Your approval of the Buju Banton show cancellation in Oakland was as baseless a decision as has ever been made by anyone anywhere ever. It is utter insanity to assume a law abiding group of music fans would purposely go out of their way to attack the LGBT community. For What? This is utter lunacy! For future reference, please educate yourself in matters before making a decision. This jumping on the bandwagon without any foundation in reality is folly, plain and simple, and it is a bad reflection on you and your colleagues over in the City Council.
I have been a part of a thriving reggae music scene in Oakland for YEARS and I have NEVER heard anyone even imagining what you suggested when you wrote as your rationale for cancelling the Buju Banton show originally scheduled for the Historic Sweets Ballroom last night that:
"There are several LGBT venues near this concert venue and we must be sure that no possible fanatic followers might try to harm them."
No disrespect but....WTF? Let's be real here.
Let me try and set the record straight for you and yours.
First of all try and get your facts straight before making snap judgements that affect so many people. There is a huge contingent of Conscious (Spiritual) Reggae Music Fans around the globe to whom Buju Banton is the next best thing to Jesus Christ. To those for whom this music is religion and culture, Buju burning out a chichi is not to be taken litterally. He like many of his contemporaries say burn out dirty religion, burn bad parenting, burn out bad mind, burn out filthiness, burn out wickedness, in deference to religious teachings gleaned from the Bible and Christian religion. A post from a different blog explains this further saying:
'As for Boom Bye Bye [the song causing all this insanity] that was made in 1989 when he was 15, it is the norm that whatever is seen as a negative an artist will speak in Hyperbole so as to represent the ending of a concept that one has been shown as wrong. So it would be said in a very extreme manner.
So if you wanted to say Apartheid must end in a song you would sey "Botha Fi get gunshot!"
or for Big Business to stop exploiting poor people - "Jacket and Tie fi DEAD!"
CIA to stop doing what they do "CIA fi get BOMB up!"
An end to Hypocrisy "Hypocrits fi get shot inna dem head!"
And yes it is a belief that the activity of homosexualty is wrong in Jamaica so "Boom Bye Bye"
Now Buju at 15 was following what he saw around him but once he got into his own he has made nothing but some of the most uplifting, inspiring and uniting music to ever come out of any form of Music, the album 'Til Shiloh is one of the greatest albums ever put out by any artist.
He sees himself as a descendant of Zulus, Marcus Garvey and Peter Tosh, so his mission while on this earth is to help those who are oppressed and downtrodden.
As a matter of fact he is the only Jamaican artist to start an AIDS hospice in Jamaica that gets money for those afflicted with AIDS and cannot afford treatment, it is funded by those same shows that the Gay community wants to boycott, in a time when AIDS is ravaging Jamaica and the Caribbean and unfortunately just like the AIDS relief concert in New York that Beenie Man was to perform on the Gay groups are getting them shut down and money is needed badly to deal with the epidemic.'
So hopefully this helps you to see the error of your ways and do a little homework next time. In all my years on the scene, I can't say I've witnessed a more futile, innane waste of time as with these efforts to attack these artists for something they did not start and with whose demise not a single thing will be accomplished in any real sense.
Honestly, I work very hard trying to survive in the expensive and elite Bay Area and am ecstatic at an opportunity to witness an artists of the caliber of a Buju Banton right in my back yard in Oakland as I am always somewhat miffed that the cream of the crop artists in the genre who I most want to see all avoid playing the Bay Area like the plague preferring to play all over the world without incident. Even in Europe they play more large, successful shows than you would believe. I know because I have been there, especially in France and Germany. Could it be the community you defend is more sophisitcated over there and disdains to get too involved with what they don't see as any real problem, but I digress.
Despite the little Capleton, Beanie Man UK riff, this music can not be stopped. In fact it is growing, especially in Italy and Germany, not to mention its mind boggling success in Japan. Rastafari, can't be stopped. Clean up your hearts and come. You will see the fans are as peaceful as you would find anywhere and most don't have the time or the inclination to leave a nice and pleasant, spiritually uplifting, musical stage show that inspires pride and respect for our history and go out and hunt gays...I mean for what? That, like this frivilous campaign to cancel these music concerts, would be an utter waste. In the end what does it really accomplish for the gays, the fact that they proved a point? We'll that goes far I'm sure in getting them the right to marry. I am tired of having to drive 6 hours to LA or flying to Atlanta or New York or Europe to get a chance to enjoy the best artists in the genre that I and my family embrace as a culture. Give us a break will you. We don't care enough about the gays in general to invest the time or the energy to rise up against them in a litteral sense. Speaking for myself...to each his own. Simply take Buju and kin for what they are, performers in reggae music. If the gays really want to defend their community they need to march on Washington or something, the seats of real power, if their issue is that serious. As for Buju and his purported 'threat', see also his wonderful performance on Def Poetry Jam Season 3 and get a real clue. The guy is a poet for goodness sake! Buju Banton is the least of the LGBT's problems.
I hope that after all the hoopla surrounding this madness you get more emails like this one and take them seriously because the next time a show is cancelled on such a baseless foundation, it may become more of a problem than the city of Oakland ever imagined. Our community is quiet in general and we mind our own business, but with this attack on our culture we are determined to unite and speak out, protest, email, write letters and march on Oakland if it comes to that. We can send emails and make phone calls just as well as the LGBTs can. AND WE VOTE TOO! So let this serve as notice that THE MOVEMENT TO SUPPORT REGGAE IN OAKLAND HAS STARTED!!!
See also posts on:http://sf.metblogs.com/archives
and
http://www.femmenoir.net/2006
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