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Queer Muslim Network of NYC Prays at Site of O'Shae Sibley's Murder; and An Open Letter to My (Chelsea) Neighbors
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Tune into Out-FM on Tues., August 22, 2023 from 8:00-9:00pm, on 99.5 FM WBAI/NY or listen live at https://www.wbai.org/listen-live/
Press Play button to stream, or green download buttons below - to download the sound file of the promo, or the program sound file.
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Nathalie Amazan of Queer Muslim Network of New York City
Queer Muslim Network of New York City Prays at Site of Death of O'Shae Sibley
On August 6, 2023, the group Queer Muslim Network of New York City held a prayer activity at the Brooklyn gas station where queer dancer O'Shae Sibley was killed. The killing took place after several men from the neighborhood made racist and homophobic verbal assaults on Sibley, escalating to his murder. Media accounts reported that one of the attackers said Muslims in that neighborhood would be offended by the vogue dancing performed by Sibley's group. Nathalie Amazan, a cofounder of the Queer Muslim Network of NYC, discusses the group’s prayer action, the social issues of queer Muslims, and the possible reasons for the confrontation that ended in Sibley's death.
Peter Jonas
An Open Letter to My (Chelsea) Neighbors, by Peter Jonas
(Peter Jonas is a contributing producer to Out-FM)
As a Chelsea West Village resident of 26 years, I have concerns about how we, as a community, respond to diversity and to unpleasant and at times unsafe manifestations of poverty, systemic racism, and homo/transphobia. Post after post after post on the nextdoor platform fire off angry diatribes about packages being stolen from foyers, subway fare evasion, drug store shop lifting, drug dealing in Washington sq park, loitering and drug use in the streets… and an excessively long thread of alarm about neighbors feeling threatened by occasional caravans of Black youth on non-electric bicycles who you are criminalizing because, as you say “they’re not obeying traffic laws and who knows what they’re gonna do” and comment after comment after yet another angry comment of “call the police!” Of course, none of you are naming their blackness as what really scares you. It seems to be far more than you care to even acknowledge to yourselves, let alone admit openly, and your codes seem to do you just fine. You also seem to be just fine with calling the police on Black men, in turn putting their lives at risk… for running red lights on bicycles.
Whether it’s about young Black men on bicycles or people having mental health crises or so called thieves who are quite likely struggling to survive… common themes of these complaints and the comments that follow reek of right wing talking points as they call for more police and more arrests and less wokeness as they blame liberals and democrats for street crime and urban decay.
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Dancer O'Shae Sibley's Murder
- Details
Tune into Out-FM on Tues., August 15, 2023 from 8:00-9:00pm, on 99.5 FM WBAI/NY or listen live at https://www.wbai.org/listen-live/
Press Play button to stream, or green download buttons below - to download the sound file of the promo, or the program sound file.
Dancer O'Shae Sibley's Murder
On Saturday July 29, age 28 O’Shae Sibley, a Black dancer was stabbed in the heart while vogueing, dancing, to music of Beyoncè’s Renaissance album at a gas station in Brooklyn in what appears to be a crime motivated by his perceived sexual preference. Days later a large group of friends revisited the gas station to vogue again, as an act of protest against his killing. A week after his death hundreds gathered in and outside of the LGBT community center in Manhattan for a vigil, march and vogue dancing at the Christopher Street piers. Tonight we’re replaying a segment produced by Equal Rights and Justice producer Mimi Rosenberg, a sister program broadcast on Thursday at 9am on listener sponsored WBAI/NY.