Xtra, the Canadian gay and lesbian newspaper that still appears in print, has seen fourteen of its Vancouver-area drop boxes vandalized — while the boxes next to them for other titles remained unharmed. The targeting of the newspaper boxes, between Dec. 25-29, is being investigated by police, who are certainly aware Vancouver is one of Canada’s “hate crime capitals.”
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ait10101
Since it is a free paper, they could have just taken the papers if they didn’t like the cover issue (which touted a sex quiz on line, and showed two naked men from the waist up kissing). But apparently they felt they had to leave a message. I wonder what that message was? A central of issue of discussion in Canada is whether this was just vandalism, or whether it was a hate crime. A number of rights opponents (for some reason they are stilled called the right, which has been obsolete ever since conservatism wooed the Christian fundamentalists argued that they might feel like smashing the boxes of a major newspaper if they didn’t like the political views expressed. Perhaps. They tend to be passionate. But this has never happened. On the other hand, boxes of gay oriented newspapers (same chain) have been vandalized in Toronto an d especially Ottawa. I think the positives and negatives add up to this not being mere vandalism.
Apple
o.k if this is in a massive city the tagging could just be that graffiti a writer trying to get his name up on the street as most graffiti artist love hitting News stands like this(shit SF has most the news stand boxes just like this all tagged up) even the LGBTQ news stands and its nothing of a hate crime its just graffiti vandalism but most who tag or do graffiti just care about getting their name up and will write on anything so i think this is a bit of a overreaction to a common city issue of simple graffiti vandalism.
ait10101
@Apple: They broke the boxes, and only the ones of Xtra were broken. This has also happened in Ottawa and Toronto. It is not tagging. It is targeted destruction.
Apple
@ait10101 o.k so its Vandalism given but is it a act of hate? without more proof outside of a few smashed boxes its still just Vandalism mindless vandalism. the term hate crime is used so much when acts such as this happen but most come out to be that people just went on a vandalism spree but as stated without more proof that those doing this are doing it on the bases on the subject matter of the mag its mere gossip of if or dose this fall into the legal of what is a hate crime..
A Gay
@Apple:
Apple, the acts were clearly directed towards Xtra; no other boxes were damaged, and to hit 14 boxes requires a fair bit of effort, as that would be a relatively wide geographical area. If it were one box, it could be considered a random act of vandalism. But 14? When no other publications’ boxes were targeted? Sounds pretty hateful to me.
wrestlcub
In a somewhat related note, my husband and I have noticed for well over ten years that we’ll find that someone has placed a generic free newspaper on top of or in front of an edition of Xtra. We end up uncovering several of these a week. We’ve never seen anyone do this, but I find this sort of passive-aggressive nonsense to be homophobic and really quite sad.