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Fagbug: A Statement Of Hate Turning Into A Positive

July 16th, 2007

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Erin Davies with her car

Erin Davies Turns A Hate Crime Around On The 11th Annual National Day of Silence

by Bambi Weavil

On the 11th Annual National Day of Silence, Erin Davies was faced with being a victim of a hate crime. Someone vandalized her VW Beetle with the words “fAg” and “u r gay.” Erin has turned around this inexcusable vandalism into a cause to raise awareness. Here is our chat with Erin:

Bambi Weavil: What’s the story behind Fagbug?

Erin Davies: On the 11th annual National Day of Silence (April 18, 2007), I was faced with an unfortunate tragedy, being victim to a hate crime. Because of sporting a rainbow sticker on my VW Beetle, my car was vandalized in red spray paint with the words “fAg” and “u r gay” placed all over the hood and driver side of my car. Despite immediate shock and embarrassment, I’ve decided to embrace what happened and keep driving my car as it is in order to bring more public awareness to the blatant homophobia that exists in our society.

From June 25th-the middle of August, I am taking my Fagbug on a cross country trip to as many diverse communities as possible. I will be gathering feedback for my Fagbug documentary which will teach us about the intolerance that exists in our society. The goal is to get at least one million people to add Fagbug rainbow stickers to their cars so that no one else will be targeted like I was again. Until that happens, my car will stay as is!

BW: Where was your car when it was vandalized?

ED: My car was parked 1.5 blocks from where I live in downtown Albany. Typically where I live I never have a problem parking at night, and usually park on one of two blocks, but for whatever reason that night after running errands, I couldn’t find a spot where I usually park and ended up having to go north a block and a half and park on a street I had never parked before which has a large church and no apartments on it. I felt a little strange parking on that street but didn’t think much of it at the time. I parked at 9pm, Tuesday April 17th and the next morning at 10:40 I was on my way to work at my part-time job at Moes (a burrito place) at 11 and I walked up the Mansion Hill block of my neighborhood and as I turned the corner, I saw something red on my hood. I couldn’t read what it said at first then I got closer. The first thing I saw were the words “u R gay” all over the hood of my car painted in red spray paint. I stopped dead in my tracks. I was totally shocked that anyone could do such a thing or that this even happened. After a few seconds, I noticed something else had been painted on my driver’s side window. From where I was standing it was backwards and I couldn’t read it so I walked around and then saw the word “fag” written all over my driver’s side window and door in huge letters. At that point I was going to be late for work if I took anymore time to process it, so I took my cell phone out of my pocket, checked the time, got in my car and attempted to drive away. I only made it a half a block because I saw people pointing and staring at me and my car and I felt so humiliated I couldn’t do it. So I backed back up to the spot I was in and parked and ran as fast as I could down the hill and up three flights of stairs to my apartment where my girlfriend happened to be home because she had a sick day. Tears were in my eyes, but I stayed strong and didn’t totally break down. Knowing my girlfriend was home to be there to help me made it easier for me but if she wasn’t home I probably would’ve had an emotional breakdown.
So she took me to work. I called my employer on my way to work saying I might be a few minutes late and let them know what happened. They were all shocked and concerned. I actually made it to work on time that day surprisingly, at 11 o’clock on the dot. My manager, the owner of Moes, who is somewhat an intimidating type of a guy, was actually very supportive of me and outraged someone would do such a thing. My other co-workers were as well. The girl who answered the phone when I called was so upset by it. They all asked me when I got to work if I was going to take my rainbow sticker off. It all just happened so I didn’t even think of that at that moment, but it was an interesting question and one I’d have to decide on. At that moment, my answer was yes, I probably will. It was so soon after it happened that I felt like I didn’t want to go through something like this again, I didn’t want to be a target for such a thing, and who would?

I got out of work an hour early to call the police. Sue picked me up. We waited in her VW bug, she has a green one, I have a a grey one. We are dorks like that. She had her’s first, then I copied her. We waited for the police to come for an hour. In that time, we watched the pedestrian traffic go by my car, and over 50 people walked by and not one walked by without having an outward reaction to seeing it.

Mostly people felt that it was so messed up. No one knew it was my car or that I was sitting in the car across the street. But it evoked strangers on the street to have a dialogue and that was really interesting to watch. While I waited for the cops to come, I called Geico, my insurance company to report what happened.

They weren’t going to get me a rental car until the insurance person could come give me a quote to get it fixed, and they let me know it would take five days for them to come give me the quote. So I had to hassle them and tell the guy on the phone that I’m not driving my car as it is and he wouldn’t either. I told him how humiliating it is to drive a car that has the word “fag” written right next to my face. He went to go talk to his boss to get approval because typically if a car is drivable you have to drive it until the rep comes to give a quote to get it fixed, but this was a special incident where those rules don’t really apply. So he came back and said they’d get me a rental car. He laughed and said I know it’s not funny but I can’t help it.

Then the police came and they questioned me, and asked me numerous times who my enemies were. I told them I haven’t lived in Albany long enough to have enemies. I haven’t even lived here a year. They didn’t see this as a hate crime and see the correlation between the skinny rainbow sticker on the back of my car and the words that were written.
I have been out for 12 years so if a person who knew me wanted to hurt me they wouldn’t write “u r gay” on my car. It’s like stating the obvious like you have brown eyes, or you are 5 foot 4 inches tall or you have freckles, or to put it in terms a straight person could understand it’s like putting “u r straight” on someone’s car who is fully OK with being heterosexual, as I am with being homosexual.

And also to write “fag” on my car, well I see clearly that it wasn’t someone who knew I was a woman. Fag is a derogatory term used toward men who are gay. I am not a man. I am a woman. A word to try to hurt me would’ve been “dyke.” Anyway, the words written on my car made it easy for me to see that this wasn’t a person thing. I saw it for what it was, a hate crime, someone who’s not tolerant of gay people lashing out because they felt the need to.

So for a day and a half I drove around a PT Cruiser, and physically removed myself from my car, and emotionally as well, but even in the rental car, people in my neighborhood were still stopping me in the middle of the street, in the middle of traffic, while I was driving to express their concern and outrage about what happened to my car. Because I had to wait five days for the insurance person to come, my car was parking in my neighborhood and everyone knows that it’s my car. I went to one of my art classes and asked my classmates for advice, like what would they do if this happened to them, keep the sticker on or take it off and a girl in my class said very strongly that she would keep it on and that I shouldn’t let someone intimidate or bully me and make me feel afraid or ashamed of who I was. She was the first person to give that stance, but the more people I talked to, the more told me to keep it on, and eventually I made that decision for myself that I am going to keep it on, and rather than take it off and have my close friends around me feeling like they should or other people in the world, I want to get a million people to put rainbow Fagbug stickers on their cars, both straight and gay so no one else will ever have to be targeted the way I was again.

This happened on a Wednesday morning, and by Friday morning I went for a run, and again was stopped by a Jamaican guy who’s the parking lot attendant on the street where I usually park my car. I only made it one block that morning on my run and was stopped and had a half hour conversation with him about his opinion about it. He told me what he thought about the rainbow sticker and what it symbolized and that he felt I should remove it out of concern for me. All of these opinions I could relate to because they all make sense on some level. Then when I went back to my apartment and went to get ready to go to work at school, I was talking to a friend in Florida online about the reactions I was getting. I thought the night before about maybe getting video reactions from people where my car was and my girlfriend asked why I would want to have a negative memory of this.

My friend the next morning encouraged me to drive it and said I’d be opening myself up to more diverse feedback if I just drive it so I did. I was still tentative about it, and rolled my window down on the way so no one would see the word fag next to my face, but when I got there I rolled it up and went to get my advisor Cheryl VanDermark and some other faculty members to show them and get feedback. Cheryl was outraged and encouraged me to keep driving it as is and keep the rainbow sticker on. While we were standing there talking about it, a public safety officer came over to me and apparently their entire office was in a meltdown because of this.

He asked me how long I planned on keeping my car there and asked me if I would move it. He was on a walkie talkie with the director of public safety and said things like, “we found the owner.” I was told, not asked, to go talk to the director who then explained that in one hour of parking in front of the admissions building, over 50 phone calls were made to public safety both good and bad, again reiterating this polar response and making me feel this was very interesting, and I told him I’d be there all day because I work in the education office from 9-5. They couldn’t officially make me move. It is a public street. I didn’t appreciate how they acted like I was the problem, and not the person who did this. If I was a black student and my car said n*gger, I doubt they would’ve asked me to move it.
It just shows how people in those types of positions aren’t trained to deal with homophobia or homosexuality in a sensitive manner.
After that I talked to about 20 different people about my car. Everyone encouraged me to keep driving it and keep my sticker on. Even the Dean of the School of Education (who isn’t gay) told me not to back down and she bought a rainbow sticker for her car and for the entire faculty. People kept coming into the ed office and telling me admissions wants my car moved. After hearing it about ten times, I finally walked over there to see for myself, they all denied it and I was sent upstairs to talk to the head of admissions. She said it was okay to keep my car there for the rest of the day, because at that point it was 4:30 and all potential students that were coming already came for the day but that I COULD NOT BE THERE ON SUNDAY. They were having an open house. I told her I was scheduled to work for the diversity office and have a table at that event. She asked if I’d be bringing my car. I told her it was my only car so yes, and she excused me from coming, because she didn’t want my car there.

Then the news found out what I was doing and were going to come at 5pm to meet with me to do a story on my decision to drive the car, which at that point was an experiment for 1-week. One week seemed like an eternity at that point. Right after my interview started, the office of communications came barging into my interview, demanding they get interviewed, saying, “Erin is giving you one side of the story, we are here to give the other.” They over-reacted and were being paranoid. The story had nothing to do with them, just me driving my car and promoting awareness.

The next day a good friend of mine, Cory Magin, a friend of over 10 years and one who has been there for me throughout any change, good, or bad time in my life, one of my dearest friends, (who happens to be straight) called me to make sure I was okay because he heard about what happened to my car. I filled him in on all that happened at school the day before, and he is the one who saw a bigger vision for it. I was still experiencing it all and taking it all in, but he was hearing about it from the outside and saw what a great impact it could have nationally. He loved that I parked in this high profile place in front of the admissions building and saw me doing that at various spots in the country and being asked to have my car removed. He told me he was buying me the website www.Fagbug.com and said it’s perfect. That day I was going home to Syracuse for my brother in law’s 30th birthday party and didn’t really think my friend was serious about the website. I returned a day later and the website was up and the MySpace was made. Cory set both of them up. On my way back from Syracuse, Sue’s mother encouraged me to make my own Fagbug stickers. Once I filled my information into the MySpace, everything just took a life of it’s own, and Fagbug was born.
I began to do national radio talks and national news coverage, and began to receive emails of support from not only across the US but also from Italy, Belgium, Canada, Australia, Germany, Mexico, and Spain. I was astonished that by making such a small choice, I was inspiring so many people both gay and straight.

BW: What has the response been like to your efforts to raise awareness? Any great stories to share?

ED: One woman who is straight, e-mailed me and told me she wasn’t sure about going back to school at such an old age, and felt scared to do it, but darn it if I can drive across the country in the Fagbug, then she could go back to school with confidence.

I also received a letter from a boy in Florida who’s 15 and isn’t out to people at his school and he counted how many times the word fag was used in his school over a one-day period and reported it being said 76 times. Fag is a very charged and strong word, and hopefully with the Fagbug movement I will be able to take the hurt out of it and make it a fun and playful word, not just one used to hurt.

I have received five letters on my car from people leaving them while it was parked in various places. One being a letter from a local pastor offering her support, one being an offer from a mechanic to fix my car for free, one being signs of fascism, another being an orange card that said “HERO” on the outside and when I opened it five dollars fell out onto the floor, I bent down to pick it up and continued to read the inside which said, thank you for being such an inspiration and for speaking up for those of us who remain silent, and they said they would give me more money for my trip if they could afford it. I cried my eyes out when I got that letter, and it was my favorite moment so far. As I was heading to my car I thought I had a parking ticket or something and instead of it being what I expected, something bad, it was something very kind and genuine. Every time I go to my car I never know what to expect, and after this happened I thought something worse might happen to my car. But to my surprise only good things were coming my way.

After a few weeks of making it visible, being in the local and national papers, and national radio, I finally got a negative letter from someone left on my car, it read “it’s a shame you did this” and they left their phone number. I couldn’t believe this person thought I made it up myself and could barely read their handwriting so I called to talk to them, and the guy was yelling at me the entire time and no matter what I said he just kept saying, ‘well if you didn’t do it yourself…’ he said this type of thing has never happened before in Albany, and that he’s part of the graffiti movement and people that do graffiti aren’t homophobic.

Just in making this public, I’ve received over 50 emails from people who have had the same thing happened to them, and one from a girl in Albany who had the same exact thing happen to her car on Lark Street which is very close to where I live. She wasn’t out of the closet yet and didn’t even report it, she just got it off as fast as she could so her parents didn’t have to see it. This type of thing happens all the time, the shame and humiliation associated with it are what prevent the general public access to knowing it even exists.

BW: Why is it important to you to raise awareness?

ED: We are taught in our society to cover things like this up. To pretend they didn’t happen. To deny them. To carry the burden within. Someone said something to me that resonated very strongly, they said that even if I did cover it up, no one else would see it but I’d still see it every time I looked at my car and I feel that’s so true. I would be haunted by that memory. By keeping it on and claiming it, I am taking that power away from whoever did it. They aren’t going to humiliate me or embarrass me. They are the one who should be feeling humiliation and embarrassment at this point.

By my decision to drive the car, so many positive things have happened. I’ve been invited to speak at various schools, events, and locations across the country. Over 1,000 people already want my stickers and t-shirts, which will be available in a week or so. [Editor's note: the stickers are now available for purchase!] Everywhere I take my car there is such a reaction to it. People stop me in their cars in the middle of traffic, people walking stop me, people laugh, people cry. To feel so compelled to stop a car in the middle of the street when there is a long line of traffic behind it shows how outrage people are and how strong this is.

Also, two nights ago, as I was parking my car around midnight, a man was flagging me down who was at the stop light next to where I was parked. He asked me if this happened to my car around 3 weeks ago and pointed to the block where it happened. I said yes. He said he was driving down that street that night and saw a man really close to it looking suspicious with a white car and as soon as he drove by the man hurried and put whatever was in his hand into a plastic bag. He said he drove by it the next morning and saw what was written on it and knew that that was what he was doing that night. I got his number and he is going to be talking to the police detective this week. He is a witness. See if I took it off I’d have no chance of finding this person, but by keeping it on the longer I do, the higher the chances of finding them. The police are now encouraging me to get as much press as I can out of this because they said the only way you solve a crime like this is to have someone talk.

A random stranger in Utah sent me $200 for my trip, and others have also donated money. I am working on getting a Paypal section on my website for people to be able to easily donate to help me with expenses for my trip. Also the stickers and t-shirts will be a main way to fund my trip and will be available in a week through online ordering at www.Fagbug.com or people can get them from me in person. [Editor's Note - both are currently available!]

BW: How has this experience changed your life?

ED: Deepa Soul, a musician from OutMusic contacted me about using her song “r u happy now” in all the Pride parades that I’ll be driving in this summer. It is about words that are hurtful like fag, nigger, etc. The song is on my
MySpace page now. Through connecting with her, I got a connecting with Halle Sherman who is a TV producer from LA who is pitching the “Fagbug Across America,” reality show to all the major cable networks. That is my goal to get a network to come with me on the trip to document the entire thing. It is my goal to go to a variety of places and put my Fagbug in a variety of different situations where it will be received both positively and negatively and that is what I want to show.

BW: How gay tolerant is Albany, NY? Do you have a strong gay community to back you there?

ED: I have never felt unsafe in Albany, and have always felt it was a pretty gay friendly place, but even if a place you feel safe this type of thing happens everywhere. Somewhere someone is being taught to be intolerant at this very second. A couple of days ago after getting gas at a local Mobile station, three teenage boys were walking up to my car after I got gas and was waiting for traffic to turn onto the street, they laughed at both me and my car and kept pointing and staring for over 5 minutes, they came within a foot of my car and were pointing right at my window while I was sitting there. They also took a photo of me and gave me a thumbs up but it wasn’t in a good way, it was like thanks for making me laugh at your humiliation. It was kind of creepy and disturbing. So you don’t have to drive to Utah or Texas or Kentucky to find this type of thing. It’s everywhere.

I do have a lot of support from friends, and strangers in Albany. The letters of support left on my car, e-mails from people in my neighborhood, people email me to tell me they were proud to see the Fagbug, people wanting to interview me and wanting stickers. I have a lot of support.

BW: What is your coming out story?
ED: I came out 12 years ago when I was 17 years old. I fell in love with a girl I competed against in basketball who I had known for over 8 years before that, from competing against one another. We were both the two top point guards in our area. Once we met it was it. We both fell deeply in love with each other and were together for almost 4 years. My family was confused by it and it probably took some of them about seven years to actually accept it, especially my father. It took him years, and for a long time he blamed every bad thing that happened in my life on me being
gay and pleaded with me to change and not be gay or else I would be disowned by him, and have been three or more times in my life. I have been through a lot, and have taken all that negative energy and turned it into positive by being an activist. When I was in high school it was before Ellen ever came out and there were no gay images in the media at all. I never knew about PFLAG or GLSEN or HRC or any resources. My high school coach was gay but when I reached out to her for help, she wouldn’t openly talk to me about it because she was afraid of losing her job. That
sent me the message, you can’t be gay and OK with who you are, it’s something that is wrong that you should hide. That made me feel very ashamed of myself. I felt very alone at that time, depressed, and isolated. Because of all this when I was 23, I started a theatre program in Baltimore called “Living Proof,” that was meant to be an empowering
program for GLBT youth in Baltimore. Basically I created exactly what I wished I had when I was younger, maybe something that would’ve saved me all the money I’ve paid for a decade of therapy! [laughs] It was meant to counter all the negative statistics out there regarding GLBT youth, like suicide, depression, isolation, HIV, homelessness, etc. If you are a kid who identifies with being GLBT, it’s a dooming message to only hear about Matthew Shepards and negative stories like that, when there isn’t anything in the media to counter them. “Living Proof” was one thing
that did counter that. All of the kids had to do a living proof statement to show what they prove by being here today, by making it as far as they did, like “I am living proof that you can bring your visions to life despite all roadblocks” that was mine, or “I am living proof that gay is not a phase” by Stephen McCray. Or “I am living proof that a life is worth fighting for” by Robert Silver. Or “I am living proof you can turn negative energy into a positive statement” by Ebony Jones…. Ebony just emailed me and said that I am living out her statement right now with Fagbug.

When this all happened with Fagbug, I was in the middle of starting to edit the living proof documentary, which I have over 100 hours of footage. This past semester a part that I edited got selected to air on Al Gore’s cable TV
station called “Current TV,” the piece I did was called “child of god” and features Avia Brown, who was in Living Proof. Here it is if you want to see it:
http://www.current.tv/pods/comingout/PD05872

BW: How has this experience changed your life?

ED: This experience has changed my life because after being out for 12 years and letting people like my father blame me for things being my fault because I was so inherently bad because of being gay that I deserved it, I have finally gotten to a point where I no longer believe that. I know this wasn’t my fault. I know I am not the one who should be feeling bad. If I covered it up I would be walking around feeling angry at the world, and by not doing that, I now have thousands of people all across the world supporting me and I don’t feel angry at all.

Also, because I never had anyone like me come to my school when I was in high school, it’s changed my life because it’s given me a tool so I can speak about intolerance in our society and do something to change that. I feel empowered by it and honored that I can go into high schools and talk about this experience. Had I had someone do that when I was younger, it would’ve changed my life.

BW: What are ways that people in the gay community can support your efforts?

ED: Ways people can support me are to BUY A Fagbug STICKER! OR DONATE MONEY TO MY TRIP. Donations can be send at this point to PO box 683 Albany, NY 12201

BW: Thank you Erin for sharing your experience with us! We encourage EVERYONE to support Erin’s efforts to raise awareness by donating money and buying a Fagbug sticker for yourself, your family and friends, or even a stranger, by visiting http://www.fagbug.com and http://www.myspace.com/fagbug.

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