In the wake of Lawrence King’s murder, Portia de Rossi, TR Knight, Andre 3000 and a slew of other stars joined gay station Logo to raise awareness about anti-queer hate crimes. Because, as Janet Jackson says, “None of us are safe until all of us are safe”. The politics of fear being used for good? Crazy!
It’s absolutely super that Logo and these celebrities have come together, but they again raise a serious question: what makes one hate crime more notable than the next? Should one central figure be used to fight a universal campaign. We suppose the pros outweigh the cons on this one, but it’s still something that should be considered.
Watch the video, after the jump…
Michael
If this particular case strikes a chord with people and raises awareness, what exactly are the cons as you see them?
Charley
No, one hate crime is not more notable than the next, and they should all be put in the spotlight.
Although it is expensive, and GLSEN could not afford to pay all the advertising costs of every hate crime. HRC could, but that would be like pulling teeth.
Michael Bedwell
It also raises the question of why people still put up with the HYPROCRISY of MTV Inc., which actually cares more about making money than fighting gay bashing—because some of the ways they make money is by promoting performers who PROMOTE gays being shot, hung, drowned, and burned alive.
MTV is still promoting and profiting [via ringtones, selling their CDs, etc.,] from the antigay violence promoting performances of Buju Banton, Beenie Man, Elephant Man, Bounty Killer, TOK, and Capleton, et al.
E.g.: http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/beenie_man/artist.jhtml
“From Buju Banton’s Boom Bye Bye, which threatened “batty boys” with “ah gunshot in ah head”, to Beenie Man’s “I’m dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays” to Babycham & Bounty Killer’s “Bun a fire pon a kuh pon mister fagoty, Ears ah ben up and a wince under agony, Poop man fi drown a dat a yawd man philosophy” (Burn gay men, til they wince under agony, gay men should drown, that’s the yard man’s philosophy), the exhortations to kill and maim seem to know no bounds.†– Amnesty International
“Capleton’s hit tune “Whoa†has the line: “Sadomite and batty man mi shot up…Whoa†(Sodomite and queer man, I shoot up Whoa). His song “Bun Out Di Chi Chi†exhorts his audience to “Burn out a queer, Blood out a queer†(Blood out is Jamaican slang for “killâ€). Another track is called “Give Har†which says “All boogaman and sodemites fi get killed†(All queers and sodomites should be killed). Batty Man, chi chi man and boogaman are derogatory Jamaican slang similar to faggot, poof and queer.” – ILGA
The ONLY reason they disinvited Beenie Man from performing at their 2004 MTV Video awards in Miami was because gays there who understand ya can’t have it both ways, girlfriends, protested.
Yes, they’ve done PSA’s like this before and they brought us Pedro Zamora who was magnificent, a true hero for us—I’ve given copies of roommate/friend Judd Winick’s book about him to gay youth groups. But Pedro didn’t suffer fools or phonies when it came to homophobia so I trust he would have said the same thing about this PSA that GLAAD did about MTV’s promotion of Eminem back when: it is WRONG to promote performers who call for the murder of kids like Lawrence King at the same time you’re taking bows for saying don’t do any of that.