BlackMan Time

Archive for May, 2008

I don’t know where (in Jamaica?) this photo was taken but it really sums up the Jamaican attitude towards the subject of homosexuality and sexual identity. In quite a humorous way too!

The ingenious person, whether they are bartender or just homeowner with a yard that probably doubles up as a bar, was probably fed up with people using that section of their wall as a kind of urinal. So they hit upon the bright idea of painting this message on the wall. Success: no more urine on the wall!

The thinking behind the message is really clear: no self respecting man would want to declare himself openly as a battyman by daring to urinate on that wall. To be openly homosexual in Jamaica is to risk being marginalised and ostracised by the rest of your community. And this sentiment is reflected even at the very top of government.

Last week Prime Minister Bruce Golding responding to a BBC reporter’s speculations on whether an openly gay person would be welcome in his government said: “Not in my cabinet!”

By the same token the owner of this wall would probably say: “not on my wall!” I have no idea what a homosexual would say.

Do you?

No matter how hard he tries history will not remember George W. Bush favourably. Not when a succession of former White House press secretaries keep writing scathing memoirs which chops down the illusion of him being a successful president.

The latest whistle blower (it would be so unfair to call him a traitor!) is Scott McClellan whose book: “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” is due out next week but is already causing eruption of volcanic proportion.

Excerpts released from it reveal how Bush “went to war against Iraq to secure his place in history and to spread democracy in the Middle East.

“Because he and his aides knew the case for war couldn’t be sold to the American people on that basis, the president deliberately oversold and misrepresented intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s links to international terrorism and his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction in what amounted to a “propaganda campaign.”

That is hardly a revelation as many political, social and cultural commentators, including myself, have already made those same charges.

Sharp Criticism

McClellan also sharply criticizes the White House over its handling of Hurricane Katrina, writing: “One of the worst disasters in our nation’s history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush’s presidency. Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush’s second term.”

But McClellan also sheds interesting new light on the president’s obviously pivotal relationship with former national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, whom the former press aide describes as “fully trusted and sometimes too accommodating.” You can only draw your own conclusions what he is getting at with that “sometimes too accommodating” line…

Bush is said to be “surprised” and “disappointed” by the tone of the book and stunned at the scathing revelations that it will contain. This is understandable, of course, because all murderers, liars and thieves hate it when their secrets are revealed by one of their former gang members.

McClellan better have strong life insurance! But thanks to his literary contribution history will probably remember Bush as the pointless mass murderer and warmonger he undoubtedly is.

Every few years the issue of homosexuality and Jamaica’s attitude towards it is brought under scrutiny by international gay rights groups.

They are always incensed that this ungodly act is still illegal in the little island paradise, so they try their best to get Jamaican politicians to bend over backwards to repeal its sodomy laws. All attempts have failed.

Homosexuality in Jamaica is currently in the news again courtesy of an interview Prime Minister Bruce Golding did last week on the BBC’s Hardtalk in which he restated that Jamaica would not be pressured by outsiders to recognise homosexual rights.

This obviously did not satisfy interviewer Stephen Sackur who further asked whether Golding would have a homosexual person in his cabinet and whether he could see a time when Jamaica could adopt a more softening approach to homosexuals.

Golding replied: “We’re going to have to determine that for ourselves and we’re going to have to determine to what extent those values will adapt over time to change; change in perception, change in understanding, as to how people live,” he said.

Yard Applause

Back home Golding’s position was warmly applauded by the majority of the population. In actual fact nothing unites Jamaica’s two major political parties (and the majority of the near three million people) more, than the issue of its attitude towards homosexuality.

Whether it is the ruling Jamaica Labour Party or the People’s National Party, they are both adamant that homosexuality is not something they can support in the island.

Officially, Jamaica’s position was stated by former Senator Burchell Whiteman responding to the question of repealing Jamaica’s homosexual law, in November 2004 when he said: “We as the duly elected representatives of the people feel that it is the people who must set our agenda in respect of the legislation which we pass or the repeal of any existing laws.”

Crucially, he added: “We are certainly not about to respond to any organisation, external to the country, which may want to dictate to us how and when to deal with the laws of our land.”

This is almost exactly what Golding said! It’s good to see Jamaican politicians agreeing for a change. It’s regrettabe it takes the pain in the rear subject of homosexuality to do it though…

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Related BMT Stories

• Jamaica Fear No Homo
• Homos Versus The Oh Nos!
• Letting Homosexuality In Through The Back Door!
• The Gay Thing Rears Its Head, Time And Time Again
• Stoning The Wall!
• Of God And Man
• Faggot Minded Brutes
• Freedom Exercise

A huge groundswell of online support has erupted calling for the removal of Fox News contributor Liz Trotta following her live, on-air remarks that US Presidential candidate Barack Obama should be assassinated.

On the program Trotta apparently endorsed Hilary Clinton’s hint that front runner Barack Obama could be assassinated by saying: “And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh Obama. Well, both, if we could.”

Although she later apologised for the comment, many feel it was too distasteful and an incitement to murder for her to be allowed to continue working on mainstream television.

One campaigner, Mary Alexander of Connecticut, USA echoed the thought of many when she said: “This is not journalism. It

Hilary Clinton’s apparent suggestion on the possibility of Barack Obama being assassinated is fuelling wider thoughts on the issue and support for the idea.

Hilary dismissed calls to drop out of the US Democrat presidential nomination race, despite having no hope of defeating front runner Obama by hinting she is still in the running because Obama could be assassinated like Robert F Kennedy.

This idea has been taken up by smug but pugnacious Fox News contributor, Liz Trotta, in a live appearance on “America’s Newsroom” in which she said: “And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh Obama. Well, both, if we could.”

Trotta has since given a very hollow apology but the damage has already been done.

To my knowledge her remarks could be interpreted as an incitement to violence or murder, which is a crime. It is certainly possible that some deranged lunatic could actually carry out the suggestion.

Maybe the Rupert Murdoch owned TV network should also be accountable for allowing its guests to make such dangerous remarks on air. But, I suspect, they won’t care because it is generating high ratings.

Besides, the right wing Fox has built its reputation supporting opinion makers like Trotta.

Even for Hilary Clinton, this is lower than the pits. In her blind ambition to become US president (or even vice president) she will stop at nothing to get there. This includes lying, misleading, deceiving. But now you can add murdering to that list!

We now know the real reason why she has not dropped yet out of the US presidential race to secure nomination as the Democratic representative. She is hoping someone will kill the front runner Barack Obama.

Speaking to a TV reporter a few days ago she said: “My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California…”

A day later she issued this apology: “I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and in particular the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever.”

But nowhere in those words do we read “I

Even when I was shielded from punishment by a strong and protective granny, I knew that the action other adults (my aunties usually), wanted to punish me for was wrong. Sometimes I only did the naughty things only because I knew I had immunity from prosecution, so to speak! And this is how the spiral worked…

My aunties would then not bother to punish me over future wrong doings because they knew that I would somehow run and hide behind my granny whom they would not want to cross. So I would get away with it. Again…

This memory jolted me back to reality as I listened to a technical support supervisor telling me her staff were professionally trained and know how to behave over the phone and there is no way, therefore, this particular one called Beverley could have acted disrespectfully by having a conversation with a colleague while she was on the phone to me.

I really wasn’t in the mood to argue with her, especially when it was obvious she had already decided to side with her colleague even though she was in the wrong. This episode has given me an insight into how it must have felt like for those who wanted to punish me all those years ago but were prevented from doing so by a someone who acted like a protector!

It did not feel nice at all. So I decided I’d write in and complain instead. I only hope that supervisor is not the one who also opens the office mail…

There are times when I am incapable of writing about particular subjects. It’s not that I don’t have any idea: it’s usually more the case I’ve got too many for that particular topic.

Usually when I get in that frame of mind I don’t write because writing comes naturally to me and when I sit down and decide to concentrate on any given topic, usually reams of ideas coming streaming into my brain. Then the piece starts to write itself.

If I have to stop and think “what am I going to write? Then the piece will not flow as well. I will finish it and think: “It’s a load of rubbish!” Rather than throw it away I will keep it though with the aim of returning to it at a later date.

The thought here is that maybe if I don’t force it and return t it later, maybe it will suddenly seem like the best thing I have ever done. This strategy has never let me down for some reason…

I wonder why? Do you know?

Yesterday I responded to a friend’s question on what I thought a ‘real man‘ was. This is the 2nd part to that response…

By the same token a real man does not belittle the importance of roles and duties in a relationship. He does not have a problem doing housework, cleaning, cooking, shopping, looking after the children or any other chore lesser men would regard as “woman’s work”.

He does not shirk from doing “woman’s work” as he is smart enough to realise that work and the allocation of it in a family unit, is really what keeps the family together.

There is a tendency by a lot of people to be confused about what a real man is. Unscrupulous media programs, newspapers and commentators tend to muddy the meaning, often by injecting their own agenda into proceedings. This serves only to confuse things even more.

As a result we get terms and phrases like: “Modern Man” which somehow gives the impression that man has somehow drastically changed from the time God made him.

Modern Concept

By feeding this concept to people the media hope to leverage greater commercial possibilities for delivery to advertisers. Thus, the importance it places on this concept by highlighting many celebrities who exhibit modern, apparently trendy attributes, becomes the yardstick by which the general public judges people (and society) by.

But none of this really has anything to do with the concept of a real man.

A real man of today, whether he is a hunter, warrior, protector, sex athlete, male chauvanist, teacher or guardian, is the same man of yesterday, living today and stepping into tomorrow.

In effect he is the same as he has always been and no amount of ’spin’ or reinvention can or will fundamentally change him.

GO TO PART 1

Today, a friend asked what my definition of a ‘real man’ is. This is my response to that question. It could get a bit deep, but here goes…

First I have to explain what I mean by ‘real’ and also what I mean by the word ‘man’ because these days people have a different idea of what is real and what a man is.

When I say ‘real’ I’m talking about a thing (in this case a male thing) that’s alive and living just as how God and nature intended it.

When I say man I’m talking about person born a male who remains a male throughout his life without alteration of his ‘real’ and natural anatomy.

Responsibilities

In essence a real man is a male who is aware of his responsibilities, owns and takes care of them with pride.

In traditional households a real man’s chief purpose is to act as head of a family unit, be the main breadwinner, protector, guidance counsellor and guardian of that family’s survival and progress.

As such a real man is sensitive to the feelings of his woman (whom he regards as his equal but with a different set of responsibilities) and is generally respectful and polite towards her because she is the source of his strength and power and he recognises that if he belittles her in any way, he belittles himself.

A real man does not have to prove who he is because he already knows. Thus, a real man does not have to cry to show he feels or bleeds to show that he is human, tough or even real. And yes: a real man does cry but very rarely will you ever see this because his pride seldom let him show tears in public!

CON’T TO PART 2