After watching “Free CeCe”, I understood that gender, race, and sexual orientation is a conviction that does not always positively go hand in hand. What happened to McDonald’s demonstrate the level of violence often imposed on persons who are transgender especially if they are persons of color. McDonald’s got arrested by the fact that she was defending herself getting charged with second-degree intentional murder, defending herself she said she did what she did in self-defense but unfortunately it was not something that the court agreed with. I can’t imagine how hard it must be in a place where you feel your life is at risk when it shouldn’t just for being an African American but also for being a Transgender. Back to June 5, 2011, when McDonald was walking with some friends while somebody else is saying awful things and because she said she will not “tolerate hate speech” confronting the attackers and showing up for herself and who she is a human being has to take all the blame and responsibility for what happened at that moment. Moreover, while I watched “ Out in the night” I got to understand that acting defensively against a person can cost you as much as your freedom. Sadly, you are judged by your sexual orientation and race as if that made any difference when defending yourself from any aggressor who comes to want to do something wrong to you. You feel helpless when you know that you only protected yourself, but that others are trained to see things from the point of view that is not. It is true, what is wrong is not indefensible but it is way more wrong when people want to put you in a position like you are the bad guy. This situations just makes me realize that social class, your gender has so much impact on how in this case trans* persons can go through life experiencing oppression and see how others enjoy a certain privilege
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Hi Anaya, I enjoyed reading your post and agree with you. It was very unfortunate that Cece went through what she went through not only because she was black but because she was also trans. It was refreshing though to see her turn a horrible situation into something positive.
Hello Anaya,
Just before yours I was reading some more Discussion from our class and all have similar perception failure in Justice System, Once suffer because of their color, gender, or race like here CeCe was the one who was defending herself but still failed to protect herself. It is really sad when one becomes the victim just because of their real identity.
Hello Anaya,
Thank you for sharing your feedback. I also see the correlation between CeCe McDonald case and the movie “Out in the Night” shows the injustice through their storyline. You Stated “This situations just makes me realize that social class, your gender has so much impact on how in this case trans* persons can go through life experiencing oppression and see how others enjoy a certain privilege”. This is absolutely true, some situations are usually viewed upon how you portray your image to the world. In this case scenario CeCe tried to defend herself while a white male attacked and her and because she was a colored person she had to do the time.
Hey Anaya,
I agree with you. Our discussions actually have is alar points. What CeCe went through was not fair at all. Just like in todays world the judicial system went much help to her.