State of emergency: Black gays, Fenty, Lanier must all be more visible in D.C.’s hate crimes fight.

Local activist, Brian Watson, writes into the Metroweekly about important community partners being missing from the fight against hate-crimes in DC:

RECENTLY, I WAS asked to attend the second meeting of Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV), as a leader in the African-American gay community.

I became involved in the community’s hate crime dialogue when several friends of Tony Hunter asked me to help organize a candlelight vigil to draw attention to the attack. (This occurred prior to Hunter’s death.) I was eager to hear what GLOV organizers, other community leaders and the GLLU had planned to combat the recent rash of suspected hate crimes in the District.

While the meeting was well attended, I couldn’t help but notice that there were very few people in the audience from my own community, even though Hunter was African American. At the candlelight vigil held this past Sunday in remembrance of Hunter, I noticed the same thing. While there were more African Americans in attendance at the vigil than that meeting, there was definitely not the support from the black community that there should have been after such a horrible crime.

I personally sent e-mails to many friends and local and national activists I knew, and spoke with print media and TV reporters. I wondered where the other African-American LGBT community members were and what was so important that they couldn’t take time to honor a life that was lost and make a statement to city leaders that this type of violence would not be tolerated. I also wondered where Mayor Fenty and Chief Lanier were and why they had not attended the GLOV meeting or the vigil.

Find more from Brian after the jump...