Vol. 31: Anatomy of a murder

Morals vs. manners on a Brooklyn street.

         It’s late at night in your urban neighborhood. Out of nowhere, a car pulls up and begins blasting dance music. Then five jubilant young men spontaneously spill out of the car to perform a dance routine. How would you react?
         A) “What an unexpected treat— like a Fellini film come to life! This is why we moved to the city— for the serendipitous surprises that lurk around every corner. Thank goodness for random acts of public music!”
         B) “This is nice, but I’m trying to read/sleep/watch TV/meditate /listen to my own music.”
         C) “This ain’t no theater. They’re not dancing for my benefit; they’re doing their own thing. They’re shoving their lifestyle in my face without asking my permission. It’s disrespectful.”
         D) “It’s worse than disrespectful. They’re making some kind of political statement.”
         E) “Hey, it’s life in the big city. If you want peace and quiet, move to the ’burbs.” F) “Where’s my gun?”

A refuge from bullies

       As you may have guessed, this is no hypothetical scenario. Late on Saturday night, July 28, five young gay Black men, returning from a day at the beach, pulled their car into a gas station in Brooklyn. While filling the tank, they turned on Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” and began vogueing— an exuberant dance style, mimicking fashion models’ runway poses, that has long been popular in the Black and Latino queer underground ballroom scene.
         The dancers were soon confronted by a group of young men who objected to their skimpy attire, hurled gay and racist slurs, and said they did not want to see gay men dancing in their neighborhood. Employees of a nearby convenience store came outside and briefly defused the situation. But the trouble soon escalated again, and a 17-year-old among the young men allegedly pulled out a knife and stabbed one of the dancers, a 28-year-old choreographer named O’Shae Sibley. Sibley bled on the sidewalk and died soon after at a local hospital.
         According to his friends and teachers, Sibley was by nature a peacemaker, a widely beloved figure who as a boy had turned to dance as a refuge from bullying. He had received formal dance training since he was 14 and was preparing to audition for a role in The Lion King on Broadway. He might have spread joy among his friends and audiences for decades to come. He might have helped make the world a better place. But now we’ll never know.
         As for the teenager who later turned himself in to police for the stabbing: Who knows what this kid might have accomplished once his synapses— those receptors in the brain that connect actions to consequences— finally grew together?

‘Vogueing is resistance’

         The following week, hundreds of mourners gathered at the scene of the crime. Some of them left shrines consisting of lit candles, flowers and photos of Sibley dancing. Others chanted Sibley’s name while carrying Pride flags and posters that read “Vogueing is resistance.” Otis Pena, a close friend of O’Shae Sibley who was present during the stabbing and tried to stanch Sibley’s bleeding, said, “Vogueing is the dance of our people. It’s a dance of rebellion created by us and for us.”
         Let us stipulate that vogueing is not a crime, and the stabbing of O’Shae Sibley was a senseless tragedy. But the reactions of Sibley’s friends and admirers are disturbing nevertheless. In effect, they acknowledge that the dancers that night were not out to make new friends or entertain anybody but themselves; they were out to make a political statement. That statement may surely be valid: As Pena put it, “We may be gay, but we exist. We’re not going to live in fear. We’re not going to live hiding.” At most, those Brooklyn voguers were guilty of bad manners. But manners do matter, more than many crusaders for righteous causes may realize.
        I belong to the generation that spearheaded the great counterculture revolt of the 1960s. Goodness knows we had plenty to revolt against: Racism, sexism, militarism, materialism, conformity. But I also recall an observation made at that time by the University Pennsylvania sociologist E. Digby Baltzell: “This is the most moral generation in history. But it’s also the least mannerly.” His comment implied that a healthy society needs a little of both.
        So, is there no other way to defeat racists and homophobes than invading their turf and getting in their face? Is the only antidote for hostility more hostility? If you’re an oppressed minority, how do you best advance your cause? What guiding principle should we follow on questions of either morality or manners? The rules offered by the great religions don’t always work.

Golden Rules, with flaws

         —More than 2,000 years ago, the Hebrew sage Hillel the Elder was challenged by a scornful heathen to explain Judaism while standing on one foot. Hillel (presumably standing on one foot) replied: “That which is hateful to thee, do not unto others. That is the whole law; all the rest is commentary.” But the Brooklyn voguers didn’t see vogueing as hateful; to them it was a joyous expression of “I gotta be me!” that narrow-minded bystanders inexplicably found offensive.
        —Confucius and Jesus tried to put a more positive spin on Hillel’s rule, stressing the power of reciprocity (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) and love (“Love thy neighbor as thyself”). But that kind of thinking encouraged, say, Cub Scouts to earn merit badges by helping little old ladies across the street when the ladies didn’t want to go. More seriously, it encouraged religious zealots to forcibly convert nonbelievers in order to save their souls. During World War I, the rules of warfare, based on these same Golden Rules, required armies to treat their prisoners just like their own soldiers— with the result, for example, that the Germans served beer to their French prisoners, while the French served wine to their German prisoners, and both sides were miserable.
         —Eleanor Roosevelt once remarked that all of Emily Post’s voluminous books on etiquette could be boiled down to two words: “Be kind.”
         — Let’s throw into this ethical mix two of my favorites: “I destroy my enemy when I make him my friend” (Abraham Lincoln) and “Do not unto others as you would have them do unto you; their tastes may be different” (George Bernard Shaw).
         But enough sermonizing. You haven’t yet answered my original question: It’s late at night, and outside your window five young gay Black men are dancing to music blasted from their car. Maybe their music or their message isn’t to your taste. Or maybe it is to your taste, but not here and not now. You’re a free agent, bound neither by Hillel nor Confucius nor Jesus nor Emily Post. How would you react?
         Make your decision soon, because life must go on. Billions of such decisions are made every day in cities and towns around the world. The cumulative effect of such decisions answers a greater question: What sort of world do you want, and how will you achieve it?
 O’Shae Sibley might have made a positive difference, but now he’s gone. So…. the choice is up to you. And me.

Enjoy Dan Rottenberg’s new memoir, The Education of a Journalist: My Seventy Years on the Frontiers of Free Speech. You can also visit his website at www.danrottenberg.com