between the time she said no to me and the time she said yes to him. No one ought to have to carry that with them into a marriage. I showered her with as much love as I could muster when we were together. I still love her and always will. So I am only too happy to offer my toast to her now, one more time, before she takes her vows.
Politics Daily’s Andrew Cohen is obviously in a pretty weird place in his life right now. And he has decided to share it with us all! So let us count the backhanded compliments Cohen delivers, as “the great love of my life marries today and I am not the groom” [Thanks to Date Lab for the tip]:
FOX5 investigates why some D.C. special events—including D.C.’s traditional Halloween drag event, the Dupont “High Heel” race—aren’t forced to pay the city fees for the D.C. police officers employed as security for the parades. Kristopher Baumann, Chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police’s Labor Committee, suggests that the city money used to subsidize the parties might be better spent, like, address the murder rate. [Via Metro Weekly]
On Friday, Pepin Tuma filed suit against the District of Columbia—and MPD officer James Culp—for violating his constitutional rights. Tuma’s suit concerns a year-old U Street incident, in which Tuma announced in a sing-song voice, “I hate the police”—and Culp responded by arresting Tuma for disorderly conduct and calling him a “faggot.”
Yesterday, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier released a statement on the incident. “I take concerns about the appropriate use of police powers very seriously,” Lanier said. “Members who are found to have abused their authority are subject to both criminal and disciplinary penalties up to and including termination.” So, was Culp canned over the slur-happy arrest? Read more D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier on Disorderly Conduct, Pepin Tuma, and “Verbal Judo”
Ruined.
* NOM’s nationwide “One Man, One Woman” bus tour takes a turn: Dude with sign voices support for lynching gays.
Racists.
Last week, a brief history of racism among participants in the Washington Post Magazine Date Lab inspired some spirited defenses of racial preferences in the boudoir—and some polite rejections of the idea that one’s blind date is merely acceptable “for an Asian guy.” Let’s take a look!:
A post from City Paper intern Alex Burchfield:
Last week, NPR’s Andrea Hsu aired a story about the shackling of incarcerated women during childbirth. Her report sheds light on a little-known practice that lawyers and human rights advocates are calling “tantamount to torture.” Take the story of 25-year-old Jennifer Farrar, who was arrested and charged for cashing fake payroll checks:
On July 26, 2009, Pepin Tuma and two friends were strolling down U Street, discussing “the excessive use of police powers” in the recent arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates. Within “seconds,” Tuma says an MPD officer had him pushed up against a utility box, handcuffed, and arrested for “disorderly conduct.” Last Friday, Tuma filed suit against the District of Columbia and MPD Officer James Culp for violating his First and Fourth Amendment rights—and making him another victim of excessive force.
“This is an action for damages and other relief by Pepin A. Tuma, who was detained, arrested and humiliated by Defendant Officer James Culp without any lawful basis and with the sole and illegitimate purpose of harassing Mr. Tuma because of Mr. Tuma’s criticism of the police and Officer Culp’s perception that Mr. Tuma is gay,” the complaint reads.
Read more Pepin Tuma Sues D.C. Over False Arrest, Anti-Gay Slur
* HUD claims that transgender people are protected against housing discrimination via the Fair Housing Act’s prohibition against “gender discrimination”—even though the law doesn’t specifically list gender identity discrimination as prohibited.
