From Wiccapedia:
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Green Witch Village neighborhood of New York City. They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when people in the mutant community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted genetic minorities, and they have become the defining event that marked the start of the mutant civil right's movement the United States and around the world.
When the spinning beer bottle of Miss Calamari Antoinette (a tentacled, drag queen) made solid contact with the head of Vinny Laurenzo (a mustached, beat cop) could anyone have predicted what the next 30 years had in store for mutants?
After Stonewall, mutant activists rallied by Civil Right's leader Harvey Milk made bold strides in gaining acceptance from a middle America who, by instinct, had learned to fear anyone different than themselves. Hollywood also took charge in changing popular perceptions. From Wart and Burnie on Sesame Street to a fish faced Carol Brady, folks couldn't get enough of mutants. Bird beaked models graced the catwalks of Paris, and revelers glued fake fingers to their hands to trick the doormen at Studio 54. In 1979 there was even rumor of a Federal Constitutional amendment granting citizenship status to any Americans born of dissimilar Darwinian descent. Then, in 1981, the BURP plague appeared in primarily mutant neighborhoods, like the Castro in San Francisco and New York's Green Witch Village.
Everything went to shit from there.
The Blatta Upper Respiratory Parasite, aka the BURP, prematurely labeled MRRI (Mutant Related Respiratory Illness) and jokingly called "the Coughroach" is best known as the Bug. It's a bug. To be precise a mutated species of cockroach that infests the patient's chest cavity. Feels like asthma at first, but if ignored turns into coughing blood and roaches peeking out from one's nose. Eventually they eat through the lungs. It's a slow and wheezy death. Then a thousand flying maggots burst through the skin, and a pandemic is born.
At first, America was fairly nonchalant to the potential health risk. The infestation was contained to mutant ghettos. But in 1983, teenager Bryan White lost consciousness in a public pool and received mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from a mutant who was BURP positive. Bryan's subsequent infected status became a rallying point for the Clean-Gene movement and the forced relocation of ALL mutants -- regardless of BURP status. Infected humans, including Bryan White, were also quarantined. Entire neighborhoods were simply walled up and left to their own management. Monthly deliveries of food, supplies and medicine have continued for the past twenty years, and to date no government official has confirmed hearing any communication from the ostracized mutants.
Urban legends do persist of bug covered mad men banging on subway car windows, but there's far spookier things in underground New York than a few short of breath mutants.
Pat yourself on the back, America. The relocation seems to have stopped the Bug. With that notion public perception has slowly began to shift. Fifteen years ago, a baby born with a pig's snout would have been shipped off to the nearest bio-hazard zone. But today's mutant kids are welcomed, for the most part, at some public schools. There was even a mutant winner of American Idol. Viewers had their suspicions confirmed when the rocker parted his gelled hair and winked at the paparazzi with a guy-lined, third eye. And as part of his Promise to America, President Barney Frank has vowed to open the mutant slums by 2012.
It's hard to be skeptical of anything in this world, but just dropping in for a friendly hello after two decades of incarceration is something I'll believe when I see it. If the mutants come out wanting revenge (I would), can we handle two wars in this city?
Next, I'll conclude my profile of nightmare Manhattan with a focus on the wyld womyn of the Green Witch coven. And 9/11: When the veil between worlds ripped apart, and New Yorkers came together to push the infernal hordes back to their pits of Hell. And we're still fighting...
