SAN FRANCISCO — Mark Welsh chokes up as he describes his rape last fall and the word his two assailants kept repeating.
"They kept saying 'faggot' over and over again," whispers the 51-year-old owner of a video store in the Castro district. "It went on for what seemed like forever."
Welsh came forward about the attack to publicize sexual assaults against gay men in the Castro — which he says police have downplayed.
His outrage helped spark a new anti-rape education program as well as volunteer citizen patrols in one of the nation's best-known gay neighborhoods.
But because both Welsh and another rape victim say their assailants were black, news of their attacks has heightened tensions in a community that for years has been accused of racial exclusion.
In 2005, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission ruled that a Castro bar called SF Badlands discriminated against black patrons by requiring them to present multiple forms of identification before entering.
Officials now require the bar's owner, Les Natali, to post a notice informing patrons of state anti-discrimination laws.
"It's rare," John Carr, spokesman for the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, said of the requirement. "We wanted to send a strong message that we were going to keep an eye on them."
Still, many African Americans say they're made to feel unwelcome in the Castro. "There's an unspoken language, whether you're a black man or woman, that there's no space for you here," said Lisa Williams, a local activist who is black.
how u gone rape a man and ur calling him a fag?..lol
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-castro23jul23,1,1261305.story?coll=la-headlines-california
"They kept saying 'faggot' over and over again," whispers the 51-year-old owner of a video store in the Castro district. "It went on for what seemed like forever."
Welsh came forward about the attack to publicize sexual assaults against gay men in the Castro — which he says police have downplayed.
His outrage helped spark a new anti-rape education program as well as volunteer citizen patrols in one of the nation's best-known gay neighborhoods.
But because both Welsh and another rape victim say their assailants were black, news of their attacks has heightened tensions in a community that for years has been accused of racial exclusion.
In 2005, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission ruled that a Castro bar called SF Badlands discriminated against black patrons by requiring them to present multiple forms of identification before entering.
Officials now require the bar's owner, Les Natali, to post a notice informing patrons of state anti-discrimination laws.
"It's rare," John Carr, spokesman for the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, said of the requirement. "We wanted to send a strong message that we were going to keep an eye on them."
Still, many African Americans say they're made to feel unwelcome in the Castro. "There's an unspoken language, whether you're a black man or woman, that there's no space for you here," said Lisa Williams, a local activist who is black.
how u gone rape a man and ur calling him a fag?..lol
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-castro23jul23,1,1261305.story?coll=la-headlines-california
