Or behead them in other countries (most of them Muslim). The difference is that my Mazda dealer, to whom my spouse and I have given many tens of thousands of $$$ over years, does not send us promo material offering us a chance at vacation in Iran if we buy Mazda tires. Or send us ice pictures telling us Iran is a vacation paradise.
A couple years back I went to the Caribbean on vacation. A few people suggested I go to Jamaica, but warned I would not be able to leave the resort because it would be ludicrously dangerous. The more I looked into it, the more hellish Jamaica appeared.
I went to St. Martin instead, where the only shady behaviour I experienced was one teenage beggar approaching me in a store.
I’m sure it couldn’t hurt you pointing it out to them. As a valuable customer they will wan’t to know your opinion. And I’m sure they next time they run a promo they would take it into consideration. Nobody wants to offend a customer.
Thank you to everyone for the support. I just wanted to get it off my chest and vent a little, because I am sick and tired of Jamaicans getting away with being portrayed as laid-back pot-smoking fun guys who talk funny when they have this very horrible side to their culture.
I am also aware that there are many worse forms of persecution of innocent people in this world besides homophobic persecution, so I don’t want to be homocentric (did I just invent a word?)
But it has occurred to me that letting them off on the grounds that they are black and a poor country would in fact be a RACIST and patronizing thing to do. It is as if we were saying that black Caribbeans are somehow too inferior to be held as accountable for bigotry and violence as white skinheads in Europe who beat up people of colour.
I refuse to be a racist. Local custom is one thing. But we also live in the 21st century in an age of mass communications, and they are part of the western hemisphere, for Chrissake. If their neighbours like the Bahamas and Cuba can change, they can learn to change their hateful ways or they can be treated with the same scorn and disgust as I reserve for white skinheads.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything even neutral about Gays out of Jamaica… Whenever there’s a story about Gay guys being chased down by a mob, the Jamaican papers get quoted on Gay news sites - and their “editorials” are pretty much always, “they deserved it, because they’re disgusting and in public”…
I will never give a cent to Jamaica, and have been encouraging friends to avoid it for years…
An aquaintance of mine did some time in a Jamaican jail. He said that while it was pretty horrible, homophobia was so deep that prison rape was non-existent.
That would be a terrible thing to do.
Who suggested it?
As a music lover I have long been aware of the anti-gay “sentiment” in Jamaican music, but I had just thought it was an oral homophobic tradition - a “joke” of sorts. I was horrified to see what it really means.
I know that at least in part the lyrics of the Reggae B-listers brought attention to this to me. I know both Elephant Man and Buju Banton have been boycotted at times and forced off shows. Both have refused to apologize (right Valteron?).
But to me I guess what Valteron is saying always equated in my mind like:
Offensive lyrics in rap songs? Lets boycott South Central or Compton or 8 mile or California or the USA…
So I guess I think they are two separate things Lyrics (let’s take economic action against the artists, their sponsors, distributors and record label) and the Country’s policies. I would not mix them as they are here. On this point I would say “No Jamaica writ large is not (really) responsible for what Reggae guys say in their lyrics.”
On the larger point I would ask: Is Jamaica actually quantifiably any worse than any other Caribbean Country? I am not being chesty I am not sure of that answer… but reading the Valteron’s wiki article I now think the answer maybe yes (or yes except for 1-2 on the same level) and so I guess I will re-think the whole Jamaican image I had … thanks for bringing this to may attention.
Minor nitpick here, the woman who represented Cuba at the Out Games is not Castro’s siter and she is not a lesbian. Her name is Mariela Castro Espin and she is Raul Castro’s daughter, and as the head of Cuba’s Sexology institute, she is an advocate for sex education. On occasion she has made statements that seemed to advocate gay rights. Sadly every time she has done so she has also had to retract those statements, Cuba’s government still has a strong anti-gay bias.
I’d also hazard a guess that the reality on the ground in e.g. South Africa is not as rosy as the official legal situation would indicate. Heck, even if the dealership had offered an all-expenses vacation to somewhere like Texarkana in the good ol’ US of A it would have a degree of risk attached.
F’rinstance
Marley, I am the one who suggested it indirectly when I wondered aloud if I should not be too hard on them because they are a poor, mainly black country with a tragic heritage of slavery, etc.
I was just thinking aloud, really. But you would be surprised how many guilty white liberals (like myself) have this tendency to act in a subconsciously racist way by assuming that people of colour should somehow be held to less stringent standards than whites, as if tolerance and respect for human rights is really only something you can reasonably expect out of the “noble white man”.
Sorry, I guess I remembered that wrong from 2 years ago. Raul is his brother so I gues she is Castro’s neice. And I thought the article said she was a lesbian but I have beeen wrong before.
Anyhow, I realize that the government and ESPECIALLY the people of Cuba are still homophobic, at least in comparison to say, Canada or the “blue states”. But the important thing is that they are moving in the right direction. Cuba used to confine gays to “re-education” prison camps. Since 1992 they have decriminalized gay sex between consenting adults, and according to the site I cited, they are looking at some sort of recognition of same-sex relationships after 2007.
I am not so unrealistic as to demand that deeply-ingrained social attitudes change overnight. I vacation in the USA often, but until a decision by the US Supreme Court a few years ago, gay sex was a criminal act in some 20 states. In fact, I believe my spouse and I have committed this “crime” while on vacation in Massachusetts and Florida. If I am not mistaken, in the 1970s (when we were young and randy) we repeatedly committed this crime in the Bay State, where it was officially punishable by up to 20 years in prison!
Should we turn ourselves iun on our next visit to the US, do you think 
.
Is he putting together a Good Prison Guide?
“Miami Correctional Facility. Excellent food, and beach views. Disappointingly, I was raped on three occasions. But overall three stars.”
Seriously for a moment, I am half-jamaican, and though I was aware of a homophobic culture, I have also been shocked by some of the linked info, and some of the related googling I’ve been doing.
One thing I would say (and this isn’t an attempt to excuse the crimes, just put it in context) is that Jamaica is a very violent country period.
Apparently it’s got the third highest murder rate.
When I’ve visited other carribean islands, many of the people I’ve met consider it too dangerous to visit Jamaica – away from the resorts, on the east side, it’s a very different place.
That is HILARIOUS! 
Reminds me of the old joke that the fastest thing on two wheels is Hitler riding through Tel Aviv on a bicycle!
No, the situation on the ground in South Africa is DEFINITELY not as rosy as the official legal situation would indicate. Indeed, I communicate with a number of gay Afrikaners who can confirm this. And for gay black South Africans, life is a cycle of fear and terror. In fact, one of the reasons that AIDS is ravishing South Africa is that its greatest allies, fear, shame and homophobic hatred, are strong and alive in the Republic.
But this just proves my point. SA became the first country in Africa to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, and is also the only country in Africa (and one of only five in the world) to accord full marriage rights to gays.
So governments, even democratic ones, CAN INDEED move their country away from homophobic hatred, no matter what people think on the ground.
I agree that leaders cannot go TOO far TOO fast. But should the US have waited until a majority of white southerners were in favour of racial integration?
When I hear the leader of a homophbic country claim he cannot do anything, I often wonder if that is a reason, or an excuse because he shares the same prejudices.
The more I read about it, the more I think Valteron is right and there should be some sort of campaign to discourage tourism (though I predict a Nike-style ‘But everyone else is doing it’ counterpoint). But for an awareness campaign, you’d probably need a celeb spokesperson. Know any gay, Jamaican writers, singers, etc.?
I don’t see anything I can do about it. I wasn’t planning to buy a Mazda, and I didn’t intend to go to Jamaica. I’m not likely to buy any reggae music, homophobic or not. My government is reluctant to say anything friendly to gay people here in the US, let alone in Jamaica. Hell, they’re afraid to be offended about the mass murder of one and a half million Armenians. My congressfool Mike Pence has disagreed with President Bush only once, and he sure as hell isn’t going to speak out for gay and lesbian people.
I share your sadness, but I can’t do anything about it.
The information presented here is quite eye-opening on the whole so I would like to give credit to Valteron on an informative OP. I have been well aware of Jamaica’s hostile homophobia for quite some time. My Jamaican relatives, that live stateside, have talked about the issue before and its quite prevalent in the popular music.
Being half Bahamian, I was surprised to see that the stance taken by most of my elderly and more conservative family members is one that the government seems to have adopted as well. The conservative members of my family fall in the “I don’t understand it and I don’t want to understand it but its impolite to bring up sex in conversation.” Not the most accepting stance in the world but at least it is not openly hostile. Don’t get me wrong, they have their share of issues and boycotts but things seem to have improved. In their case, a solid campaign for GLBT rights would likely affect changes in legislation and a more open stance in tourism.
I also found it particularly interesting to compare the laws of other countries around the world with the laws of the U.S. When my home state of NJ passed its Civil Union law my peers and I had a similar mixed reaction. I felt that it was a half-ass step in the right direction. After reviewing other laws around the country, and the world, I realize that I may have been too harsh on NJ considering they did try to improve human rights. Baby steps I suppose.
You mean live ones?
Thank you for your kind comment. I have found the posters with Caribbean roots to be quite open-minded and sympathetic.
But about New Jersey and Civil Union (presumably in place of full marriage rights). There is always disagreemnt in a civil rights movement as to whether something is better than nothing. My feeling is, the trouble with baby steps is that they are for babies, not adults with equal rights. Accepting someone’s demand that you take baby steps means you are accepting that you are a baby.
Read about the wonderful story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Initially, African-Americans were just asking for the right not to be ordered out of the “colored” seats by white passengers. But to have accepted that would have been to accept that it is somehow right for blacks to have to sit in separate seating. So an organization like the NAACP that never accepted discrimination, by accepting this “baby step”, actually would have been giving their blessing to the concept of racial separation, and by implication, to black inferiority.
In fact, the white government of Montgomery once or twice almost succeeded in derailing the boycott by getting a few so-called “moderate” (don’t call them that other term, have some respect 
) black preachers to accept a compromise solution, and then declare the boycott was over. It was all the leaders of the boycott could do to get the word out that the boycott was still on.
In Canada, conservatives offered us something that would be identical to marriage but would be called civil union instead of “marriage”. Why? Because our filthy fag presence would contaminate a good and holy word? Just like a “black ass” would “contaminate” a seat meant for the “superior” white race?
Sometimes “all or nothing” is the only way to go.