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New York, 10:44 PM
Fri Dec 18
54 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/09/09
12/08/09
12/08/09
For the grammy-watching set, perhaps. Non-muppets know better.
Also, this post reads like you sat down, smoked a rock, then flailed your hands up and down on the keyboard while chewing a hole through your lower lip.
12/08/09
His music isn't heard ironically in some NYC club. It actively incites violence against real people. As a gay person I can fairly easily "get over" ABC's Adam Lambert double standard (and television's general gay double standard), I just don't have that much fight in me. But this is different.
Whether the music is a symptom or a cause of the virulent homophobia in much of the world (I suspect it's both), why do you want to be associated with it?
12/08/09
And I personally am of the belief that we can judge and impugn an "artists" for his politics when he puts them out there with the express purpose of inciting crimes against humanity. Crimes in which HE HIMSELF is alleged to have participated.
This is not the guy to have a higher-brow conversation about. At all. Jesus.
Then there's this:
"One of Jamaica's most famous dancehall singers, Buju Banton, is being sought by police in Jamaica in connection with a homophobic attack on a group of gay men.
Mr Banton was allegedly one of a group of about a dozen armed men who forced their way into a house in Kingston on the morning of June 24 and beat up the occupants while shouting homophobic insults, according to the victims.
At least two people were taken to the hospital. Mr Banton - whose song Boom Boom Bye Bye threatens gay men with a "gunshot in ah head" - was identified by several witnesses and is wanted for questioning.
"There is a pattern of police indifference to attacks on gay men in Jamaica that goes far beyond what Buju Banton is alleged to have done in this case," said Rebecca Schleiser of Human Rights Watch, who has spoken to several of the victims. "Neither his fame nor the stigma attached to the victims should stand in the way of a full, fair and complete police investigation."
Peter Tatchell, of Outrage, said: "This substantiates our claims of the links between murder music and actual physical violence against gays and lesbians. Critics of the campaign [to stop murder music] have said that the homophobic content of his lyrics is 'ironic' or just 'fantasy'.
"Now the star is wanted for a very real violent incident."
Last month, concern that a concert in London by another dancehall favourite, Beenie Man, could incite violence against gays led to its cancellation. One of Beenie Man's songs contains the lyrics: "I'm a dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays."
Concern at the climate of homophobia in Jamaica has intensified in recent months following the murder of the country's most prominent gay activist, Brian Williamson.
Mr Williamson, a co-founder of Jamaican Forum for Lesbians, All-sexuals and Gays (J-Flag), was found with his throat cut and multiple stab wounds to his neck and face.
Jamaican law makes any act of physical intimacy between men punishable by jail, with the possibility of hard labour. A recent poll found 96% of Jamaicans were opposed to moves to legalise homosexual relations. Several gay Jamaicans have successfully claimed asylum in Britain on grounds of homophobia."
[www.guardian.co.uk]
12/08/09
If beating up gays is the secret to making such wondrous dancehall bangers, isn't that a small price to pay? That somebody would sully such beautiful music with their armchair moralizing, that is the real crime here.
12/08/09
12/08/09
The way I view it is this: Yes, his music is jamming, so I try to only listen to the ones that seem "conscious." That way, I fully enjoy the artistic capabilities of humanity, represented in that few minutes, by someone, regardless of their beliefs.
I am a classical pianist (so, yea, I have lots of gay friends I love and adore), and I know of many pianists and composers who were racists (especially anti-Semitic), such as Wagner, or Chopin. I have read of things Chopin said about colleagues that were jewish. But am I going to stop playing Chopin? No. If Chopin were to see me playing, how would he feel (that I am half black half east Indian)? I don't care. Did that stop Artur Rubinstein, perhaps the greatest Chopin interpreter of all time from playing his music, even though he was an ethnic jew? No.
The fact is this: The reason why we forgive a Chopin or Wagner, but not a Buju is that Buju is a vocal artiste, who sometimes lets his beliefs slip into his creative powers. I am pretty sure that Bob Marley was Homophobic, too. But he was smart; you wont get too much shit for singing that an African Emperor is Jesus.
I believe in two worlds: One of the arts, and one of the individual. I praise the art, but loathe the person. It is as simple, but as difficult, as that.
Nevertheless, this doesn't mean I "forgive" him, though, as a person. Which is why I will continue to torrent his music.
12/08/09
Bigotry is one thing. You can't be a Jew or black or Hispanic - or, really, any group aside from WASP - in this country without having some amazing artistry coming from people who are bigots. You can listen, sure. But I draw the line at encouraging violence and harm against the innocent and really don't understand how one can try to scrunch the call to arms into the simple 'oh, he's just kinda ignorant, he'll learn' box.
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/08/09
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/08/09
I’m not comfortable giving money and cultural capital to people who preach hate and violence.
12/08/09
12/08/09
The fact is, gays, like Asians, have such low status in our society that when people are forced to make a minor sacrifice in objection to bigotry, they simply won't make it. Cut-and-dried bigotry suddenly becomes "complicated."
Seinfeld, for instance, once ran a really offensive episode making fun of an ambiguously Indian restaraunt owner named "Abubu." The funny name was a big part of what was so funny about the character. The name, and the accent, too, of course. But I don't remember anyone complaining much, or even seriously questioning their enjoyment of the old-school racism; Seinfeld was actually funny, and giving it up would have been very slightly painful. If the show had ridiculed African-Americans in a patently offensive way, people would have self-righteously stopped watching -- but an Indian or Arab just doesn't rate.
Thus an artist like Banton or Beenie Man gets a pass because his music is fun, and he isn't threatening anyone important. Never mind that gays in Jamaica live in constant fear of violence. The music is jammin!
12/08/09
But I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt on this one, Hamilton, and assume that this is some sort of meta-ironic Gawker thing with layers of humor that I am not sophisticated enough to understand, because "jammin" is such a stupid, piss-poor excuse for liking SOMEONE WHO ACTIVELY USES HIS CELEBRITY TO ADVOCATE THE MURDER OF HOMOSEXUALS.
I mean, seriously, wtf? Please tell me this is a joke I don't understand. Because I honestly thought you were more intelligent than this.
This is the first, and hopefully last time that I find caps-lock necessary on this site.
12/14/09
12/14/09
"Brian wears sunglasses to hide his gray and lifeless left eye—damaged, he says, by kicks and blows with a board from Jamaican reggae star Buju Banton. Brian, 44, is gay, and Banton, 32, is an avowed homophobe whose song Boom Bye-Bye decrees that gays "haffi dead" ("have to die")."
12/14/09
- Buju Banton, October 2009
12/08/09
As a lover of both queer culture and reggae, I can't see anything redeeming about Buju Banton (now anyway; "Til Shiloh" will stay in my record collection). He is intentionally inflammatory, where other dancehall artists tend to reflect the deplorable homophobia of the greater Caribbean culture. It's sad, but it's something a wider audience can engage with and criticize rationally. Buju wants to tell us all to fuck off, then come play in places like San Francisco and Berkeley? Batty man hater a get bun dung!
12/08/09
The man isn't just using the occasional homophobic slur, and he isn't voicing understandable rage against people who oppress him -- he wants to kill faggots the same way the Klan wanted to kill niggers, because he's hateful. It's sad that this is what he's devoting his undeniable talent to, but if you're telling me that because of the existence of that talent I should turn a deaf ear to the substance of what he's saying, you've lost me. Because you see faggots actually get killed. If you want to ignore that, that's your karma, but don't expect me to go along with you. And don't expect me not to be disgusted by the idea of celebrating the music and giving it prizes. No matter how "jammin'" it may be.
12/08/09
12/08/09