Voice Matters Blog

As 11 FAMU band members face charges in the hazing death of Robert Champion, several organizations, most notably the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), suspect that his sexuality played a role in his murder. NBJC "is urging the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service (CRS) and Civil Rights Division, in addition to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, to launch an immediate investigation into Mr. Champion’s death as a potential anti-gay hate crime, according to a press release. But his parent discount homophobia as the main motive in their son’s murder “since other band members had known about his sexual orientation for years and had never bothered him about it,” according to an article in The Grio.

According to a 2010 study by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, anti-LGBT murders rose 23 percent from the previous year. Even more startling, 70 percent of those murders were people of color. With this in mind, do you think Champion’s death was a case of homophobia or a hazing ritual gone terribly wrong?