You Have Been Lied to About Stonewall (The Police Were Heroes)

This episode examines the Stonewall riots through primary accounts and historical research, revealing the mafia-run bar’s exploitation of patrons via blackmail, stolen liquor, and unsafe conditions. It details how a small group of officers from another precinct uncovered police corruption and faced violent resistance while protecting lives without firing on the crowd.

The discussion covers the bar’s operations, the limited role of certain figures in the events, the broader context of laws aimed at curbing disease spread, and how later narratives have rewritten the incident. It argues for recognizing the officers’ restraint and the raid’s focus on organized crime rather than the patrons themselves.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins:Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Genuinely excited because digging into this subject has completely changed my understanding of the pivotal moment of the Stonewall riots, which is seen as a central part of the gay movement, but it’s sort of a founding moment. It was when the gays pushed back. Let me tell you what. We should absolutely be celebrating yearly the heroes of the Stonewall riot. Wow. The problem being the heroes were the cops. And I don’t mean this in a bombastic sense. I mean, the cops at the Stonewall riots genuinely were brave people saving lives, stamping out corruption, and in a genuinely harrowing situation. So, for people who are unaware, Stonewall was a mafia run bar. Okay? This mafia run bar ran on exploiting gay people, and we will get into this. We... They they would run campaigns where they would blackmail people. One admiral, ended up committing suicide because they were blackmailing him so aggressively.

Simone Collins:Right. Because by the way, this is... This all happened in 1969, and this was when that could really, like, ruin your life. You know? Now it’s different. This was not then.

Malcolm Collins:And all of the people... Everything you’ve heard, like, the transgender woman of color through the first break, she wasn’t even there. What? And and we have multiple accounts. Like Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Simone Collins:Wait. So she was just, like, later was like, yeah. It was there, and people believed her.

Malcolm Collins:And and her her best friend who she said handed her the brick said, that didn’t happen, and she wasn’t there that day.

Simone Collins:Best friend, former now, I guess. Ouch.

Malcolm Collins:So, yeah, that’s all fabricated as well. It was almost all white men who we