FIERCE

FIERCE & Kiki Coalition Organize Know Your Rights Ball for LGBTQ Youth in the West Village

PRESS ADVISORY
For Immediate Release                         
August 8, 2012     

EVENT OPEN TO REGISTERED MEDIA ONLY!!!
Media Contact: Ellen Manny Vaz, manny@fiercenyc.org
Community and Youth Contact: Tara Tabassi, tara@fiercenyc.org

FIERCE & Kiki Coalition Organize Know Your Rights Ball for LGBTQ Youth in the West Village

Ball expected to draw hundreds of youth to address issues such as racial profiling, stop & frisk, and police violence while reclaiming public space for LGBTQ youth of color.

WHAT:     FIERCE, a youth-led organization building the leadership and power of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth of color in NYC, the Kiki Coalition and Friends of Hudson River Park proudly present the Know Your Rights Ball on Pier 46 this Saturday, August 11, 2012.  

For the past four years, FIERCE has organized a youth-led ball on the pier—a major victory in their Safe Space Saves Lives Campaign to ensure safe public space for LGBTQ youth of color in a continuously gentrified and heavily policed West Village.

WHY:     LGBTQ youth have historically called the West Village and Christopher St. Pier their home—a place where they can be who they are without the threat of fear or violence.  Yet every day, LGBTQ youth continue to report sharp increases of police harassment, false arrest, and racial and gender profiling in the West Village.

In 2011, over 76% of the nearly 3,000 stop and frisks by the NYPD 6th precinct, which covers the West Village, were African-American and Latino. These statistics exist in a neighborhood where just 8% of the residents are African-American and Latino. Additionally, LGBTQ youth continue to be impacted by dehumanizing, sensationalized reporting by news media that continues to ignore the real issues LGBTQ youth are facing, like homelessness, diminishing social resources and criminalization.

The Know Your Rights Ball is a testament to the powerful organizing happening in the West Village and throughout the city to address these issues and to educate New Yorkers about their rights when dealing with the police.  FIERCE is a proud member of Communities United for Police Reform (CPR), an unprecedented campaign to end discriminatory policing practices in New York through policy and legislative reform and community organizing.

Through the Know Your Rights Ball, FIERCE and the Kiki Coalition bring together the power of youth-led organizing and the work of service-based community groups to empower LGBTQ youth to make change!

WHO:     Interview opportunities with youth members and staff from FIERCE, The Door, The Hetrick-Martin Institute, Ali Forney Center, HEAT, FACES NY, and Project S.O.L.
 
WHEN:     Saturday, August 11, 2012
               7:00 PM to 10:00 PM
 
WHERE:   Hudson River Park’s Pier 46 
               (Charles and West Street)

To learn more, watch this video about FIERCE’s Safe Space Saves Lives Campaign and the 2009 Global Warming Ball on the pier. Video created in partnership with OutSpoken, 2009.

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