美国国家公共电台 NPR Why We Remember Stonewall

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The Stonewall Inn is a sacred place for many in the LGBTQ community. Fifty years ago, a raid and a series of riots outside the New York City bar helped ignite a civil rights movement. From member station WNYC, Jennifer Vanasco reports.

JENNIFER VANASCO, BYLINE¹: In 1969, Stonewall was known as a filthy² dive bar, but it had some great things going for it. First, it was one of the few places that let everyone in the door.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I THANK YOU")

SAM AND DAVE: (Singing) You didn't have to love me like you did, but you did.

VANASCO: Second, Martin Boyce, who was a regular, says it had a great jukebox.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I THANK YOU")

SAM AND DAVE: (Singing) You didn't have to squeeze me like you did, but you did...

MARTIN BOYCE: It meant mostly soul. And it was the black drag queens that controlled the jukebox because they would vogue³ in front of it. And they would block people they thought would not play appropriate music. Those queens were tough. They didn't go to Stonewall to sit through boredom⁴. They didn't want to hear Peter, Paul and Mary.

VANASCO: The Stonewall Inn was one of the only places in New York where same-sex couples could dance together.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'VE BEEN LOVING YOU TOO LONG")

OTIS REDDING: (Singing) I've been loving you.

VANASCO: Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt was a lonely 17-year-old runaway⁵, and dancing is why he went to the bar.

TOMMY LANIGAN-SCHMIDT: You felt like a human being for the first time in your life because everyone else could dance slow in their high school and every place else, and that was the first time I ever saw same-sex dancing.

VANASCO: Here's what it was like to be LGBTQ in 1969. There was no rainbow flag, no Pride parade. They were seen as perverts⁶, pedophiles and mentally ill.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Ralph was sick, a sickness that was not visible like smallpox⁷ but no less dangerous and contagious⁸. You see, Ralph was a homosexual.

VANASCO: That's from a safety film shown to school children during the late '60s. For a long time, it had been illegal to serve drinks to LGBTQ people. And it was still a hassle to own a bar where they gathered. So it makes sense that Stonewall's owners were in the Mafia and likely paying off beat cops to leave them alone - or at least to give warning of a raid. But that wasn't foolproof.

On June 28, 1969, the police rolled up unexpectedly at 1 in the morning. They walked into the bar, flipped⁹ on the lights and started checking IDs. Victoria Cruz was just down the street that night. She identifies as transgender queer and had experienced raids like this before.

VICTORIA CRUZ: If the bars were raided during that time, you better have three articles of clothing that pertain¹¹ to your birth sex. Otherwise they pulled you in.

GEORGE CHAUNCEY: There was never actually a specific rule that required three articles of clothing.

VANASCO: George Chauncey is a historian at Columbia University.

CHAUNCEY: But both the police and the people they were regulating thought there was such a rule, and they enforced such a rule.

VANASCO: Chauncey says there was another especially humiliating practice.

CHAUNCEY: The police were actually checking on their sexual organs to see what sex they were.

CRUZ: Sex checks? Yeah, they checked if you were a boy or girl.

VANASCO: At the Stonewall that night, Cruz saw the cops take the drag queens, the transgender people and the butch lesbians to the police vans, plus the gay men who didn't have ID. And then a fight broke out. No one knows how it started, but this is what we do know. It was hot. It was the 1960s. And Chauncey says lots of people were standing¹² up for their rights.

CHAUNCEY: The Stonewall attracted a lot of people of color, black and Puerto Rican, gender¹⁰ queers and transgender people were by far the fiercest people on the streets of New York who would just not put up with being harassed¹³ either by guys in their own neighborhood or by the cops.

CRUZ: I've been personally harassed, but I've harassed back.

VANASCO: Cruz was born in Puerto Rico, raised in Brooklyn and spent a lot of time in Greenwich Village.

CRUZ: If you were walking down Christopher Street, if you were in complete drag or facial drag, they'll come and stop you. And then people would say, leave her alone. She wasn't bothering you. You know, people stuck up for one another, but yet you got harassed by the cops.

VANASCO: And not just harassed, but arrested - often during these raids. The police officer who led the raid that night was Deputy Inspector¹⁴ Seymour Pine. He died in 2010, but a few years earlier, he described to WNYC what happened next.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

SEYMOUR PINE: I think it was like a lark¹⁵ for them. It was a release of energy. They could now fight back for all the times they had to slink away without being able to say anything and take whatever crap the cops were giving at them. And once it broke loose, it was very contagious.

VANASCO: Outside the Stonewall, bar patrons started shouting and struggling with the police. Some threw pennies. Street kids arrived and joined the fight. Martin Boyce remembers it vividly¹⁶.

BOYCE: A riot is not a pretty thing, and it's not a stationary¹⁷ everything. You don't stay in one place for very long. You move. You twirl.

VANASCO: Officers headed back into the bar knowing they were outnumbered. They barricaded¹⁸ themselves inside and waited for backup. Someone lit a trash can on fire and threw it through the window.

BOYCE: And it has smells - sweat, burning wood, haze¹⁹ coming up to your knees is spreading up further and spreading out.

VANASCO: Boyce says, at some point, riot police came with shields and helmets. Then there was a moment of stillness - a faceoff. The police officers stood staring at the bar patrons. They thought they'd turn and run. Boyce says, instead...

BOYCE: We knew we had to do something. So we all grabbed onto each other and did a kick line. And we sang, we are the village girls. We wear our hair in curls. We wear our dungarees above our nellie (ph) knees.

VANASCO: The police charge, and the hard fighting begins. Historian George Chauncey says Stonewall was a turning point. Many LGBTQ people were transformed.

(SOUNDBITE OF JEFFERSON AIRPLANE SONG, "VOLUNTEERS")

VANASCO: It started to feel like they could do something about the way they were treated.

CHAUNCEY: You know, it is curious that the iconic moment for the gay liberation movement happened at a bar. It wasn't a ballot²⁰ box. It wasn't a hiring hall. It wasn't a bus where people were forced to move to the back of the bus. And that's because bars were where gay people experienced their policing and their second-class citizenship²¹ most directly.

VANASCO: Riots went on for three more nights. He says, after they ended, nothing much changed right away. But soon after, the political response started coming together. Activists²² founded the Gay Liberation Front, and that organization inspired more LGBTQ civil rights groups around the country. Chauncey says that is why we remember Stonewall.

CHAUNCEY: I think for most people, it does boil down to just the idea that gay people can resist. And that still means something. That's still powerful.

VANASCO: One year later, activists organized a march to Central Park to remember the uprising. It was basically the inaugural²³ Pride March, the first time thousands of people came together publicly to say, here we are in the daylight.

For NPR News, I'm Jennifer Vanasco in New York.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE YOUNG FOLKS")

THE JACKSON 5: (Singing) You better make way for the young folks.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 filthy   

adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的

参考例句：

• The whole river has been fouled up with filthy waste from factories.整条河都被工厂的污秽废物污染了。
• You really should throw out that filthy old sofa and get a new one.你真的应该扔掉那张肮脏的旧沙发，然后再去买张新的。

3 Vogue   

n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的

参考例句：

• Flowery carpets became the vogue.花卉地毯变成了时髦货。
• Short hair came back into vogue about ten years ago.大约十年前短发又开始流行起来了。

4 boredom   

n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊

参考例句：

• Unemployment can drive you mad with boredom.失业会让你无聊得发疯。
• A walkman can relieve the boredom of running.跑步时带着随身听就不那么乏味了。

5 runaway   

n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的

参考例句：

• The police have not found the runaway to date.警察迄今没抓到逃犯。
• He was praised for bringing up the runaway horse.他勒住了脱缰之马受到了表扬。

6 perverts   

n.性变态者( pervert的名词复数 )v.滥用( pervert的第三人称单数 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落

参考例句：

• A clever criminal perverts his talents. 一个聪明的犯罪者误用了他的才智。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Not all fondlers are sexual perverts. 并非所有的骚扰者都是性变态。 来自互联网

7 smallpox   

n.天花

参考例句：

• In 1742 he suffered a fatal attack of smallpox.1742年，他染上了致命的天花。
• Were you vaccinated against smallpox as a child?你小时候打过天花疫苗吗？

8 contagious   

adj.传染性的，有感染力的

参考例句：

• It's a highly contagious infection.这种病极易传染。
• He's got a contagious laugh.他的笑富有感染力。

9 flipped   

轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥

参考例句：

• The plane flipped and crashed. 飞机猛地翻转，撞毁了。
• The carter flipped at the horse with his whip. 赶大车的人扬鞭朝着马轻轻地抽打。

10 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

11 pertain   

v.(to)附属，从属；关于；有关；适合，相称

参考例句：

• His remark did not pertain to the question.他的话同这个问题不相干。
• It does not pertain to you to instruct him.你不适合教训他。

12 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

13 harassed   

adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He has complained of being harassed by the police. 他投诉受到警方侵扰。
• harassed mothers with their children 带着孩子的疲惫不堪的母亲们

14 inspector   

n.检查员，监察员，视察员

参考例句：

• The inspector was interested in everything pertaining to the school.视察员对有关学校的一切都感兴趣。
• The inspector was shining a flashlight onto the tickets.查票员打着手电筒查看车票。

15 lark   

n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏

参考例句：

• He thinks it cruel to confine a lark in a cage.他认为把云雀关在笼子里太残忍了。
• She lived in the village with her grandparents as cheerful as a lark.她同祖父母一起住在乡间非常快活。

16 vividly   

adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地

参考例句：

• The speaker pictured the suffering of the poor vividly.演讲者很生动地描述了穷人的生活。
• The characters in the book are vividly presented.这本书里的人物写得栩栩如生。

17 stationary   

adj.固定的，静止不动的

参考例句：

• A stationary object is easy to be aimed at.一个静止不动的物体是容易瞄准的。
• Wait until the bus is stationary before you get off.你要等公共汽车停稳了再下车。

18 barricaded   

设路障于，以障碍物阻塞( barricade的过去式和过去分词 )； 设路障[防御工事]保卫或固守

参考例句：

• The police barricaded the entrance. 警方在入口处设置了路障。
• The doors had been barricaded. 门都被堵住了。

19 haze   

n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊

参考例句：

• I couldn't see her through the haze of smoke.在烟雾弥漫中，我看不见她。
• He often lives in a haze of whisky.他常常是在威士忌的懵懂醉意中度过的。

20 ballot   

n.（不记名）投票，投票总数，投票权；vi.投票

参考例句：

• The members have demanded a ballot.会员们要求投票表决。
• The union said they will ballot members on whether to strike.工会称他们将要求会员投票表决是否罢工。

21 citizenship   

n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份)

参考例句：

• He was born in Sweden,but he doesn't have Swedish citizenship.他在瑞典出生，但没有瑞典公民身分。
• Ten years later,she chose to take Australian citizenship.十年后，她选择了澳大利亚国籍。

22 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

23 inaugural   

adj.就职的；n.就职典礼

参考例句：

• We listened to the President's inaugural speech on the radio yesterday.昨天我们通过无线电听了总统的就职演说。
• Professor Pearson gave the inaugural lecture in the new lecture theatre.皮尔逊教授在新的阶梯讲堂发表了启用演说。