Sumiko Saulson

In the modern society, people are quick to say that it is not racism. I have been bullied by two young white women and their clique for about four years now. Their forms of bullying are numerous, and they often recruit other people from their popular group of young, mostly thin, predominately white 25 to 33 year old “mean girls.”

This is a screencap of one of the ringleader’s comments from SFGoth Group on my politely worded petition:

Death Guild is an organization that was started by personal friends of mine back in 1993. Although a lot of them are attached to the logo, and are angry, they are actually personal friends of mine. This is not a crusade against Death Guild, it is a crusade against racism in the club. This girl and her friend are directly responsible for a number of racial microaggressions, tenter bullying, smear campaigns, shunning, ostracization techniques, completely false or blatantly exaggerated rumors, and other bullying techniques directed at me, an up and coming black writer who regularly vends at the aforementioned goth club.

This girl and her friend created a hostile environment, tripping me when I was loading equipment out of the club, intentionally hitting me, and speaking in extremely fallacious and loaded terms about me. Their longstanding bullying and character assassination attempts are all directed at me, a 51 year old African American goth who was one of only two black folks on the first night the club was in operation to the best of my knowledge, and is the only one of those still attending.

The woman this quote comes from was involved in a bullying campaign back in late 2015 that culminated with my attempting suicide. The nature of this bullying attempt is particularly heinous. Here are the details:

• My former fiance Gregory Hug, who has since passed away (May 26, 2017) was standing outside of the club, Death Guild, telling everyone he was HIV positive, and that I was his exgirlfriend.
• This woman and her friend were hostile towards me due to my association with the other woman’s exboyfriend.
• In order to “troll” her exboyfriend, they created an elaborate lie to convince him and his new girlfriend that I had exposed him and his new girlfriend to HIV
• When he was single, he dated a lot of women, and I was one. As far as I know, the only black one out of seven or so girls. I had spent the night with the guy and made out with him in morning before he got in his car and when to work.
• The guy was/is an alcoholic. He passed out in the car and threw up earlier in the night. They created an elaborate timeline in order to “teach him a lesson” about drinking and hooking up. As I didn’t know he was still sleeping with his exgirlfriend at the time. They were going to “teach him a lesson” by “trolling him” about how he probably had HIV from me.
• I was attacked by groups of people who were bumping into me and hitting me and talking loudly about my HIV status as a result. This is a very serious allegation and a very serious matter. I did not have sex with him at all, but in order to sell the idea that he might have contracted HIV, they fabricated tales of sex in the period of time where he had been unconscious. What actually happened during those hours was that I spent 2 hours drunk-driving him home because I wasn’t very sober. This was over 4 years ago, by the way.
• I attempted suicide over these false allegations, over the loss of the relationship with the young man in question, over the bullying, the lies, my ex-boyfriend’s HIV status, and my mother’s cancer, as she had been getting chemotherapy twice a week. She died in January.
• I am HIV negative and had not had sexual contact with my HIV+ ex in about 5 months on the night in question.

After a while, the young man in question straightened people out and told them that we didn’t have sex. In fact, we were petting and didn’t have any kind of contact that would have had ANY percentage chance of passing along HIV at all.  Every time the rumor clears up, they restart it, and they fabricate more and more details that are false, they take other things and blow them out of proportion.

They also used the fact that they have ruined my relationship with him to keep it up, as I have to wait for word of it to get to him so he can clear my name YET AGAIN every time. I heard they have threatened him. Starting a false rumor that he has HIV is definitely bullying him. Trying to break him up with his new (Latina) girlfriend of the time by insinuating he has HIV is bullying him. He’s Asian. These girls have bullied and vilified and slandered both of us at various times, although the one in the message above isn’t always on the same side as the people bullying him.

For instance: Once I was going to a dungeon (that is. S&M) and had a back of floggers and whips with me. The other young lady and a friend started running around the club telling people I was armed and dangerous and had weapons, which related to the kink toys.

Just to clarify, I am not boycotting the club. I am not going there because these girls have created a hostile environment. Since I work or vend their, they have created a hostile workplace environment. I would not be going public if I wasn’t constantly being gaslit by these popular girls, their friends and associates, and more of my friends than I would have liked. It is very painful for me.

The logo is a lynching scene. These girls are forming up something like a mob to bully me, a black woman. It is like something straight out of Jim Crow. I almost killed myself over their bullying. Something needs to be done. I don’t know what will be done, if anything, because insular communities hate it when you “snitch” or tell outsiders. But I feel like a domestic violence victim who is being told its all her fault.

~ by Sumiko Saulson on July 15, 2019.

Posted in Sumiko's Writing