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Wayne Besen
PO Box 25491
Brooklyn, NY 11202
What: Gay advocates are launching a national boycott of Jamaica in New York City at the famed Stonewall Bar -- birthplace of the gay rights movement. The bar's owners and boycott supporters will dump Jamaican liquor -- Red Stripe beer and Myers' Rum -- down the sewer.
Human rights activists have given Jamaica the infamous title: "The Most Homophobic Place on Earth." Gay people have regularly been beaten and murdered on the island, while authorities do little to stop the violence.
Where: Stonewall Inn Wednesday, April 15 53 Christopher Street 6:30 PM Who: Bill Morgan, Stonewall Inn, Kurt Kelly, Stonewall Inn, Tony DeCicco, Stonewall Inn, Wayne Besen, Boycott co-organizer Background: GLBT activists Michael Petrelis, Wayne Besen and Jim Burroway launched this boycott after a State Department report highlighted the violence faced by GLBT people. According to the report:
The Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All Sexuals, and Gays (J-FLAG) continued to report human rights abuses, including arbitrary detention, mob attacks, stabbings, harassment of homosexual patients by hospital and prison staff, and targeted shootings of homosexuals. Police often did not investigate such incidents.
The West Coast portion of the boycott took place earlier this month with a rum dump in San Francisco that featured Petrelis and city Supervisor Bevan Dufty. Learn more about the boycott at www.BoycottJamaica.org.
14 Comments:
JFLAG has asked you to leave Red Stripe out of this protest. The boycott is poorly targeted and needs serious revision before you go forward.
http://jflag.blogspot.com/2009/04/press-release-no-to-boycott-in-san.html
posted by Melanoman, at
4/15/2009 1:44 PM
these kind of protests are ridiculous and show ur stupid racial superiority complex!! shame on you for trying to pick out Jamaica. how about picking up Texas and all your fucking white fags who harras coloured gays in the West simply because they are black.
or what about the murder of gays in iraq because of the stupid american war on iraq lead by your dictator George Bush. have u guys taken any responsiblity for that???????????????? and if America is so tolerant how come there is so much opposition to gay marraige???
what is happening in Jamaica is because of the sad leagacy of years of the evil British colonialism and the American slave trade.
these protests have no moral or ethical basis. they are just an attempt by a bunch of white guys to try to malign and harm the people and islands of african origion. I assure you that your cunning ploys will not work and people will see through your white burdern bullshit
posted by Unknown, at
4/16/2009 7:10 PM
Gay....you rant about the evils of colonialism, then explain to us why South Africa, a former Dutch and British colony now has marriage equality? Your argument is flawed and absurd.
Let all the white people leave and while they're at it, how about asking the British government to stop giving financial aid to Jamaica and boot it out of the commonwealth once and for all since you hate whites so much? The more regressive your island becomes, the more it will be confined to irrelevance, insignificance and oblivion and people like you are going to be responsible for that.
posted by Anonymous, at
4/17/2009 8:43 AM
Well Robert, let me explain to you why South Africa a former dutch and British colony has marraige equality? It is because THE arrogant apartheid practising WHITES LEFT!!!!
As long as the whites were there in South Africa, homosexuality was illegal in south Africa. but once they were kicked out and the black majority took over, gays were granted equal rights including the RIGHT TO MARRY which homosexuals do not have even in the so called advanced white Britain!
It is sad that colonalist like you come up with these shocking threats of cutting off aid to Jamaica. Even if you carry out this empty threat I am confident that Jamaica will be able to rise from the ashes and perhaps will be able to have gay marraige in its books the way South Africa has done. Your empty threats reveal the hideous hatred u seem to hold towards all non whites. I wish to remind you that the centuries of slavery and colonisim imposed by the West on the African people has not be successful and they have been able to heal even in your country, the United States of America.
Instead of focussing on the island's supposed regressiveness i wish that you focus your attention on your and your countrymen's RACISIM, both in the gay and straight community.
posted by Unknown, at
4/17/2009 12:08 PM
Gay said "As long as the whites were there in South Africa, homosexuality was illegal in south Africa. but once they were kicked out and the black majority took over, gays were granted equal rights including the RIGHT TO MARRY".
Yeah, it must be all the whites fault because althroughout Africa where the blacks are in control gays have the right to marry and the blacks like in Uganda aren't killing gays.
posted by Priya Lynn, at
4/17/2009 3:26 PM
of course not Priya. how can we admit that its the whites fault. to do so would violate the principles that seem to govern some peoples thought. fairnes of skin over fairness or justice of the issues.
now if we read history we would know that Victorian values came from Europe and have no basis in African society. Opression of homosexuals is part of white culture and has no historical precedence in Africa. indeed when the war mongering whites first landed in Africa they were appalled by the fluidness of gender and sexuality and considered this freedom of sexuality as sinful and basically african.
gay people are being killed in Uganada not because of african culture but because of the american missionary who true to their historical hatred of blacks have imported a false and alien aparthedic inspired christianity to africa. morever africans are still not in control of their destiny as long as hypocraites meedle in their affairs under false pretext and carry out the colonialist agenda, economcic culture and social.
But we wouldnt be interested in anything that reveals the truth about the situation would we ?
posted by Unknown, at
4/17/2009 5:13 PM
Gay, its pretty clear you're not interested in the truth of the situation. Although whites may have started the persecution of gays in Africa the white rule over countries in Africa has long ended and the blacks have chosen to continue the persecution of gays all on their own. To blame what's going on in Africa on whites is a lie.
posted by Priya Lynn, at
4/17/2009 7:51 PM
Priya the white rule over Africa is far from over. Even today the West is able to keep Africa in poverty by preventing fair trade agreements, much needed technological transfer and by unfairly subsidizing western farmers with the aim of causing famines in Africa.i dont know if u have visisted Africa but u just have to switch the TV on to find how the western media gloats over images of African Poverty. While slavery has officially ended obviously the hatred that the western world feels towards africa has not.
The blacks are not responsible for homophbia simply because in Jamaica and elsewhere in Africa, gays are not being persecuted under say an african belief that they are witches etc but under the imported western christian belief that homosexuality is wrong and bad.
Priya sometimes the truth is not what we want to believe. the West has for long believed that the people of african origion are worth of discrimination, hatred and prejudice. I think its high time u woke up to this FACT
posted by Unknown, at
4/18/2009 12:00 AM
Gay I don't doubt that there is discrimination against blacks by whites, but your suggestion that whites are responsible for the anti-gay actions in Jamaica is preposterous. Britain long ago dropped its laws against sodomy and has encouraged its former colonies like Jamaica to do likewise. It is not whites that are responsible for the violence against gays in Jamaica and Africa, it is blacks.
It is no coincidence that in the United states 70% of blacks voted against equal marriage in California compared to around 50% of whites. Blacks in general are more homophobic than whites and poll after poll has shown higher numbers of them oppose gay equality and see gays as sinful compared to whites.
As to your laughable suggestion that equal marriage came about in South Africa because the blacks took over from the whites the reality in those countries with equal marriage shows what a lie that is. In Canada, Sweden, the netherlands, spain, etc. whites are in the majority and those are the countries that have implemented equal marriage. Other than South Africa not a single African nation has implemented equal marriage and I believe every one of them has laws against gayness. You can try to say this is due to white oppression but that is obviously not the case as most white led countries don't have laws against gayness and countries like Britain and the European Union have been asking that African nations repeal their draconian laws against gays. The blacks in charge have refused to do this and it most certainly isn't because whites have discouraged them from doing so.
posted by Priya Lynn, at
4/18/2009 12:34 AM
I have to agree with Priya Lynn on this one. The irony here is that Gay is claiming the homophobia in African nations is caused by homophobia exported from white Europe, at the same time anti-gay dictators in Africa call homosexuality an evil brought to Africa from Europe. Neither is true, and it's time for Africans, Afro-Carribeans, and African-Americans to make up their own minds : to stop persecuting people for their sexual preferences. They don't have to agree with it or even approve of it, but a civilized nation doesn't persecute its citizens for their private lives.
posted by Joey, at
4/18/2009 3:42 AM
Boycotting Red Stripe forces that company to take a public position. JFLAGRs are taking a position in opposition to the larger movement. They want to be good queers for the Jamaican powers that be. We saw the type during the Coors boycott; the United boycott. Boycotts must hurt! Thesed people are actively subverting concerted effort!
posted by vquack, at
4/19/2009 11:26 AM
How about asking the British government to stop giving financial aid to Jamaica and boot it out of the commonwealth once and for all since you hate whites so much? The more regressive your island becomes, the more it will be confined to irrelevance, insignificance and oblivion and people like you are going to be responsible for that. club penguin
posted by Unknown, at
6/02/2009 7:56 PM
John, i wish to inform you that the commonwealth is no longer a caucasian-colonial enterprise and it is niether within Britans power to boot people out of it according to her royal racist fancy.
If hating racists is "regressive" and equals hating whites in your opinion then yes we will hate whites.
The people of Jamaica and Africa have struggled for centuries agaisnt Evil europeans and their "civilzing works" such as slavery, colonialism and the modern day campaigns carried out by white organization such as yours, gay or straight, whose only agenda seems to be malign the continent of Africa and the people of African origion.
Homophobia was unkown in Africa and is a foregin import done under the the mission known as the white mans burdern. the neo- puppets who are ruling africa with the help of western governments have been carrying out their white masters commands and have been trying to convince the african people that they are inferior and that homosexuals are not african.
In the West these people threaten people of African origin in all places including so called gay spaces!!!!!
A friend of mine who is afro-carribean told me that he was routinely harassed in the gay clubs in Britan and the US becasue he was black!!!!!!! IF YOU PEOPLE( white /westerners) ARE SO TOLERANT WHY NOT show it in the West!!!!! how is that black and brown gays are so easily pushed into irrelevance, insignificance and oblivion even within the so called gay community!!!
I am hardly surprised that u wish to do the same to the people of the Afro Carribean islands. However the people of see through your white policy and will overcome any and all hardships and will be able to put all form of homophobia which is a western import, along with colonial war mongering and whore mongering masters such as you and your friends in the West back to where u belong.
posted by Unknown, at
6/02/2009 11:01 PM
