NYC-based queer rapper Mykki Blanco had just landed at the Lisbon airport on his way to perform at a gallery residency when he was reportedly arrested “for being gay.”
As anyone who’s deboarded in unfamiliar territory knows, things can get a little confusing trying to figure out ground transportation. Mykki was trying to decode the taxi situation but was brushed aside and called homophobic slurs by a police officer who had no problem helping the tourists behind him.
One woman in line allegedly said to him at the time, “I don’t know why they are being so strange with you, there is a place inside to buy taxi vouchers, you don’t need cash.”
The situation escalated, and after being brushed off again and called a “bicha” (the Portuguese equivalent of faggot), Mykki said “fuck you” to the officer, resulting in his detention and arrest.
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Mykki posted to his Facebook , “I’m being arrested in Portugal for being gay.”
To clarify it seems like he was actually arrested for telling an asshole homophobic cop to go fuck himself, but that doesn’t make as good of a headline.
The really sick part is that after posting the story to Facebook, he received violently antigay reactions in the comments, prompting him to write:
“I’m leaving Portugal after my performance. Please stop writing hate speech, threatening to hang me, posting pictures of slaves and leaving gay hate messages on my page, I have seen a really disturbing side of this culture tonight.”
He was ordered to pay a 600 euro fine ($820).
If you aren’t familiar with him, here’s a video from the gender-bending rapper:
via Noisey
barkomatic
Looks like I’m not visiting Portugal any time soon.
KDub
Seems more like she/he was arrested for disorderly conduct, which is usually what shouting obscenities at cops gets you.
john.k
I visited Portugal in 1998, both the Algarve and Lisbon. Even then gay life in Portugal seemed to me to be very relaxed. In Lisbon there was a policeman across the road from every gay bar. My impression was that they were there to protect the bars’ clientele – although I never encountered any feeling of threat on the streets. One sight I saw on the street in the gay area was a guy in boots and see-through underwear leading a very tall drag queen in platform boots and a very tight ankle length dress around on a lead!
Ditamo
Why did my first comment get tagged as spam? 🙁
andy_d
Let’s hear it for Catholic countries.
Mezaien
@andy_d: You don`t have to be catholic to be fucked up! all Christian are.
JennyFromdabloc
This is bs from Mykki’s PR squad. Marriage equality is law in Portugal.
DickieJohnson
It could have been all about the homo issues of one d*ckhead cop showing his hate and “authority”. Seems to me, LOTSA cops have testosterone imbalances, made worse by a uniform and a firearm.
stu2742
What a stupid story….Could it be that when the officer said the word “bicha” he meant “queue”? It’s the same word in Portuguese….ie ‘how do I get a taxi officer?’…points in direction and says ‘queue’.
Much better to believe he meant F-off you F@@got and ,therefore, the whole of Portugal is homophobic.. and creating a big queeny media drama in his wake, all because he wasn’t intelligent enough to purchase an English to Portuguese phrase book before he traveled.
There are strict anti homophobia laws in Portugal, so if he truly believed he had been insulted he could have legally complained rather than telling an airport cop to ‘go f@ck himself’.
Try telling a US airport cop to ‘go f@ck himself’….see how that goes for you.
Ditamo
@stu2742: That is true, bicha does mean queue in Portugal, if this happened in Brazil it would of meant faggot, bicha is one of those words that mean different things depending on the Portuguese speaking country you’re in. So maybe it was a misunderstanding, maybe this singer was being a “bitchy celebrity” trying to cut the line or something and that’s why the policeman was upset? And since this guy was probably tired and stressed from a 9 hour trip he just misunderstood the meaning of the word. And since in New York their are more Brazilians than Portuguese he probably knows the word bicha as being faggot and not line/queue. And its true why would he think that saying fuck you to the policeman wouldn’t land him in jail? If it was in the US he would probably be tasered even.
stu2742
@Ditamo: Thanks for the clarification, to be honest my Portuguese is very rusty, so it was interesting to hear about the linguistic differences in South America. I think it’s a shame for Queerty to use the heading ‘US rapper arrested for being gay’ which is clearly not true, (although I guess ‘US rapper arrested for saying ‘fuck you’ to a Portuguese cop’ doesn’t have the same shock appeal),… it does however tar a very gay friendly nation unnecessarily, and creates a sense of danger and gay victimisation where none exists.
Kangol
@andy_d:
Huh? Gay sex is decriminalized in every Roman Catholic country in Europe. Several European Catholic countries were among the first in the world to legalize (Belgium, Spain, etc.), while this hasn’t happened in good old Orthodox Russia, to name just one example.
A number of predominantly Roman Catholic countries (Chile, Croatia, Brazil, Hungary, Malta, Peru, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Uruguay, etc.) constitutionally ban all anti-LGBTQ discrimination.. And yes, Portugal bans all anti-LGBTQ discrimination does as well.
Not even the US does this.
It sounds like Mykki Blanco was arrested for yelling at the cop. That could get you beaten (in some cases to death) in the US. I’ve been to Portugal and I can say without question that it is gay friendly. Maybe not as overtly gay friend as some (Denmark, Spain), but better than others (Austria).