Chicago's Gay Liberation Network has been leading a campaign since early August to get Live Nation and other concert promoters to cancel Buju Banton concerts because the performer calls for killing lesbians and gay men in the lyrics of his songs. So far, their work has reaped some success--Thursday afternoon Live Nation announced that it has cancelled all its concerts booking Buju Banton at its 4 House of Blues locations, Chicago, Las Vegas, Dallas, and Houston.
Bob Schwartz of GLN, who has led several campaigns against "murder music" performers over the years said, "Live Nation . . . has done the right thing and canceled the hate monger. . . . We first wrote Live Nation several years ago following their purchase of the House of Blues to alert them to the Jamaican Reggae "Dancehall" singers who advocated killing gays, and had thought we wouldn't have to go down this road again. We hope they have gotten the message. . . . These cancellations show the power of protest to deliver the goods."
GLN's position on Banton's music has always been clear. "Advocating murder is not 'free speech.'. . . House of Blues/Live Nation would never book Buju Banton if he advocated killing African Americans or Jews, and rightly so. Why is it still okay with House of Blues to advocate murdering lesbians and gays? Why the double standard?"
While I'm not comfortable with the way that GLN neglects to mention bisexual and transgender people under attack, I have absolutely no doubt that they are just as swept up in the anti-queer violence in Jamaica. Supporting this campaign helps them. And addressing GLN's neglect in acknowledging them is certainly on my to-do list.
Buju Banton's native Jamaica is rife with anti-queer violence, which is typically tolerated by the authorities. Same-sex behavior is punishable in Jamaica up to 10 years in prison. According to Passport Magazine:
"When [Human Rights watch researcher Rebecca] Schleifer visited Jamaica in 2004, Brian Williamson, the country's leading gay activist, was violently chopped to death with a machete in his apartment in Kingston. Schleifer walked to his street shortly after the murder and found a crowd of people gathered outside Williamson's apartment singing and celebrating his murder and shouting the chorus of 'Boom Boom Bye Bye,' a popular Buju Banton dancehall hit about shooting gay men: 'Boom bye bye, in a faggot's head. Rude boys don't promote nasty men, they have to die.' Others were laughing and yelling, 'Let's get them one at a time,' and, 'That's what you get for sin.'"
In a story reporting on the London memorial for Brian Williamson in 2004, Williamson's murder created a heightened sense of fear in Jamaica's LGBT community and a violent backlash against on the streets against queer people. Its local queer organization, J-FLAG, received increasing threats and reports of violence against LGBTs. The Jamaican government has been criticized for its criminalization same-sex behavior and its human rights record for LGBT. Several gay Jamaicans attending Williamson's memorial said that the police were carrying out a vendetta against the LGBT community:
"The Jamaican police have consistently failed to tackle homophobic attacks. Most of the killers have literally gotten away with murder. The police are themselves accused of beating up lesbians and gay men. Many gay Jamaicans describe the police as 'gay bashers in uniform'."
As of last summer, major LGBT groups have encouraged a boycott of Jamaican tourism and Jamaican products. Red Stripe withdrew its corporate sponsorship of music events which featured performers of "murder music." J-FLAG has tried to get the attention of its country's Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, over anti-queer violence, but so far has met with only limited success.
Buju Banton has never stopped performing those of his songs promoting violence against LGBT, nor has he ever apologized for them. In 2007, he supposedly signed a Reggae Compassionate Act, to pledge to refrain from homophobic songs or making homophobic statements, but later denied ever signing it.
The campaign to stop Butu Banton from performing anti-queer murder music is not over. Other concert promoters in several other cities are still sponsoring his concerts. AEG Live is the promoter behind most of the remaining concerts on Banton's US Tour. You can sign the LA Community Center's petition to AEG Live here:
https://secure2.convio.net/laglc/site/SPageServer?pagename=Stop_Hate_Lyrics
For a full list of cities still holding Buju Banton concerts, go the to Gay Liberation Network webpage. Please alert GLN if you are planning any protests in those cities.
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Comments
It's the invisibility that drives me mad. Just because Jamaican gay activists say that gay people are under attack in their country--all too terribly true--doesn't mean that trans people aren't also getting hacked apart by machetes. Yes, there are bi Jamaicans being assumed gay and getting killed, but I don't think any Jamaican homophobe--if he knew the difference between bi and gay--would care, the bi would be just as dead. And don't just say "gay," lesbians get the most invisibility of all.
Don't assume. I guess that's all my point is. Don't assume that just because you don't hear about specific queers being attacked, that doesn't mean they aren't and they get off scott free.
And I love you, Tijo. It's not a dubious honor to be with you. It's an honor.
Keep up the good work, Max.
On the invisibility of lesbians: It is a significant example that the nazi's issued the pink triangle patch to gay men but lesbians were not only interred less often but were give a grey patch to wear that marked antisocial's. Without the presence of a penis there just couldn't be perverted sex because without a penis being involved there really wasn't any sex. Has our view point of lesbians progressed much in that particular? No, that's why your bisexuality is "cute" and safe and non threatening and a man's is sick and disgusting and a perversion. (That would really piss me off if I were a bi woman)
I can't tell from your comment in reply to my comment if we are arguing or not because I intended my statement to be in support of what you do here. But anyway-dear sister we are on the same side. I totally support bi-visibility (wait that sounds like you're seeing double) and if my previous comment led you to believe otherwise my bad. I never will understand minority on minority stupidity and don't personally think of gays, lesbians, bi's, transgenders and all of those kinky folks that just want to have whatever kind of sex and love that turns them on as anything but my people there is no me and them. If I find anything disturbing about bi verses gay it is the sense of division that always startles me. (What, wait a minute you mean bis and gays are two different groups? When did that happen?)
All right I'm done rambling. Maybe a bumper sticker like the ones I see promoting motorcycle safety: START SEEING BI'S
As for "you mean bis and gays are two different groups?"--once upon a time, with the Stonewall Riots, the Gay Liberation Movement was born. "Gay" was this big expansive definition that supposedly included every queer under the sun. The object of gay liberation was the liberate the gay within. The bisexuals were all, like, hey, we got some gay in us (some of us LITERALLY had some gay in us) so include us in; we belong.
But cracks occurred in the gay unity. For one thing, lesbian women were, like, we've got our own feminist and women's issues that you're not addressing at all, gay men. And lesbians were tired of their own invisibility within the gay community. So the push was on to designate lesbian women as a distinctive community, whatever the civil rights needs shared with gay men.
But other things were happening. Gay Liberation kinda died out in 1973, after its big push to have the APA removed homosexuality from their diagnostic manual of mental illnesses. America pulled out of the war in Vietnam, which led to a less radical environment altogether. The religious right was born in its first wave with Anita Bryant, Phyllis Schafly, and Jerry Falwell. Rather than being a radical force to transform society, the movement switched more conservatively to the Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights movement and the definition for "gay" shrunk down to being for people solely interested in, desirous of, and having sex with people of the same sex.
In short, gay liberation was defined more conservatively and in such a way that the bisexuals either had to shut up about their bisexuality, take on gay or lesbian identities or they had to go. Yes, bisexuals--or at least people with bisexual identities--were thrown out of gay and lesbian groups.
That kind of thing went on and on until the late 80s. I remember bisexuals thrown out of LG spaces and organizations during the time in which I came out. It was only until the late 80s that bisexuals started pressuring gay and lesbians to include us in the titles of their organizations. It's not like bisexuals ever really went away. Or some may have left, but others had stayed in the community and identified as gay and lesbian to show their loyalty.
I think the AIDS era scared the bejesus out of bisexuals because we were facing scapegoating from the straight world for being AIDS carriers to straights and scapegoating of bi women carrying AIDS to the lesbians. We really saw in no uncertain terms that just shutting up about ourselves and fighting the good fight alongside lesbians and gay men was not going to help us.
So here we are, in the late Aughts, when after years of research on the part of sociologists and psychologists, bisexuality or fluid sexuality--at least in women--is finally being taken seriously. Frankly, I don't buy it that men's sexuality is less fluid than women's. I think you are right about the pressure on bi men being worse than it is on women. And if bi men think that they won't get dates from gay men if they are known as bi, they aren't going to tell gay men that they are. The only queer men using the B word are gays who are just coming out and still scared of the G word.
"Buju Banton has never stopped performing those of his songs promoting violence against LGBT, nor has he ever apologized for them."
not true. Banton hasnt performed that song in at least three years. and he HAS apologized in the past.
"Red Stripe withdrew its corporate sponsorship of music events which featured performers of "murder music." "
nice try, but this is a mischaracterization. Red Stripe specifically targeted gangsta dancehall artists like Mavado when it withdrew from SumFest. this wasnt linked to the SMM campaign at all. It was actually part of a plan to draw attention away from the staggeringly high amounts of murder by police--who are also responsible for a high number of anti-gay violent incidents in Jamaica--and blame dancehall artists for violence, which is actually caused by pre-existing social conditions. interestingly, the JBC (Jamaican broadcasting Corp) recently banned sex and violence lyrics on the radio, but did not ban homophobic lyrics. that should tell you something.
it's a smokescreen, in other words.
just like targeting BB over and over again for one song made at the age of 15 takes away from the real issue: Jamaica's archaic laws, like the infamous "anti-buggery" statute and the failure to ratify gender discrimination legislation originally introduced in 1995.
as for charges that dancehall itself is inciting increased violence against gays, apart from one or two highly-publicized incidents, there's no evidence of that. according to a 2004 study, since 2000, male sex workers in jamaica between 15-24 increased 300%; male sex workers between 25-49 increased over 1000% during that same period. So any perceived rise in violence against gays can more likely be attributed to this, a byproduct of tourism and economic desperation in a historically Christian, somewhat conservative former English colony with high rates not just of violence overall, but of child sex abuse directed at both boys and girls. not one reggae artist has ever been convicted of anti-gay violence.
Gay/Lesbian people: Buju Banton is not your enemy. your protests would be much more effective if they were directed at boycotting tourism and/or repealing laws which do not guarantee equal rights.
"MacFarlane says that SMMC and Egale's campaign against murder music gets people talking and that is a good thing. But he's opposed to the tourist boycott because he says it complicates JFLAG's work. 'It [the tourism boycott] is essentially bringing more violence on the community.'"
http://www.xtra.ca/public/viewstory.aspx?AFF_TYPE=1&STORY_ID=4763&PUB_TEMPLATE_ID=9
One should never take a corporation's stance as a sign of goodwill--but it is a sign that they were sufficiently pressured by LGBT communities in the US and Jamaica to withdraw their sponsorship.
Interestingly, it seems as though dancehall musicians feel they have to perform anti-gay songs in order to get a lively response from their crowds. But the above article suggests that they also might be on the down low.
As for letting BB off the hook because he only wrote one hit about blowing a queer man's brains out--honey, all it takes is one.