Straight Pride NYC - August 2008 - B. There.

STRAIGHT PRIDE--It’s about damn time! Thank you NY!!!

There are reasons NYC is home to one of the most sophisticated, cosmopolitan, and enlightened populations on planet earth today. Below is only one of them. And while I won't rehash all I've said in these blogs over time again, I will say that I am changing ALL my plans to head to New York for Labor Day this year. You should too. Here's why: (Reposted: Yardflex.com)

July 12, 2008

Heterosexual Pride to be celebrated in New York

A Straight Pride Parade will roll out on August 31, 2008 in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, just one day ahead of the annual Caribbean Labor Day Parade.

In a press release sent out recently by members of the reggae community, who have organized this event as a response to gay groups coming down hard on some dancehall music; the parade was justified as being, "...a chance for Heterosexuals to gather together and proudly embrace their sexuality. The Parade will also allow reggae and dancehall fans who are in New York City for the Labor Day celebrations to get together and celebrate reggae, dancehall and family in love and unity. Adults are encouraged to bring their children along for the celebrations, as the event will be family oriented."

Not only have gay groups launched massive global advocacies against what they call reggae's long history of gay intolerance, they have also been successful in hitting artists hard, in the pocket, by pushing for show cancellations. Their aim is reportedly to stop reggae and dancehall artists from promoting anti-gay violence, harassment and bigotry through lyrics.

The release said further: "Gay friends and gay relatives must be left at home or worse kept in the closet."

Posted by yardFlex at July 12, 2008 01:57 PM

Now there is a template...let's take a page from NY's book and take this thing global. The culture I was raised on and still embrace deserves at least as much. Hope to see you in NY...B. There. If you Care.

One.

-A

For the record, let me just say that I never said gays don't have the right to be gay. All I'm saying is they definitely don't have the right to try and impose their will on everyone else. They definitely don't have the right to attempt to try and GLOBALLY discredit another culture, just because they disagree with its precepts, nor should they be given reign to unjustly and viciously smear reggae artists unfairly for practicing their inspired craft.

Agree? Disagree?

Speak on it then.

NYC Carifest 2008 - CANCELLED!!! One Year after 2007 gay protest

The Reggae Compassionate Act, Sizzla cancelling European Tours, Sponsors defecting leftnright, decades running shows disappearing overnight...things that make you go hmmmmm right??? If not, it should. I hate to be a one to say I told you so..., BUT, the truth just is. It seems what started in the West done str8 saddled to the East.

Let me honestly just say... I saw this coming from at least 2003, the first year Capleton got banned from his annual, highly anticipated, presence at the former Reggae In the Park, another long running show that exists no more. It used to arrive every summer to S.F.'s Golden Gate Park, where enthralled thousands of Capleton's formerly adoring fans used to wait all year for him to bless us with his gift. He headlined at least three years running, every year, and amidst zero complaints. He always slaked our thirst for that raggamuffin roughness...never once dissappointing, and then not only was he cancelled, but after falling attendance and garbage pail line ups in the post capelton years, so was the show.

We recently lost Reggae on the River, though their lineups could be hit or miss near the end of their run too. It's replacement, Reggae Rising, put Sizzla on this year to help, but unlike Reggae on the River in the past, which nearly sold out a year in advance, they still got plenty tickets to sell less than a month out now. I want to go just to see how Sizzla perform in this new RCA climate. These ARE the F-n dayz.

With so much powerful inspiration how is it no one is taking this on. I think it has to begin with the born Jamaicans. It's your thing, on a level, But you know you got major backative, myself included, anyway it goes down.

This Gay v. Reggae thing has now steamrolled around the globe and landed squarely in NYC, and yet there is still no organized, effective, collective response from the Massive itself to deal wid the matter proper. What gives? I was sure that when this crud hit in places like New York, with its large nos. of WIs, we would start to see sumthin go. It early still, since the shit just hit the fan. I guess people there just startin to really analyze what's really goin down.
I'll just say take a page from the Bay Area experience, the activities of which I've been profiling in these blogs and otherwise for years now. Act big NOW, or, like us in the gay Yay, get used to seein groups like Slightly Stoopid, and other hippieish imitations of the real thing, start replace the people's choice artists we'd all prefer to be seeing in regular rotation.

See Press Release Below (where they try to blame it on the dang weather...yeah, right.):

It is with enormous regret that Reggae-Carifest N.Y., Inc. announces the cancellation of the Carifest C.A.R.E.S. AIDS Awareness Benefit Concert for Keep A Child Alive scheduled for Sunday July 6th at the USTA National Tennis Center. Due to the economic recession and very bad weather forecasts for the day of the concert, very few tickets for the concert have been sold. Accordingly, the only conclusion is that the concert must be cancelled. Moving forward with the concert under these circumstances will in no way benefit the cause. Reggae-Carifest N.Y., Inc. apologizes to all patrons who purchased tickets and assures that full refunds will be made. All ticket holders can return to point of purchase to receive a full refund.Thank you,Carifest C.A.R.E.

Repost from Rastainoz.com

http://rastainoz.com/blog//index.php/reggae/2008/04/05/gay_civil_rights_call_for_boycott_of_anyBy

Richard Burnettrburnett@hour.ca

"I hate it when people call me a hero," Gareth Henry, leader of the Kingston-based gay civil rights group Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), told me over breakfast last October while in Montreal to lecture at Concordia. "I have to do what I do. My rights as a Jamaican citizen have been violated, so we must challenge the Jamaican government to do something [about widespread anti-gay violence in Jamaica]. It's true the chances of my being attacked are inevitable. But that's why I must go back."

Then, on his way to the office last November - after 13 of his gay friends were murdered since 2005 - two thugs approached him and threatened his life. "We know who you are and we're going to kill you," they told him.

Says Gareth today, "So I didn't go back home. I called my mother to collect my things."
On Jan. 26, Gareth returned to Canada and claimed refugee status. This time he hopes he won't have to return to Jamaica. "I prefer to live."

Gareth, British activist Peter Tatchell, myself and others have long documented how anti-gay dancehall reggae by the likes of Buju Banton, Sizzla and other dancehall stars fuels the anti-gay hate and violence in Jamaica, a nation Time magazine in 2006 called "the Most Homophobic Place on Earth."

Despite cancelled concerts worldwide, however, these dancehall dons remain unrepentant. So Stop Murder Music Canada (SMMC), along with Canada's national gay lobby group Égale and the international Metropolitan Community Church, are launching an international tourism boycott of Jamaica, as well as a boycott of all Jamaican goods and services, beginning on May 17, International Day Against Homophobia, if Jamaica doesn't repeal its buggery laws and introduce a national pro-gay education campaign.

In Toronto, the coalition has twice met with Jamaica's Consul General, Anne-Marie Bonner.
"We've asked the Jamaican government to respond by May 12," says SMMC founder Akim Ade Larcher. "This boycott will [also] include [all] reggae performers."
"We didn't go into this lightly," says Égale executive director Helen Kennedy. "It took a long time to get to this point. I'm cautiously optimistic they will do the right thing and denounce the escalating violence against gay people in Jamaica."

Others, like Montreal dub DJ Moss Man - who flew to Jamaica this week to film the new feature film Get Rock to Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae, which will culminate with an April 19 concert with old-school superstars Ken Boothe, Judy Mowatt, Derrick Morgan, Leroy Sibbles, Marcia Griffiths, The Tamlins, Dawn Penn, U-Roy and others - have reservations about the boycott.
"I sympathize with the movement but I say a boycott might just backfire and make people more angry [against gay people]," Moss Man told me. "Boycotting Jamaicans won't make a difference anyway - they're already dirt fucking poor. Maybe they should target foreign nationals and rich Jamaicans."

"I think it's stupid to boycott an entire country over a specific issue that should be solved internally in Jamaica," says Cezar Brumeanu, manager of Montreal's House of Reggae nightclub and executive director of the Montreal International Reggae Festival. "Only Americans seem to get involved in other countries' internal affairs, and look where it got them: They're hated by everyone. I say let the Jamaicans solve their own problems internally, not by outside forces. As for the festival, we are not in the boycott business, we are in the reggae music business for everyone who likes to enjoy it."

Even the Fort Lauderdale-based International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association doesn't support the tourism boycott. In a statement, the IGLTA claims it "is in complete solidarity with Jamaica's own LGBT leadership, J-FLAG. Therefore, like J-FLAG, it is not our intention to provoke reprisals or political condemnation in Jamaica by supporting a global tourism boycott. We understand [a boycott] could be counterproductive to making true progress in that Caribbean nation, and instead we will focus on education, publicity and market competition to highlight and help curb these terrible abuses."

But Akim Ade Larcher is having none of that. "I have not seen the IGLTA take part in any education or awareness of homophobia in the Caribbean. For them to come in at this late date saying they don't support a tourism boycott is not in the best interest of effecting change in Jamaica. As for J-FLAG, strategically they can't [publicly] call for an international boycott - it puts their members' lives on the line."
Even J-FLAG's former co-chair, Gareth Henry, told me last October before he escaped to Canada that he would support a tourism boycott of Jamaica. "The violence against gay people is still increasing," Gareth told me this week.

As for my L.A.-based friend Roger Steffens, chair of the Grammy Awards reggae committee, personally dubbed "Ras Rojah" by Bob Marley and whose massive reggae archives were recently acquired by Jamaica to become the National Museum of Jamaican Popular Music, he says, "I think Bob [Marley] would be terribly upset about all of this and say that reggae music is positive and constructive. You can't go around killing people just because they live a life different than yours."

The Jamaican boycott goes into effect on May 17 on International Day Against Homophobia.

Red Stripe Pulls Out Thousands in Sponsorship from Sting and Sumfest 2008 after gay protest

I don't know when the reggae fraternity is going to finally get behind this issue en masse, but it seems that the will is just not there. Meanwhile the gay community is steamrolling all over reggae music to shape and form it into an image they want to own, and it is having an impact on artists. I saw Capelton in Long Beach recently, as one example, the Fyah man, and I'm telling you the man was just a shadow of his former self. I am sure the only reason he was even ALLOWED to perform was because he had already signed that Reggae Compassionate Act. I don't know what he does in shows in Miami or JA or NYC, but I definitely felt the difference. He was just so, I don't know how to describe it really, so silenced. I was like how many time he gon ask for lighters and he aint saying nothing to make that happen. It was kind of painful for me to even watch and just downright sad.

What I don't get is why this silence form the fans. I mean, I kind of get it that the gays are pretty much runnin things at a high high level in places, but, no matter, I still believe in the power of the people. Seriously, if gays are attacking little reggae, why they don't attack Christianity and Islam both of which disavow the homo lifestyle. Or that would be to aim to big for them I guess. But the message in reggae is no different from those. If I could find even 10 people willing to stand firm for the basic right to free speech, even in the face of the gay onslaught, there could be a powerful movement born since to most of those in this music is more than just music; it is life, despite what anyone outside might think or know of it... Unfortunately, as it stands, EVERYONE I have spoken to about this has opted out of the fight.

Maybe it's immigration issues or the fact of gay power in high places or whatever, but Oh well, in that case, all I can say is that based on the San Francisco/Bay Area, as just one of many other examples, where we saw our community wiped out completely and still dead today in terms of live performers, don't be surprised to wake up to find that the artists you most want to enjoy have been banned where you are too, or at least censored down to invisibility. We can't even post flyers when certain artists try to come to town. It's all underground now, and THAT only if they even brave to try and play here. In most cases they just don't bother come. All we get now is Culture, and Sista Carol in regular rotation, but zero new top artists and zero large venues, which Capeleton, for one, used to pack out here. It's one thing to say dem cyaan stop reggae music no matter what and quite another to stand up and make sure that is really the case.

In one sense, I see the music growing internationally but why is it A-OK to bow down to the dictates of somebody outside the community who has elected themselves culture police in order to demand of the artists dem what can and can't be said. Whose music is this anyway? Where did it originate, and to whom does it ultimately belong, the gays? Hard questions, yes, but there are easy answers if we keepin it real....One thing is for sure: when this stuff goes full circle, and it is moving forward faster and faster every time, listening certain reggae songs will not only be illegal but it will be made into a chargeable offense and a one way ticket to jail, mark my words. We ARE living in a police state in case yall haven't noticed.

Anyone even remember Get up, Stand up?

And as for Red Stripe, it might be brewed in JA but don't believe the hype; it's a European OWNED company.(Switzerland, I think, or somewhere like that)..see my previous blog on the perils of not owning our own...Peace Out.

Repost from Street Knowledge Media:

http://streetknowledge.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/red-stripe-pulls-plug-on-reggae-concerts-over-gay-protests/

In a repeat of a trend that reached its heights last year, mounting protest continues to dog the summer concert curcuit for Reggae artists. This time around one of the largest sponsors, Red Stripe is pulling out amidst protests about a rise in violent, homophobic lyrics. Last year gay activist groups mounted successful campaigns to shut down artists like Buju Banton (Mr. Boom Bye Bye) and Bounty Killer (People Dead!!!), who they identified as two of the more vocal advocates of violence against homosexuals. Red Stripe is retracting thousands in sponsorship money for "Sting" and "Reggae Sumfest."