"I got bullied too, but I pulled myself up by my bootstraps"

Trigger warning - rape, homophobia, hate crimes, and violence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/nyregion/09bias.html?hp

He was told there was a party at a brick house on Osborne Place, a quiet block set on a steep hill in the Bronx. He showed up last Sunday night as instructed, with plenty of cans of malt liquor. What he walked into on the other side of the door was not a party at all, but a night of torture — he was sodomized, burned and whipped.

All punishment, the police said Friday, for being gay. 

There were nine attackers, ranging from 16 to 23 years old and calling themselves the Latin King Goonies, the police said. Before setting upon their 30-year-old victim, they had snatched up two teenage boys whom they beat, the police said, until the boys — one of whom was sodomized with a plunger — admitted to having had sex with the man.

The attackers forced the man to strip to his underwear and tied him to a chair, the police said. One of the teenage victims was still there, and the “Goonies” ordered him to attack the man. The teenager hit him in the face and burned him with a cigarette on his nipple and penis as the others jeered and shouted gay slurs, the police said. Then the attackers whipped the man with a chain and sodomized him with a small baseball bat.

The beatings and robberies went on for hours. They were followed by a remarkably thorough attempt to sanitize the house — including pouring bleach down drains, the police said, as little by little word of the attacks trickled to the police. A crucial clue to the attackers was provided by someone who slipped a note to a police officer outside the crime scene, at 1910 Osborne Place.

What I'm wondering is if this is some kind of 'sweeping hatecrime madness' that's taking over all across the states, or (more likely) this is the same old homophobic hatecrimes that are already happening but ever since those kids killed themselves now they're suddenly getting more PR because the news figures it'll generate more hits. 

Company Owner Asks Managers to 'Remain Neutral'

FakeCo, a USA-based company, had four of its female employees filing class-action lawsuits against their employers today. All of them are based on sexual misconduct and harassment. 

"I'm honestly confused," Idiot McJerk, FakeCo company owner said today. "I mean, yes we find them attractive, but what's wrong with that? That's what women are there for, right?"

The concept that FakeCo has problems with its female employees becomes more clear through interviews and employment history. Over the last year they've gone through massive turnover of female employees, which several ex-employees have attributed to numerous cases of sexual harassment. Male employee termination is almost at a standstill, however. 

"I'd go to the water cooler and be catcalled," Lady McGirlson said in an interview. "One time a guy even groped me, and when I shoved him the manager told us to go back to work. It's like they don't care."

Many of these reported incidents go by unnoticed, despite the alarming frequency at which they happened. A trend worth noting is that all of the managers are male. 

"It's very difficult. We have a community that has widely varying opinions, and so to respect all families, as the policy says, we ask managers to remain neutral," said Human Resources Head Fuckup McDumbass. 

And that's why 'remaining neutral' is a bullshit excuse to not do your fucking job to protect people from being bullied.