September 22, 2000
 

JAMAICANS UNITED AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY 

A Few Thoughts on Gays and Jamaican Police Brutality

We have to start the journey towards meaningful transformation in this society with a single step.  While I may agree with Nadi Edwards and Holger Henke that we have to be cautious in our calls for a tourism boycott, I hasten to add that tourism boycott yea or nay, the masses of the Jamaican populace will be in the same marginalized positions.  Meaningless platitudes about how much tourism contributes to the lives of ordinary Jamaicans remain thus, meaningless.  The greater portion of returns on the tourism dollar goes directly into the pockets of the great tourism moguls and ends up fuelling their luxurious lifestyles and cementing their privileged positions in this society.

 As a struggling black woman in this country, I go through various stages of abject terror, extreme pain and bland insensitivity at my country's efforts at transformation which are being effectively stifled and repressed by the old colonialist powers.  The police force and its brutal activities are but epiphenomena of this wrenching transformation and even if we attack and destroy this tentacle, the social problems will still remain.  What we need is a gradual, overall transformation of the system as it exists with leaders in all areas showing a greater understanding of and respect for the needs of the populace on a whole.  Not just a select few.

 The Prime Minister's recent blurb about homosexuality was just a bunch of hogwash.  Apparently his speechwriters and PR experts feel that this was a good smoke-screen to cover over the atrocities and negatives that pervade our society.  I suppose they feel that since every single Jamaican hates 'batty men' then PJ could score a point or two by using that plug in his speech.  And especially in the context of their conference where party loyalists will say 'ray ray' to any crap. Problem is that many of us thinking Jamaicans are less concerned with who sleeps with whom of whatever sex or gender and more concerned with the need for the resignation of KD Knight and the reigning Police Commissioner and Col. Prescod and are form of the Police Force and a general overall move towards the creation of amore democratic and equitable society based on merit.

 Staceyann in New York I feel your pain and empathize because I know the trials and tribulations of gays in this place called 'Yaad'.

 Any move towards creating a leak in the dike may hopefully result in tearing down the whole damn dam.  I fully support the 'golden goose' tourism boycott because it would affect the system at its head which is where attention needs to be focused.

 Keep up di struggle.

 Donna P. Hope Back a Yaad

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