01/09/2007
Yale Singing Group 'The Baker's Dozen' Hurt in Homophobic Attack
Several members of the Yale all-male singing group The Baker's Dozen were injured in San Francisco on New Year's Eve in a homophobic attack that left them bruised and bloody.
During a performance at a New Year's Eve party, their attackers taunted them with gay slurs — "fag" and "homo" — according to one member, and then five or six men ambushed them outside the party, leaving them with scrapes, sprained ankles, black eyes, and concussions, according to ABC affiliate KGO (PHOTOS):
"The trouble started at midnight after The Baker's Dozen sang "The Star Spangled Banner." Witnesses say a few local young men didn't appreciate the attention the Yale students were getting, made fun of their conservative dress and began taunting them and making threats.Leanna Dawydiak, Hosted Party: "They had something here special that these other fellas obviously didn't have and that irritated them."
Witnesses say 19-year-old Richard Aicardi was the most aggressive.
Sharyar Aziz: "'You're not welcome here,' he called a few members of the group, whether it was fag or homo, very, I would say, juvenile taunting."
Aicardi took out his cell phone and called in reinforcements.
Reno Rapagnani: "He said, 'I'm 20 deep, my boys are coming.'"
One of the victims, Sharyar Aziz, a member of the varsity squash team, was rushed home for reconstructive surgery which included the insertion of two titanium plates in his face. He'll miss the athletic season. Said Aziz: "I can't just look back at that incident and be depressed for the next two months. I have to learn to deal with what's been given to me."
The sick part of this incident is that even though the police detained four men at the scene of the incident, they were released and no arrests have been made in the case. Police did not bother to take photographs of the victims either. Some have accused the police of treating the perpetrators lightly because three of them are the sons of prominent SF pediatrician Eileen Aicardi.
An investigation is now underway.
Yale Choir Assaulted; No Arrests By SFPD [kgo]
Posted 2:48 PM EST by Andy Towle in Crime, News, San Francisco, Yale | Permalink
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I received a nice response from the reporter of the story, Dan Noyes. There is a link on the article, send him encouragement to keep this alive, he'll appreciate it.
Posted by: busytimmy | Jan 9, 2007 7:08:50 PM
honey, we are going to have to start getting militant like the Jews and the Blacks did. They don't put up with this kind of shit and neither should we!
Posted by: miss dna | Jan 9, 2007 3:38:40 PM
I have said it before and will say it again
Martin's dream was nice, but it was not till Malcolm and others like the black panthers showed a radical millitant face on civil rights did whites become scared and acquiesce (spell check) to try to calm things down.
The gay community must take a lesson from that. AIDs did not get any attention till ACT UP went radical and militant
WE MUST BECOME millitant if we want our rights....We need our own version of Malcolm X
Posted by: jimmyboyo | Jan 9, 2007 8:44:08 PM
lol that's hilarious, those faggots deserve it.
Posted by: ZZZZZ | Jan 9, 2007 8:50:06 PM
I knew several members of the Baker's Dozen while I was in school at Yale and this is very disturbing news indeed. There is no question in my mind that many homophobic assaults go unreported each year. It sounds like this was almost one of those cases. I'm disgusted, angry, and somewhat disheartened that this occurred in San Francisco - of all places!
However, I'm equally disheartened by what I've seen here today on this message board. I'm all for making sure that the victims' attackers get justice, but we don't need to resort to sophomoric vigilante justice by harassing the suspects and their families. We need to demand that our REAL justice system (police, courts, etc.) system take any claims seriously.
Shame on those of us who, in our anger, posted contact information for the suspect's mother. I hope that whoever mantains this website takes down both the phone number and email address.
It doesn't really matter at this point if whether we use Martin Luther King's Model or Malcom's X's model for our LGBTQ civil rights movement. We probably need a little of both. My point is that we need to stop wasting effort on things that don't matter. Personally attacking the suspect and his mother is an example of something that doesn't matter. You can drag them both through the mud and back again, and it will do nothing to deter or prevent a future attack.
Instead of wasting your anger by throwing cheap barbs at an easy target, take hold of all of your energy and bitch slap the people who really need it.
For example:
THE MEDIA - in the past few years the mainstream media has come to believe the myths propagated by extremists, who say that they have been too sympathetic towards the LGTBQ cause. Bull! Other than forced outings of gay celebrities, or stories rushed into national limelight by scandal, I have seen very little media coverage that simply profiles the lives of normal LGTBQ people. Call up the media and demand more press coverage of our everyday struggles (assaults, family issues, job loss, suicide, etc.) in your local and national press. Tell them that you want better coverage of the LGBTQ civil rights movement.
YOUR LEGISLATORS - host letter writing/phone calling parties with your friends and neighbors. Conact your mayor, rep, senator, governor, school board, town council, the chamber of commerce - EVERYONE! Tell them that your sick of being assaulted and being ignored. Ask them to take steps to STOP THE VIOLENCE!
Do SOMETHING, but don't sink to the same level as our juvenile oppressors. I'm in this civil rights movement for the long hall.
Viva la gays!
- Paul M.
Yale '06
Love Makes a Family Summer '06
Posted by: Paul | Jan 9, 2007 10:10:40 PM
I have one thing to say: this is horrible and you guys need your Malcolm X...maybe it's Larry Kramer...or maybe not...I agree with you on everything about militantcy...maybe something like the Pink Panthers or Fuchsia...or some color I have never heard of... NO MORE MATTHEW SHEPAREDS!!!
Posted by: Jedediah | Jan 9, 2007 10:21:54 PM
I wonder if these little pussies would like to go face to face with the San Francisco Fog (SF gay rugby team). The Aicardi boys would be running back to their crazy ass momma for therapy (and wire to hold their jaws together).
Posted by: Andrew | Jan 9, 2007 10:30:07 PM
I have seen very little media coverage that simply profiles the lives of normal LGTBQ people. Call up the media and demand more press coverage of our everyday struggles (assaults, family issues, job loss, suicide, etc.) in your local and national press.
Posted by: Paul | Jan 9, 2007 10:10:40 PM
I agree with your post Paul, but I am glad to see gays stand up for themselves! That's the only way you get things done..there's no-one who's going to hand us our rights, or visibility, or equality because it's "the right thing to do", or else it would have happened by now..
I'm all for writing to the media though. Another thing I do is if I come across a site that discriminates or has no gay representation I simply write and ask "where's the GLBT section?", or else I create one myself. It takes a minute to make a change that can effect thousands later on..and I'm everytime I'm amazed at the number of organizations who discriminate simply because no one's ever bothered to call them up on it.
So stand up and be counted y'all!
Posted by: Da | Jan 9, 2007 11:34:36 PM
Paul, finger wagging and "letter-writing parties" only get you so far. It wasn't the media, or the legislature, that beat up those kids. It was a fucked up family and their fucked up friends. And sometimes you have to speak to those folks in the only language they understand.
Posted by: Mark | Jan 10, 2007 12:36:06 AM
It seems to me that the person to talk to is not the Mayor of San Francisco (though I'd talk to Gavin Newsom *any* day of the week!), but Kamala Harris, the District Attorney. After all, wouldn't she have final say in whether or not these criminals are prosecuted? Her website (www.sfdistrictattorney.org) provided the following contact information:
415.553.1751
DistrictAttorney@sfgov.org
Kamala Harris, District Attorney
Criminal Division
Hall of Justice
850 Bryant, Room 322
San Francisco, CA 94103
Posted by: peterparker | Jan 10, 2007 1:48:40 AM
The SF Chronicle picked it up thru the political column. Pac Heights peeps always get away with all kinds of stuff just because they have $$$$$, lots of stories about it in the past columns by M&R.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/10/MANDR.TMP
Posted by: LW | Jan 10, 2007 3:47:33 AM
With all due respect to Paul, I totally disagree. We must contact as many people as possible, including the obviously delinquent mother of the obviously delinquent perps. No threats need to be issued; that would clearly bring us down to the level of her creepy sons, and we're better than that. But she and the district attorney and the mayor should be put on notice that gay people don't put up with beatings any more, and that we expect equal justice.
Posted by: Ed Sikov | Jan 10, 2007 11:03:20 AM
Like many of my gay brothers here I think it's about gay men fought back. It's fucking disgusting that we have so many muscle marys who all they do is admire themselves. Instead of using that muscle on our enemies. We need to form self defence groups everywhere so we can defend our kids and ourselves. And arm ourselves with baseball bats so when the cops don't do anything to these homophobes we can. I've been beating up these thugs for years. And believe me it works. All you have to is beat one up and they learn their lesson quickly and so do others. You can't be respected if you don't fight back. You're just a pussy and a coward...
Posted by: Simon | Jan 10, 2007 12:14:33 PM
This was not a gay bashing. Had this happened to people with less money, there would be no media attention. Just another fight on new years. This was not an attack on homosexuals. Nice spin though. Fights happen, especially on new years. But I supposed because it happened to Yale students, this is more important then say, chico students. Get over it, it was never about sexual orientation, it's simply publicized because the students that got the shit beat out of them were from yale and mommy and daddy are outraged.
Posted by: sasha | Jan 10, 2007 1:59:18 PM
Hey Sasha, let's see what you say when the same thing happens to you or someone you love.........
Posted by: busytimmy | Jan 10, 2007 2:05:20 PM
I got beat up a party one time pretty badly and broke my jaw in two places too, and needed three titanium plates put in my jaw to get it back together. It sucked pretty badly. I wasn't able to press charges either, and no one was arrested because it happened in a small vacation town where I was the "tourist" and they were the "locals".
Posted by: Rob | Jan 10, 2007 2:09:42 PM
I'm not saying it's not a horrible situation,just that it wasn't about sexual orientation and attacking the mother and writing and calling her place of work, essientally harassing her is completely wrong.
Posted by: sasha | Jan 10, 2007 2:13:57 PM
Could also be that they were singing (gasp!) "The Star Spangled Banner"... Not a very popular theme in San Francisco...
Posted by: fenkie | Jan 10, 2007 2:26:32 PM
Fenkie,
What makes you think 'The Star Spangled Banner' isn't popular in San Francisco. I lived in S.F. for ten years, and I'd say the average San Franciscan has a much clearer notion of what the United States, especially The Constitution of the United States, is all about than, say, the average Texan. Not that I'm pointing fingers at anyone in particular.
xo
peterparker
Posted by: peterparker | Jan 10, 2007 2:47:08 PM
"'The Star Spangled Banner' isn't popular in San Francisco. I lived in S.F. for ten years, and I'd say the average San Franciscan has a much clearer notion of what the United States, especially The Constitution of the United States, is all about than, say, the average Texan."
Yeah, right, (rolling eyes)....
Posted by: john | Jan 10, 2007 2:49:42 PM
Aparently Sasha didn't read the story... or 'Sasha' is a nom de plume of one of the attackers.
Witnesses say 19-year-old Richard Aicardi was the most aggressive.
Sharyar Aziz: "'You're not welcome here,' he called a few members of the group, whether it was fag or homo, very, I would say, juvenile taunting."
Aicardi took out his cell phone and called in reinforcements.
Something has always struck me funny about people like Aicardi... he claims to hate gays and then does everything in his power to become a prison bitch! Go figure!
Posted by: MikeinSanJose | Jan 10, 2007 3:15:22 PM
fag and homo are very common insults
Posted by: sasha | Jan 10, 2007 3:22:26 PM
IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ
Though I agree with a lot of what's being written here, I think most people here are missing a lot of the facts. I know the group personally, so let me fill in some of the gaps.
While any large group of talented guys inevitably has a few gay members, the Bakers Dozen of Yale can hardly be called a gay group. In fact, as a group of cute Yale boys in blazers, they tend to attract a fanatic female following. Members of the group told me that their attackers seemed jealous of the attention they were getting from the audience (male and female alike), and that's when the taunting of "fag" and "homo" came forth.
The attackers here are ugly, hateful kids who should be off the street - but we should be careful before we label this a gay bashing.
They MIGHT have assumed that a group of singers from Yale was gay, but just as likely, they were jealous about how much attention the Bakers Dozen was receiving from female party guests.
Whatever their motives, these kids should be fully pursued by the police and put to justice.
Posted by: Yalie | Jan 10, 2007 3:27:54 PM
I agree. it is most certainly the time to start fighting back and getting militant. Passivity gets you nothing. Please refer to Stonewall.
Posted by: Wolf | Jan 10, 2007 3:44:42 PM
Yalie,
The sexual orientation of the victims is irrelevant. If the perpetrators call victims 'homo' and 'fag' then it is a hate crime against homosexuals.
xo
peterparker
Posted by: peterparker | Jan 10, 2007 3:46:41 PM
Yallie, thanks for the comment. All I wanted was for people not to jump all over the story and label it a gay bashing. And peter parker, like I said those words are used as insults to anyone by anyone. Had they called them dumb fucks would this then be a hate crime against dumb fucks? Or fat asses, would it then be a hate crime against fat asses?
Posted by: sasha | Jan 10, 2007 4:02:20 PM