Mother's Day Blues

A chilling picture in the latest Gay City News. Photographer Bernard Morisset lensed the above black and white image, the funeral urn and remains of slain Brooklyn teenager Rashawn Brazell. The 19-year old gay man was murdered and dismembered in February; much of his remains were not found, so the compact urn is not much larger than a potted plant.

Rashawn's mother is Desire Brazell, who consented to a rare interview. She has not spoken to reporters since shortly after parts of her son's body were discovered at a Brooklyn subway station in February. The report was filed by Mike Meenan, who's done an admirable job of covering this case since the winter. His piece poignantly opens with irony: "For the first time in years, one Brooklyn woman finally had her two children together under the same roof on Mother’s Day." Except in this home, one of her boys is on the mantle. The other has since been arrested on firearms charges following death threats made to the family.

If you were reading my former website brotha2Brotha, you may recall my March essay on newsroom racial composition and coverage of the homicide investigations. From years of working in local and network newsrooms, experience shows that cases such as the Brazell's are rarely given prominence. Fellow producers tend to be white and more empathetic with abducted blond ten year old girls; case in point, massive resources were shifted to the Runaway Bride while a contemporary story of a missing black woman, Tamika Houston, was virtually ignored. Numerous planning meetings come to mind when staff dismissed violent crimes because the victims were not "newsworthy. "

But some good news here: Rashawn' mother is not disheartened by the lack of media coverage. She's come to peace with the realization that headlines will not collar a suspect; detectives will. Hopefully. Although the investigation remains unsolved, Ms. Brazell says she is confident that the police are making progress. One has to admire her strength.

Comments

[gillygan]

That gave me chills... :(

[david]

Rashawn story made me absolutely sure that I wanted to attend law school... I'll be applying to Harvard this fall.

[Trent]

wow...

[Bernie]

Everytime the mainstream media leads the news with this week's missing white woman story, I get just a little more cynical. Where is the same level of concern for our missing and murdered?

[Mama JunkYard]

Desire Brazell's strength reminds me of another black woman who's son was murdered.

Doreen Lawrence, mother of the late Stephen Lawrence took on the UK justice system after the police 'bungled' up the investigation of her son's murder.

Most of us black Britons didn't need to be told twice that Stephen Lawrence was not only murdered because his black, but the police also used his race as a reason not to conduct a full and fair investigation.

White Britain, and in particular the justice system needed a wake up call. Mrs Doreen's campaign led to the MacPherson inquiry which in turn discovered that the Metropolitan police were 'institutionally racist'.

Stephen's killers have never been brought to justice but Mrs Lawrence's actions have certainly ensured that in the event that another black man should meet a similar fate, the police will think twice before dismissing it.

I bow my head to these phenomenal mothers, who transform their grief, pain and anger into actions.

[Kevin C]

I want it to be known if it was not for SGL bloggers, I would have never known about this awful crime.

When the runaway bride story hit, I kept switching the channel. I simply didn't give a damn.

Peace & Blessings to Desire Brazell

I will never forget.

[Mika]

I just want to say thank you to everyone that's doing something positive with this story. I'm shamika his oldest sister & i miss him dearly. I'm still in shock, I really can't believe something like this happened to my baby brother