The topic of Jamaican dancehall music and homophobia has been repeated ad nauseum by many media outlets. The article in question that I responded to broke no new ground, offered nothing of real substance and only seemed bent on fanning the frenzy of people who buy into this and want to present Jamaica, Jamaican culture and Jamaican music as the global standard bearer of homophobia run amok.

My point is quite simply this: that is not the case. The fact that there are many countries with laws on their books criminalizing homosexuality shows that this is not a Jamaica problem, but a global, human rights issue. It is unfortunate, patently narrow minded and unabashedly self-serving for any foreign journalist to demonize Jamaica repeatedly to the extent it has been, for what a sub culture of Jamaican society espouses.

It is even more ridiculous that these same foreign journalists want to call for boycotts of Jamaica and Jamaican artists. As I’ve said before, the mentality has to change and has to change from within, not without. If you want to boycott a group of people, why aren’t you boycotting everyone-nationals and representatives of other countries such as the ones I listed in my original piece-that can legally execute homosexuals?!? How about those boycotts of American artists who have made inflammatory comments about homosexuals? How do you pick and choose who you will boycott this week?

Any music that advocates killing someone because they may different than you is wrong. That is not debatable. I will not now or ever defend that. Any and all artists that make this kind of music should be rightfully vilified. However, picking and choosing who to crucify and who to ignore makes you just as prejudicial in my book as the hate monger spewing what Mr. Greenburg and others have dubbed ‘murder music.’

To the people who have responded to my post-Nick, Sugar Lump and Just a thought, there are people within Jamaican society who have been working to make changes to this mentality. Several artistes, music industry executives and academics have gone on record to speak out against it. One of the first international stars of dancehall, Yellowman, recently did an interview where he spoke about how dancehall needs to ‘clean it up’ and perform music ‘that the world wants to hear.’ I agree with him 100%. The negativity in the music usually translates into minimal sales and middling tours, as it should.

Let’s take it a step further however. The biggest hip hop artist out right now not named Jay-Z is Eminem. He has made inflammatory comments in the recent past about gays. He is still today performing, touring and doing whatever he wants without fear of any boycotts or negative media agitation towards him. But an artist like Buju Banton is repeatedly taken to task over lyrics in a song he wrote almost twenty years ago? And this is an artist, speaking of Eminem, who has repeatedly, repeatedly, written songs about killing his mother, killing his girlfriend and degrading black women. Where’s the righteous indignation?

I want to challenge anyone to point out where there are the types of articles, headlines and hysteria about anti-gay sentiments directed at another group of people the way Jamaica has been spotlighted. Go over the list of countires I named in my post. I gladly would like to see the media reports about their policies and calls for boycotts against their people and governments.

So again, I repeat my original question-what is the real agenda here?

As I stated before, to the US journalists such as the writer of the fluff piece that I originally commented on; the ones that want to dictate to another group of people how they should and should not behave, here’s a suggestion: Fix your own house first.

Secondly, other countries don’t turn their homophobia into entertainment. As sugar lump said if ” jamaican musicians weren’t so busy (and loudly) informing the rest of the world through their music about jamaica’s backward stance on homosexuality, people like Mr. Greenburg wouldn’t find time to write about it.”

And finally, yes Jamaica is a sovereign nation, but does that term really mean anything in this globalized world? All nations are dependent in some way on at least one other nation, and so all nations must mind their p’s and q’s and failure to do so can be detrimental. All nations mind their p’s and q’s in some way or other, and Jamaica is no exception. What gives persons in other countries the right to “pass judgment, to scream for boycotts and agitate” is their constitution which grants them freedom of speech and assembly. Just as we have the right to sing about boom bye bye in Jamaica because our constitution gives us freedom of speech and such songs are within our morality, they have the right to say that it’s not within their moral values and to boycott any goods from Ja being consumed in their country, or artists from performing in their county.

If you have a problem when they exercise their rights in their own country, then perhaps you shouldn’t be in their country, come back to Ja, stand for what you believe in!

i agree with nick. where are the straight jamaicans that are against the harsh laws against homosexuality in jamaica? where are the open-minded straight people speaking out against the assault on gays and people perceived as gay?

The answer is, of course, because you don’t care, and you wouldn’t have cared at all if someone didn’t criticize Jamaica for it.