I often tell the story about how when I first landed in the US, as a grad student in the Midwest, the president of the Indian Students Association pulled us newbies aside for a few words of advice.

“Don’t hold hands with other guys when you walk down the streets” he told us.

In India that easy physical intimacy was common. Friends held hands. Friends walked with their arms around each others shoulders. A young man and a woman holding hand might actually attract more attention.

I tell this story usually with a little grin.

I didn’t have any idea that so many years later it would have a ring of deadly truth.

Jose Sucuzhanay was walking down the street with his brother on Dec. 7. The Ecuadorian immigrant has his arm around his brother when they were attacked by a group of men shouting anti-immigrant and anti-gay slurs. They broke a beer bottle over his head and beat him with a baseball bat. Sucuzhanay died from his injuries in hospital.

It turns out he leaves behind two kids in Ecuador.

A couple of days ago I attended a meeting with a group of activists and funders who had worked on the No on Prop 8 campaign in California. We were all talking about what happened and what could have happened better.

Were LGBT groups there when African Americans needed them? Did they talk about immigration? Could they count on other groups for their support on same sex marriage ? Where did our issues intersect? How could be avoid jostling for place in a hierarchy of grievances?

Jose Sucuzhanay found the fatal answer to that question.
That night he proved, that when you are attacked for being the other, it doesn’t matter which “other” you are.
The blows are equally deadly.