The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    jollyroger's picture

    Proud to be Black, proud to hate...

    By jollyroger on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 6:10pm |

    A furor has arisen in my (temporary) neighborhood of Brooklyn, which has given rise to a personal discombobulation.  

    The furor is simple--a local congressperson, otherwise displaying good politics, seems oblivious to the ramifications of the stomp down hate speech floridly prevalent throughout the African American community broadly, and the Jamaican diaspora specifically, directed at gay men and lesbian women.

    Note that we are not talking here of simple slurs, but explicit calls to violence and murder.  Moreover, elsewhere in Africa (Uganda) and America (eg, the Prop. 8 battle) the black community (and black churches in particular)  cheerfully manifest an unseemly willingness to dehumanize people on the basis of their way of loving in a manner of speech that eerily mirrors the dehumanization that racists would inflict upon them.

    Some close friends of mine of Carribean birth, will casually speak the word "faggot", although they would bristle to be called "nigger" (I have had it with the fuckin' initials...).

    When I reproach them that no word ought pass their lips that within the memory of living men was, on occasion, the last word that a person heard while being beaten to death, they blink with obvious incomprehension.

    When pressed, they defend their "right" to dehumanize. Indeed, they are proud to hate.

    Black brothers (I don't see quite the same vehemence in my black sisters) what the fuck is up?

    Not to put too fine a point on it, when does this insistence on hatefulness begin to erode my obligation to fight racism?  Solidarity is a two way street.

    Comments

    There are knuckleheads in all ethnic groups. Some tribe members will attack members of another tribe to fill some psychological void the attacker feels. Attacks on gender, skin color, accent or point of origin all all common.

    The knuckleheads do not represent all the brothers and sister on the planet. The knuckleheads do not represent all the Black Christians on the planet. One of the big problems in the Prop 8 battle was that no one felt it necessary to specifically address the older black Christian community regarding a Christian perspective on the vote. Note that when black tribe members in DC actually had activists come into their community and treat them like important votes, the gay marriage vote was supported by the black community in DC. The DC vote came in spite of a vehement diatribe from former Mayor Marion Barry, who swore the legislation would never get passed in his lifetime.

    There is rampant homophobia in Africa and there is rampant homophobia in Europe.

    http://www.care2.com/causes/europe-commissioner-anti-lgbt-violence-must-...

    People are the same all over. Bullies come in all shades

    From my vantage point, the dialog has coarsened. The same knuckleheads who chafe at the word "nigger" will bounce to the word when played on the radio. If they cannot detect the irony of words when it affects them personally, how can they be sympathetic when hateful words are used against a different tribe?

    Beenie-Man's homophobic lyrics are not surprising in an era when nigger, bitch, etc. are considered simple free speech, and a way for the powerless to speak truth to power. Words can never harm anyone , it's just sticks and stones that cause pain, right?

    Yes, solidarity is a two-way street. After being accused of electing GW Bush because only 80% of black voters on Ohio supported the Democrat, with the problem of only being able to generate an 80% majority being laid at the black churches, along with the ridicule blacks get from Progressives because of the black community's continued support of Barack Obama over anything the GOP or a non-existent third party has to offer, many blacks feel the the pavement on the two-way street has already been pulled up.

    By the way do the knuckleheads you dislike even bother to vote?

     

     


    by rmrd0000 on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 9:02pm

    Well, of course, if prior victimization were immunization against the disease, then Israel would not be mimicing so well the architecture and protocols of the Warsaw Ghetto in their treatment of Gaza...

    That said, and appreciating that the manner of speech in toasting (and it's latter day child, rap) offend more than one group, it is not too precious to say that Beenie man crosses some serious lines...and that Yvette Smith could have found some other Jamaican to honor.


    by jollyroger on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 9:49pm

    I guess I miss the point about why homophobic lyrics are bad, while racist and misogynistic lyrics do not cross a line. Many people who rant about Muslims also tend to rant about Blacks, Latinos, Gays, Feminists, etc. If you see niggers, you see bitches, ragheads, etc.

    It's ridiculous to be offended by one hateful word about one group of people and oblivious to the damage done by other hate speech.

    If Beenie-Man stuck to niggers and bitches, he's OK?


    by rmrd0000 on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 10:17pm

    lyrics do not cross a line

    I was perhaps too restrained.  Beenie man specifically advocates killing the objects of his hatred. That is different to me than saying "All yo' bitches, get up in my crib..." or the like.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 12:22am

    Beenie-Man talked about killing Gays and lesbians in his rap lyrics.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/aug/17/advertising.arts

    Since he hasn't killed any Blacks, women or Gays, what is the problem. Isn't it just free speech?


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 3:50pm

    Speech may be protected (free speech) and yet be hate speech that deserves opprobrium (as I endorsed earlier vis-a-vis the misogyny that you rightly deplore in rap) and certainly should disqualify the speaker from receiving honors (ie, the Yvette Smith actions which occasioned my post in the first place...)


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 3:53pm

    is rampant homophobia in Europe

    That is news to me...I thought it was Germany's claim to fame that the gay mayor of Berlin was fixin to be the next chancellor.


    by jollyroger on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 9:50pm

    And in post-WWI Berlin, homosexuals had the most freedom of anywhere in the world.

    Somehow it's always easy to paint a broad swath across Europe.


    by PeraclesPlease (not verified) on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 4:03am

    well, we know how THAT turned out...

    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 4:39am

    Why yes, as you noted, an openly gay mayor 80 years later.

    Or are you referring to those pesky problems that ended 66 years ago?


    by PeraclesPlease (not verified) on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 5:36am

    those pesky problems

    For a nightmare with only a 12 year trajectory, what a shitstorm!

     


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 3:21pm

    As you suggest in the 1920s, the rising Nazi Party argued that homosexual freedom was being promoted by the Jews. By decreasing the number of births in Germany, homosexuality decreased German strength.

    It is estimated 10-15K homosexuals were killed in the Death Camps. Others underwent "re-education".

    Himmler responded to the hate crime that resulted in the death of a homosexual as follows.

    http://frank.mtsu.edu/~baustin/homobg.html

     

    After likening the homosexual who was killed and thrown into a peat bog to the weeding process in a garden, Himmler continued his tirade:

    ...In the SS, today, we still have about one case of homosexuality a month. In a whole year, about eight to ten cases occur in the entire SS. I have now decided upon the following: in each case, these people will naturally be publicly degraded, expelled, and handed over to the courts. Following completion of the punishment imposed by the court, they will be sent, by my order, to a concentration camp, and they will be shot in the concentration camp, while attempting to escape. I will make that known by order to the unit to which the person so infected belonged. Thereby, I hope finally to have done with persons of this type in the SS, and the increasingly healthy blood which we are cultivating for Germany, will be kept pure.

    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 9:35am

    The Nazis were defeated 66 years ago.

    Today once again homosexuality is openly accepted in Berlin, as it was in the 20's.

    (Note that Bauhaus was also shut down in the 30's, yet modern art has hugely returned to Germany).

    And for a movie recommendation, Wim Wenders "Pina"

     


    by PeraclesPlease (not verified) on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 12:09pm

    For some reason I had no idea that we were able to deconstruct the Nazi pathology w/that degree of granularity. I am always chilled to the bone by the casual clarity of their writing as it renders evil concrete.

    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 2:28pm

    y do the knuckleheads you dislike even bother to vote?

    It is my personal burden, that the particular knucklehead at issue is someone for whom I bear a great deal of affection.

    That said, I think that he does not.  (Yet another point of personal pain...)


    by jollyroger on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 9:54pm

    This affectionate knucklehead seems to be the template used to judge an entire group of people.

    As for European homophobia, here is Michael Cashman a British Labour Party member of the European Parliament speaking on homophobia in Europe. Cashman happens to be Gay. He talks about the dangers of hate speech.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2TYYEjIkng

    If Gay slurs go along with homophobia and violence, why does not the same apply to racial and slurs in making violence against blacks and women more acceptable?


    by rmrd0000 on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 10:54pm

    Since the knucklehead does not vote, does he attend church?


    by rmrd0000 on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 10:57pm

    He voteth not, neither doth he pray....


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 12:09am

    Of course they do....I'm pretty sure I have not said anything that could even be misconstrued to equate to a position of neutrality vis-a-vis the use of racist epithets, particularly in a context advocating violence or murder.

     


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 12:13am

    Anent which, I reiterate my position that the only permissible usage of the word "nigger" by a "white" (quotes signifying the difficulty of the concept, absent albinism) person is to express thanks for a favor done by the phrase "I am your nigger", and I don't recommend  casual use of that phrase, either.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 12:15am

    r.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 12:23am

    If Beenie-Man uses nigger killing and bitch handling in his lyrics what line did he cross with talking about the killing of Gays?

    On killing other blacks from "Bad Man" by Beenie-Man

    Picture me run away from a fight a some bwoy mussy bright
    (Niggers bleed jus' like us)
    Picture me being fraid fi lock off a bwoy life like a light

    What is the difference between talking about killing Blacks and killing Gays?


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 9:46am

    I am (happily unfamiliar with his work in general. I would offer the distinction that one killing is motivated solely by being (gay) whereas the other is by hypothesis a response to something DONE by the proposed murder victim to arouse beenie's ire.

    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 2:35pm

    One black knucklehead who doesn't vote or go to church is used to attack black people who vote and/or attend church. Talking about killing gays is verboten, but degradation of black men and women passes muster. There is no logic in that position.

    Eastern Europe is not the only place that is a home to homophobia in Europe. From the United Kingdom a survey indicating rampant homophobia in schools:

    http://www.schools-out.org.uk/research/docs/2010.06.14%20Blackburn-with-...

    This entire post seems to focus only on one ethnic group in a fashion that seems to ignore homophobia in other groups. The knucklehead is a knucklehead, just like the British homophobes are knuckleheads.

    Voters or not, Church goers or not, all blacks are lumped together and all blacks have to apologize for the black knucklehead.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 3:10pm

    The thrust of the post is Yvette Smith's explicit praise for and honoring of Beenie-Man. My friend is merely the topic of an illustrative exchange vis-a-vis his use of the word "faggot".  I did not mean to conflate the two anecdotes, but merely to illuminate what I took to be an anomolous tendency, mirrored by the Israeli persecution of Gaza, to overlook one's own dehumanization of some part of the human race, even where one is elsewhere, or historically, a victim of such verbal exclusion from personhood. 


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 3:16pm

    You used your non-voting, non-Church going friend to attack black voters and church-goers and requested that all black males respond to the use of the gay slur by your friend.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 3:37pm

    No, (or I didn't mean to)  see below in replyto Tmac.

    I was using him to illustrate what I take to be a blind spot.

    The mention of Uganda and Prop 8 was probably bound to raise confusion, as they certainly represent a different kind of hating than done by Beenie Man, and are not officially sanctioned as Yvette Smith's ceremony does Beenie Man.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 3:57pm

     speaking on homophobia in Europe

     

    Ahh, Eastern Europe.  I understand.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 12:19am

    Well, Czechs, Hungarians, Croatians and Slovenians have same-sex partnership rights, with the Slovenes moving towards full marriage.

    Typically the more religious states (e.g. Poland) have a tougher time accepting homosexuality, though even there the gay pride days are getting bigger and bigger, and they just elected their first out gay official (Warsaw city council).

    Even in more militant Serbia, there's been progress, though as this article notes, that progress is in comparison to a tough background - having the police protect the gay pride march obviously helps.

    In any case, gay clubs, public gay affection, etc. are much more accepted than before across the region. You can criticize particular countries or regions within those countries, but the overall improvements are significant.

    Curiously, Soviet Russia legalized homosexuality in 1917 after the October Revolution (http://www.europeandme.eu/3brain/148-european-myth) and it was accepted through the more experimental 20's, but society has retrenched since.

     

     


    by PeraclesPlease (not verified) on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 4:38am

    So troops are needed to protect the innocent just like the Little Rock Nine. While the troops did protect the students, there were still cross-burnings in their neighborhood. I suspect similar vile events are occurring once the Serbian troops leave.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 3:15pm

     troops are needed

    I guess the big question is whether or not they are provided by the authorities or whether the pogrom is permitted to run its course unimpeded.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 3:27pm

    10 years ago, the cops let the mayhem run its course.

    Last year, they did their job.

    The Moscow thing's an outlier as it was an unsanctioned march. One in 2007 turned quite bloody, with the singer from Right Said Fred messed up - police turned a blind eye.

     


    by PeraclesPlease (not verified) on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 5:00pm

     society has retrenched since.

    So it would appear


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 3:25pm


    by Richard Day on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 12:41am

    There is nothin better than Stevie Winwood...


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 12:54am

    What is the end game of this particular blog? I see you are channeling Rush Limbaugh himself. He uses the same kind of red-herring examples to attack the entire black community, and his particular target is mostly black men, it is how he justifies using terms like Oreo, Magic Negro, etc and he's been using this same tactic for years. 

    Read and learn Roger, read and learn, a recent column from The Stranger.

     


    by tmccarthy0 on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 3:43pm

    I fear I got into a dead end with rmrd.  My point, if inartfully made, was that Yvette Smith, an otherwise politically astute and right thinking congressperson, found it appropriate to honor Beanie Man, notwithstanding his florid hate speech.

    The thrust of the post's title, and the remarks about my friend, speak to the ego syntonic aspects of black homophobia--that is to say, the practitioners find it self-affirming to declare themselves as haters.

    I suppose this is not unique--the storm(front) troopers revel in their white supremicist rhetoric as well.  I guess it just surprises me to find that you can be openly hateful and pay no social price within a community that has suffered so deeply from hate.

    Sorry to have been unclear. 


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 3:50pm

    JollyRoger is channeling Rush Limbaugh?

    I thought he was just a deeply unrepressed ex-porn star.

    But then I guess you're just channeling your inner Rush as well.

    Ich bin auch ein Dittohead.


    by PeraclesPlease (not verified) on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 5:13pm

    ex-porn star

    In the gym even as we speak--rehabilitation and re-employment are but a few shots of "juice" and two months away--plus, maybe I can get Rush's unused bottles of viagra, just in case...


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 5:22pm

    I meant it in the "Keith Richards is an ex-junkie" sense. As in "quitting's easy. staying quit is hard"

    I thought about "reformed" but that only brought up visions of girl schools and Catholic choir boys for some reason, and then the porn images entered. Think I better re-do my Medieval history class, somehow I guess I deserved that C-.

     


    by PeraclesPlease (not verified) on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 5:26pm

    Jamaica's "special" high ranking in the homophobia contest is well-known. There are more scholarly and human rights publications on the issue, but this should suffice to give an idea:

    The Most Homophobic Place on Earth?

    by Tim Padgett in Kingston, Time Magazine, April 12, 2006


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 5:10pm

    Yeah, I ran into that Time cite somewhere on I think Dem Undrgrnd.

    That's a title for which there must be fierce competition--in a world with an Uganda officially  promoting  murder as state policy...


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 5:19pm

    P.S. I used to follow Caribbean news more a few years back, still have a few interesting things from that time left on the hard drive. I found this in a quick search, possibley related to the melding of reggae and gangsta cultures mentioned in the above link,

    Sun, sand and savagery: Whatever happened to Jamaica, paradise island?
    By Ian Thomson, The Independent, 10 May 2009

    .....Carolyn Gomes, director of the human-rights group Jamaicans for Justice, believes the violent American culture of "respect" has flourished in Jamaica in the absence of civic values, encouraging teenagers to pursue power and money for their own sake. "When your life's so degraded," she said, "you need people to respect you." She added: "A youth with a gun is a youth to be feared and looked up to – murder is his badge of honour." Increasingly, Jamaica's justice system is undermined by violence and threats of violence. Pathologists are often too frightened to serve as observers at postmortems. They may be seen as witnesses or, worse, informers and suffer violence themselves.....

    It's the Jim Crow thing, where you gotta have someone lower than you or you're at the bottom?

    Personally, my favorite thing to do in a situation like you have with your neighbor is to turn it around to him. (Only, of course, if I have struck up a reasonably good relationship with such an immigrant.) If I hear something ugly like homophobia coming from him, I kind of hint how if he keeps those attitudes, he will not fit in around here and he is the one who will be looked down upon, like I'm giving friendly advice meant for his best interest. I might strongly imply that if he wants to fit in here in NYC, if wants to be accepted by this culture, he has to leave those certain old hierarchies of his old society behind. That it's really uncool to think that way here, that he sounds like he just got off the boat. You'd be surprised how often immigrants are trying to get a bead on the culture by talking with natives they've come to trust, sort of testing what's acceptable and what's not. After all, they left the old country, so they are not 100% against changing.


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 5:31pm

    Oddly (fortuitously) that is precisely the response I brought to bear upon my friend, but since he has been here since the 50's, I emphasized that this is teh 21st century and such shit will no longer fly...


    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 5:40pm

    My father publicly admitted and renounced his lifelong racism (learned from his own family culture)  in his late 70's. So I must say that your "it's the 21st century, grandpa," was a nice variant. There's always a chance of change and every little needle prick helps. On the other hand, this guy might just want to huddle in his little Jamaican homophobic ghetto for the rest of his life.wink


    by artappraiser on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 6:31pm