Despite a somewhat complicated, estranged relationship with my Gay father, the trial, conviction, and eventual jailhouse murder of Jeffrey Dahmer filled me with a low-key mix of grim satisfaction and dread.
You see, my dad and I weren’t always on the best of terms. He was a philanderer, a charmer with sticky fingers, a drug user, and a serial liar. Still, I adored him as children will their folks and feared for my flamboyant, laid-back, and fun-loving pops.
How many Dahmers were out there? Would something be done to stop them in the future?
Many in the Black and Gay communities waited with bated breath for the monster’s sentencing, but having been “Lucy Footballed” in the past, many of us feared we would get away with his crimes—my dad was very vocal in his cynicism.
When the flesh-consuming murderer was convicted, I was relieved even though I knew in my heart-of-hearts that this conviction was a one-off—a White man charged with the murders of Black homosexuals.
In many ways, I think Dahmber was convicted more for the crime of being a cannibal than for killing gay men—America doesn’t exactly have a stellar history when it comes to such things.
From my experience growing up in a gay household, far too many people discounted the deaths of gay men, in fact, some saw it as “cleaning house,” the HIV/AIDS epidemic a case in point.
I listened, with horror, as people called AIDS “The Gay Disease” or a righteous judgment from God for the sin of same-sex attraction.
As I watched promising and beautiful gay men I loved and grew up with die, jelly bean grubbin’ Ronnie Reagan didn’t even bat an eye. That is, until his old friend, Rock Hudson, contracted AIDS. This, alongside lovely, White, straight, and “blameless” Kimberly Ann Bergalis’ contraction of AIDS after a dental appointment, spurred genuine research and eventual medical progress.
Cuz ya know, now the decent folks of child-rearing age were dying, and we wouldn’t have that.
Dhamer gave a human soul to the “godless”
Now, Jeffrey, that dude scared everyone—he was, in a way, HIV/AIDS in a man, a horror that people would hate to see advance in the mainstream.
What captured the American imagination was his cold-blooded methodology. His pathology. How he hunted and killed his prey. Even the most homophobic among us would not have wished such a fate on their worst enemies.
My father, who succumbed to AIDS in 2005, was able to cheer on Dhamers’ death in jail before his passing. I saw a bit of pain and fear alleviate in his eyes at that moment. Even so, I could not shake the fear that others could use their privilege to move among a marginalized group with impunity until caught.
Possibly someone like Dahmer.
In some cases, some might even wear a badge.
When I learned Chauvin, George Floyd’s murderer, had been stabbed, I felt the same way I did when Dhamer had been killed. Like poetic justice and karma had a baby, with cosmic results.
Unlike that fateful day in 1994, however, my original rush to “serve him right!” was followed by a bit of guilt and sadness. I tried to examine the why…
And I came up with…
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
Some people sided with Dahmer and still do to this very day. There are actual fans of the killer despite his heinous crimes. Many decry the awful childhood Dhamer suffered—without a stitch of sympathy for his victims. A new, popular TV show showcases Dahmer’s crimes in great detail despite victim’s family’s request not to do so.
Alongside this disgusting development, Chauvin, like the murderous Rittenhouse, is heralded as a hero of the right. Some Conservatives beat upon their breast on how unfairly rogue officers are treated; I mean, how can they do their jobs if they can’t kill darkies at whim?
The Hollywood Star Who Confronted the AIDS ‘Silent Epidemic’ | Smart News| Smithsonian Magazine
After I learned George Floyd’s murderer was stabbed in an Arizona prison, my initial feelings that a dark kind of karma was being served were hampered by the fact that he would only become a symbol, a martyr to those who see Gay folks, Blacks, women, Immigrants, and minority populations as communities that should come to heel under White superiority.
Floyd died because he was a mere criminal to far too many “crime and punishment” conservatives, who ironically have no problems with their Republican front-runner’s 91 criminal indictments.
As of this posting, ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is “expected to survive the attack,” and a small part of me hopes he does.
The inequity of justice…
The older me, the mother, the small business owner doesn’t want to see blood for blood; I want justice. Real Justice. The kind that recognizes everyone’s humanity—their right to life. A justice that doesn’t make monsters into heroes and views all life on this planet as sacred.
From where I sit in 2023, that is still a far-off thing that I am afraid my eyes will never see. Any measure of outcome for killers like Chauvin feels hollow and unsatisfactory, given the current landscape.
Hoping for the winds of change.
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