A “27-year-old Asian man” was beaten around 12:15am Monday after leaving The Griffin, NYC’s Meatpacking District nightspot, where organizers of the weekly Griffin Sundays party were hosing “The Gay Bash,” an event to raise money for The Anti-Violence Project. At the party guests were invited to make small donations to have their faces painted with a black eye, to show solidarity with actual gay bashing victims like Damian Furtch, whose confessed attacker was just nabbed. The man attacked early Monday morning was drunk at the time and is “unsure” if his assailant was screaming anti-gay slurs because he was wearing headphones. The possibility that a gay man was gay bashed after attending a gay event dedicated to gay bashing victims is the type of horrible irony we should never have to see. It’s also a chance to issue this advice: DO NOT WEAR HEADPHONES while walking around New York City (or anywhere, for that matter) late at night. While nobody deserves to be attacked, shutting off your audio senses makes you a ripe victim.
The sane Francis
Regardless of whether it’s an anti-gay bashing, it could be, it could be an attack where thugs saw a drunk guy wearing headphones and took advantage, people need to be very careful on the NYC streets at night, because *obviously* they are stacked with a lot of street thugs who are just looking for that one person to beat, rob, harass. These thugs are inhumane and animalistic. Be careful and always have your guard up, and especially, if possible, walk with friends and not in dimly lit areas.
disco lives
Queerty did the right thing by offering some practical common-sense advice in this posting. As the saying goes- you shouldn’t hand the bad people a bat to hit you with.
And the next time there is some post-incident “vigil”, perhaps the speakers can spend less time promoting themselves and more time offering some street-smarts advice to people who expect New York to be how Carrie Bradshaw portrayed it (the worst thing happening to you is getting splashed with rainwater from a passing bus?)
Kev C
Hipster irony is ironic. My advice is don’t walk the streets drunk. Get a cab. It cost less than getting mugged.
Erich
I always leave one ear uncovered when listening to music walking the streets.
Zonk
All Manhattan gays deserve a punch in the eye. When I successfully fought off queer-bashers they didn’t want to report on it because I don’t fit the gay “type” and my attackers didn’t fit their gay “type”. Now I’m glad anytime one of them gets popped by a street thug.
TheRealAdam
@Zonk: That’s a TERRIBLE thing to say! WTF is wrong with you?