dagblog - Comments for "Proud to be Black, proud to hate..."

My father publicly admitted

artappraiser — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 22:31:10 +0000

In reply to Oddly (fortuitously) that is

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.

Oddly (fortuitously) that is

jollyroger — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 21:40:26 +0000

In reply to P.S. I used to follow

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...

P.S. I used to follow

artappraiser — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 21:31:30 +0000

In reply to Jamaica's "special" high

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.

I meant it in the "Keith

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 21:26:08 +0000

In reply to ex-porn star In the gym even

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-.

ex-porn star In the gym even

jollyroger — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 21:22:00 +0000

In reply to JollyRoger is channeling Rush

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...

Yeah, I ran into that Time

jollyroger — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 21:19:36 +0000

In reply to Jamaica's "special" high

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...

JollyRoger is channeling Rush

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 21:13:59 +0000

In reply to What is the end game of this

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.

Jamaica's "special" high

artappraiser — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 21:10:14 +0000

In reply to Proud to be Black, proud to hate...

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

10 years ago, the cops let

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 21:00:41 +0000

In reply to troops are needed I guess the

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.

No, (or I didn't mean to)

jollyroger — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 19:57:16 +0000

In reply to You used your non-voting,

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.