DJ Samantha Ronson is bringing awareness to a photo posted on twitter of a young woman who was severely beaten on the face. (Warning on that link.) It’s a disturbing picture and reminded me of the leaked photo of Rihanna’s face after she was brutally abused by Chris Brown. The back story for how the woman was injured is even more upsetting. Ronson posted an entry on her MySpace blog describing that the woman was the victim of a hate crime committed after a party she DJ’ed in Seattle:

NO ONE should have to suffer any sort of attack, verbal or physical, for any reason. there are no excuses for violence- people say “well they’re just ignorant or uneducated” – so what??? i don’t know how to speak chinese, i haven’t studied hinduism, i’ve never been to brazil, that doesn’t mean that i feel that it’s ok for me to hate what i don’t understand, least of all resort to violence when challenged…

it’s 2009 people, why are we still fighting each other? the whole world is a damn mess and we’re too busy hating to come together and change it. President Obama ran a campaign based on hope- not hope for any group of people in particular- hope for everyone. His message was embraced worldwide, so why can’t we, here in the US, fight together instead of with one another? I’m not saying that everyone has to love everyone individually, i’m no hippie, but seriously people, no one should ever resort to violence. What if your sister, mother, brother or father were being pummeled for wearing a red sweater? would you stand by and do nothing? well, we are all someone’s child, sibling, or friend! Open your eyes!

sorry to vent, but that picture above was taken after a girl was attacked at a party i dj’d in seattle, simply for being gay. it’s disgusting.

sorry for rambling, but it makes me so sad that this sh*t happens today.

[From Samantha Ronson's myspace via Twitter]

Like Ronson, it makes me sick to my stomach to think that things like that still happen. I know they do, but hearing about it just makes you want to cry and scream at the same time. Ronson really brings it home with the observation that we are all “someone’s child, sibling or friend” and can put ourselves in someone else’s position to try to grasp how horrible an act of violence can be.

Washington State, where the crime was committed, has a hate crimes law that’s called “malicious harassment” (link leads to PDF file) and is a class c felony. The maximum penalty is 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Victims can also sue perpetrators in separate civil cases, and “A person may be liable to the victim of malicious harassment for actual damages, punitive damages of up to ten thousand dollars, and reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs incurred in bringing the action.”

If this woman’s injuries are a clear cut case of a hate crime, let’s hope she gets justice. There will certainly be plenty of media attention to her case now that Ronson has brought attention to it.

Photo is of Ronson DJing on 9/14/08. Credit: PRPhotos