wayne&wax

linkthink re: hip-hop, reggae, the US, jamaica, and anything else wayne wants to wax on

4.25.2006

joke tings, serious tings


dem = tourists?
  • jamaicanjokes.com


  • just when you thought all the outrage!TM had subsided, time magazine - that mainstream rag of mainstream rags - recently published a scathing indictment of jamaica's anti-gay problem.

    although i've gone on the record again and again about how i wish jamaica would "walk good" on this issue, i have to admit that the author of this forceful piece seems to miss the postcolonial perspective that elena oumano brought to her more balanced, if more equivocal, treatment of the controversy.

    it is important to call out jamaica's leaders (in politics and music alike) for not taking a brave public stand against anti-gay violence, but it is crucial to remember jamaica's long colonial and postcolonial history of resisting hegemony from the outside. so long as jamaicans believe that tolerating homosexuality is a moral imposition from former/neo-colonial forces, rather than an initiative that springs from the compassion of the community itself, many will resist as a matter of principle.

    isn't it ironic, becca points out, that the US is effectively able to impose its "moral" viewpoint vis-a-vis marijuana on jamaica (where, believe it or not, ganja is officially illegal), while remaining remarkably mum - at least officially - about the likkle island's human rights record?

    ironic, yes. surprising, no. as usual, we could set a better example ourselves. "be the change you want to see." seen?

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

If I had the energy at the moment, I'd engage this further. Till then, here's a link to a JA story Gary Younge wrote this week.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1762156,00.html

1:48 PM  
Blogger wayne&wax said...

wow. that's quite an article. thanks for pointing me to it. i wonder what is sparking the renewed interest?

8:29 PM  
Blogger ripley said...

I wish the mainstream media would spend some time getting outraged over Iran and Iraq's upswing in religiously sanctioned and publicly encouraged gay-murdering

http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2006/04/iran_hacks_web_.html

9:41 AM  
Blogger wayne&wax said...

thanks for pointing me to that, ripley. good point. sad, troubling stuff all around.

also, see here for a jamaican response to the time magazine piece. (via francis)

11:17 AM  

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