Tuesday, December 8, 2015

So What Really Happened at Dallas BBQ?


Back in May, there was a big incident that happened in the Dallas BBQ in New York City.

Jonathan Snipes, a white gay man, claimed that he was racially attacked by Bayna-Lehkiem El-Amin at the restaurant. There was a video released that showed Bayna-Lehkiem El-Amin smashing the chair over Jonathan and leaving the scene. During that time, it was being investigated as a hate crime.

Now here's the thing, during this time of the incident, many gay blogs the news sites ran with the story taking Johnathan side. That action raised some questions at that point. If you remember, there was only one side of story from the partial video. But now we have the full video and it brings up tons of questions and issues please check it out.



So, where are the slurs? Where is the "White Fa***t" statement Johnathan claimed to have heard? It seems that Johnathan was the start of the situation, which ended badly. My concern is how this story played out even before we knew the information. Many people took the side of Jonathan, believing his whole victimhood story without having all of the information. I said a while back, that something was wrong with the story.

Does it make Bayna-Lehkiem El-Amin completely innocent? No, but it sends a huge message about how we processed the story. To be really honest, we're seeing how race played into the story and our interpretations of who is the villain and who was the victim. There will be more to come on the story, but I'm glad that the truth is finally coming out.

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Viktor is a small town southern boy living in Los Angeles. You can find him on Twitter, writing about pop culture, politics, and comics. He’s the creator of the graphic novel StrangeLore and currently getting back into screenwriting.