More MSM Homelessness Issues while agencies shift responsibilities

This blog is replete with the repeated issues to do with homelessness, forced evictions and displacements ever since the dubious closure of the Safe House Pilot Project in 2009 the only ever attempt to respond to the aforementioned issues, many readers have asked how do I do it to keep up with the numerous attacks, in-fighting issues, the virtual abandonment of the homeless, the impervious nature of JFLAG et al, the mainstream press coverage and all other kinds of flawed LGBT crisis reporting by deceptive persons who have a totally different personal agenda at the expense of this particular group under the vulnerable populations category. The madness that again obtains in Kingston is another matter, they are too numerous to report via individual posts but an encapsulation is in the making, the Emancipation Park clashes with security guards are back on the radar plus the downtown incidents as well, it is disgusting the way the men have been abandoned by the representative agencies.

A homeless MSM in downtown recently as we sat by the waterfront

The attempts to easily and quickly pass the buck to government to address this problem clouding it in general homelessness when we know fully well that Governments are not going to directly get involved with this sub-group under the MSM (men who have sex with men umbrella) continues, only a few weeks ago we saw another report of many being released on MSM plights as it were yet no serious interventions to address this most visible of consequences of homo-negativity and homophobia, in a post on sister blog GLBTQJA I addressed that continued professional hypocrisy where "experts" recline in the comfort of HIV prevention and use such issues for intellectual masturbation yet refuse to get their hands dirty. Let us also not forget the eviction of JFLAG from their previous office even while avoiding the men and claiming they cannot find a space to do the work required when we all know that is not true and now they are literally in hiding from the men in fear of an invasion which speaks bad in my view at least when I and others were there we didn't have to hide from our cohort but we kept the location secret so as to avoid a crowd at the office, now remote security systems and teams are on call at the touch of a button.

And with all the new agencies getting involved they just want incident reports only it turns out and nothing else, no serious reparative, rehabilitative or direct response to the glaring welfare issues so they can scream homophobia to the world. Dirty homeless gay men have no place mixing with more affluent types as it were.

see: And MSM continue to be ready material for data collection ..... what about the interventions for the recurring issues

Now comes a reported firebombing incident in Montego Bay:

Adrian Frater, News Editor, Western Bureau Gleaner:

Four homosexual men, who captured a house in the Porto Bello, St James, close to two years ago and had been residing there ever since, were put to flight early Tuesday night by an angry mob, who attacked the house and subsequently fire-bombed it.

According to an eye-witness account, shortly after 7 p.m., one of the men went outside the house, where he was confronted by a mob comprising some 14 men. They immediately attacked him and in the ensuing commotion, the men had to flee for their lives. The house was subsequently firebombed.
"I got a call from one of the men shortly after the incident," said Everald Morgan, an officer at the St James Public Health Department. "I know the police were alerted and that they went to the scene."

The house was the last place where 17-year-old Dwayne 'Gully Queen' Jones, who was killed by a mob in St James earlier this year, lived. The men who were attacked on Tuesday night were said to be his friends.

Concerned about the safety of the men, who escaped unarmed but are now without a safe place to live, Morgan said he made a request of the Mt Salem police to take them in for safe-keeping but the request was denied.

"The police said they could not take them in because they would not be safe there," Morgan said.
A police source at the Mt Salem Police Station confirmed the firebombing and the request to take the men into custody for their own safety. The source said the matter was under investigation.

While many Jamaicans are generally unsympathetic to members of the gay community, international gay rights group have regularly come to their defence. They protested the killing of Jones at a party, where he gad gone pretending to be a female.
When JFLAG was contacted, spokesperson Jaevian Nelson said the organisation was unaware of the incident.

ENDS

Then came another carefully crafted press release by the J to deflect direct responsibility:

J-FLAG condemns the reported firebombing of a house occupied by homeless gay men in Porto Bello, St James on October 8, 2013. The incident highlights the extent of the problems faced by members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, especially those whose circumstances have made them extremely vulnerable to discrimination and violence.

At least two homeless gay teenagers have been brutally killed this year and their murders remain unsolved. In January, just days after being put out of his home by his parents, one teenager was set ablaze as he slept in a gully in St. Andrew. In July, 16 year-old Dwayne Jones was set upon by a mob that beat, chopped and shot him in St James. Their deaths painfully highlight incidents of cruelty meted out to LGBT Jamaicans, especially those who are young and marginalized by their socio-economic status.

J-FLAG is therefore urging the government to urgently respond to the needs of LGBT Jamaicans, especially those who are most vulnerable.

While the true figure of the number of persons who are homeless is unknown, we note there are at least 1097 known to the Poor Relief Department as at March 2012. Sadly, nearly half of them are not supported by any programmes that cater to the provision of basic necessities, education, personal development or other services.

J-FLAG wishes to remind Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller of her leadership in October 2004 when she launched a taskforce to develop and implement policies and programmes to respond to homelessness. Currently, not all parishes have programmes that care for the homeless despite a commitment by the Government in Vision 2030 -the National Development Plan- to “provide effective social protection.” In addition, as reported to J-FLAG, it has been the experience of some LGBT persons in these parishes that stigma and discrimination preclude access existing services.

The Government has made a commitment in the National Development Plan to “ensure that those citizens who are unable to provide and care for themselves will be supported through the resources of the State and its partners.”

J-FLAG urges the Prime Minister, Hon. Portia Simpson Miller to immediately take steps to provide homeless care facilities in each parish, enhance access to social safety net services and provide rehabilitative programmes for people who are homeless or otherwise displaced. We are willing to work with the government to ensure that service providers are trained to care for diverse populations.

The government cannot continue to ignore the plight of persons who are being expelled from their homes and communities because of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. These are vulnerable young Jamaicans in desperate need of help and any moral aversion to their sexual or gender identities is irrelevant to the need to uplift their humanity by regarding them with dignity.

ENDS

also see: Tense stand-off between homeless MSM and Security team in New Kingston on sister blog on GLBTQJA in September 2013

While Dwayne Jones' murder is awful the way it has been reported one would believe that he had no part in his own demise when it turns out the true causation is clearly inexperience on his part, disclosing without clear guidance, over-exuberance in a volatile space and lack of clear understanding of managing gender expression while fulfilling his female cisgender imperative, this was the same house that Dwayne resided yet JFLAG did not find it necessary to warn the others remaining to leave the house, now this? The video above which was inadvertently captured by CVM TV prior to his death and showed the actual house now involved in this new matter yet no attempts were made to cause the men to remove so as to avoid more follow up trouble? Seeing this was a highly publicized matter shouldn't prudence dictate prevention methods be put in place here?

So the hypocrisy and dithering continues so as to insulate themselves from taking direct responsibility yet for years so many homeless and displaced gay and bisexual men and youth fall through the cracks under the very noses of those who can effect real change and assistance in these lives interrupted but who really cares or are prepared to get their hands dirty to get the work done when HIV prevention/MSM advocacy is far more attractive for experts?

Subtle bigotry, elitism, classism. what is going on here as more of those the least amongst us suffer only to become material for sensationalism aided and abetted by overseas LGBT publications who profit from this mess then there is a cry for tolerance?

Peace and tolerance

H

NO GAY RAGE - Homosexuals Are Not Targeted For Violent Crime, Say Experts

The long standing hole in the crisis communication via the lobbyists and advocates has once again reared its head remember the last time we saw a decrying of such agitation of murders of gay persons as lies by Betty Ann Blaine and then outgoing UK seconded police commissioner Les Green at the time with his parting shot Gay lobby claims not true, I had dealt with the matter via two audio posts/podcasts (pretty lengthy): 

Big Lies, Crisis Archiving & More MSM Homlessness Issues 12.07.12 and 

Big Gay Lie ... responses continued and 

Homophobic Killings versus Non Homophobic Killings 12.07.12 (highly recommended)

Let us also bear in mind the public's perception that is yet to be dented that it is gay men who are really killing each other due to jealousy as this old Jamaica Observer vox pop brings to bear:

Especially when the victims are found in the nude and have multiple wounds and even as media houses do not directly state the motive persons easily conclude they are gay murders when such variables are present.

Now comes this from the Gleaner as penned by Jodi-Ann Gilpin, Gleaner Writer

As various groups continue to decry violence against the lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) in Jamaica, Assistant Commissioner of Police Devon Watkis has declared that there is no evidence showing members of that community encountering higher violent incidents than other members of the public.

Watkis, who was also speaking against the background of the recent killing of Montego Bay cross-dresser, 17-year-old Dwayne Jones, says all investigations are taken seriously and there is no target group.

"Our numbers generally show that we have had some violence committed against the citizens of Jamaica, inclusive of all groups," he told The Gleaner.

"I have no specific evidence outside of those isolated ones, that this group is a target group as opposed to the ordinary citizen," he said.

Jamaica has been described by some human-rights groups as the most homophobic place on Earth because of a perceived high level of violent crime directed at LGBT people.

The United States Department of State said in 2012, that homophobia was widespread in the country, and through the songs and the behaviour of some musicians, the country's dancehall culture helped perpetuate homophobia.

In its Human Rights Report, the State Department said that during 2012, Jamaica Forum for Lesbians All-sexual and Gays received 68 reports of sexually motivated harassment or abuse, which included 53 cases of attempted or actual assault, including at least two killings and 15 reports of displacements.

Political sociologist at the University of the West Indies Professor Anthony Harriott believes that every Jamaican is susceptible to violence.

"From my ongoing study of homicides, I can say that there is nothing extraordinary about the killings of gays to the extent that one can discern from the information in the police records that the victim is gay.

"As it relates to other forms of violence such as beatings, I do not know, but from my observation there might be a tendency of advocates for gay rights to name all violence against gays as anti-gay and we have to be careful with that," he said.

He added: "I think there is a lot of loose talk in just lumping up all victimization of people who happen to be gay as victimisation against gays. Truth is, I have encountered cases of murder where it is evident that it is as a result of one being gay, but those are few."

Meanwhile Watkis emphasized that everyone is entitled to their rights, but was quick to point out that responsibility is also critical.

"I won't dispute that there has been some cultural intolerance manifested in the public, but I have known individuals who have chosen that lifestyle but they have practiced their choices with responsibility and as a result they have not been subjected to any major taboo from the citizens of Jamaica," he said.

ENDS

This case earlier this year this one occured:

Many concluded that it was a lover's quarrel and hence adding further to the cynicism and dismissal of cries from the lobby for abuse of gay men in the majority. The murder of the two homeless homeless MSM last year which was first marketed as a homophobic killing then it turned out it wasn't as shown in that interview with the ED of JFLAG and Dionne Jackson Miller has only further served to make the agitation more difficult in justifying same and hence calls for tolerance. 

Arguable JFLAG and other groups do not have the capabilities to properly investigate and document from a socio-anthropological standpoint the incidents over the years but that ought to have been balanced with persons who know the lay of the land and have first hand experience when it comes to the actual LGBT populations and the issues that attend to them. The challenges that of gay on gay violence versus genuine homophobic or homo-negative ones need to be properly explained and also show that there is a link to the general homophobic nature in the national psyche that has an impact in even same sex exploitative relationships as well in other words gay for pay or hypermasculine types who fear their projected strength be lost or challenged in such sexual unions especially when they take on a hetero-relational construct to them so role play becomes so important (man and woman, bottom or top) and any deviation from such can and have had disastrous consequences.

Dwayne Jones's murder has other bits and pieces that have bot been brought into the discourse such as young pre-operative transgender individuals who after successfully fulfill their public female cisgender imperatives tend to go further in over exuberance and end up in problems. It was Dwayne's dancing that was the trigger factor leading to his sad end and this is in the absence of any social programs for such category of persons to learn the lay of the land and survival skills in navigating Jamaica, after all cross dressers have been going to such street dances and clubs for decades with incidents few and far in between.

The solution to combat the disbelief of "gay rage killings" which has been repeated time and time again by myself and other is the crisis communication needs to be tidied up and the TRUTH as per each case that involves a perceived gay victim must be gathered verified and presented outrightly so that no doubt must be left in the minds of the public and so called experts thus strengthening the credibility of the agitation for rights and recognition but at the rate pockets of the advocacy are going these days we are eons away from that. Will we learn?

Meanwhile there is growing unease with the stewardship of JFLAG from advocates locally and abroad regarding this same vexed issue of murders and how they are handled. 
a blog post clearly states the challenge: Gay Murders Jamaica – Gay Community Divided, I don't need to add to this as I am on record for years on this.

Cartoons like this also serve to reinforce the disbelief and cynicism when human rights groups are labelled or perceived to be selective or knit-picky on issues as done by the Jamaica Observer cartoonist Clovis:

Peace and tolerance

H

Sexual Falsehood Top To Bottom .......................

In my original post on sister blog GLBTQJA my initial comment had a balance of perceived deception and the thine line of fulfilling Dwayne's female cisgender imperative, well I am pleased at how close Miss Carolyn Cooper is coming to examining the issue far more objectively more than even voices in the LGBT lobby. That entry read in part:

Frankly speaking young cross dressers or indeed pre-operative transwomen in their quest for the female cisgender imperative to live their truths need to be careful of the spaces they choose to do so especially in Jamaica with a general population not yet educated or sensitized enough about such issues, if deception was the deal here where the deceased was with a man who did not know "she" was a cross dresser or pre-operative transwoman that perceived deception is used as justification to attack such persons. If the partner knew he could may have to pretend he didn't in order to avoid attack on himself as well as has happened before. Older cross dressers or pre-op transwomen know all too well this business of passing or operating in stealth and know how to do so based on experience, this young one was not so lucky.

This also shows the lack of interventions towards the groups of pre-opertaive trans and cross dressers and understanding how to use stealth or passing in a public place, there are consequences (sadly death) in this case, this is not the first time in Montego Bay there has been such an incident but we always have to wait until something goes horribly wrong then the knee-jerk reaction comes. 

We MUST however remember this is NOT a homophobic incident as is promoted elsewhere whether mistakenly or deceptively. Also Effeminacy was met with a stern rebuke earlier this year during our annual carnival.

CLICK HERE for that story but here we have another case sadly ending in murder but clear effemophobic causation at work with conflated with homosexuality. Now comes this piece from the Patois doctor on the matter,

Carolyn Cooper, Contributor

I GOT several emails last week from angry people trying to persuade me that Dwayne Jones was responsible for his own murder. His crime was not cross-dressing. It was deceit. But since the whole point of cross-dressing is to deceive, this distinction really makes no sense.

Some people passionately argued that the men who were deceived into thinking that Dwayne was female were the real victims. And they had every right to take defensive action. One woman compared the deceit to rape. This is how she put it: "There is an emerging way of telling stories nowadays that lays no responsibility on the victims whatsoever and I don't get it.

"Dwayne was Jamaican. Why did he put himself at risk like that? He also put the lives of other men at risk. If no alarm had been made, some of those other men would have been labelled gay. Some of the men who were wined upon against their will may even have been traumatised for life. As my friend was when his schoolmates from a prominent high school raped him."

But the men who were 'wined upon' were quite willing to participate. Dwyane did not wine on them against their will. It was not rape. It was consensual wining. As far as the men knew, they were not dancing with a man. Dwayne had become the self-styled 'Gully Queen'. It was pure theatre.

Cross-dressing men are not necessarily gay. And dancing with a cross-dressing man doesn't automatically put a man at risk of being labelled gay. Full body contact between Jamaican men is not always taboo. It's perfectly acceptable on the sports field. Footballers passionately embrace when a goal is scored. It's a ritual of the game. I know it's not exactly the same as wining in the dancehall. But the body language is similar. It's just a different dialect.

Self-confident man

Perhaps I'm expecting too much of Jamaican men. But I think a self-confident man could have acted far differently to the outing of Dwayne. A real man could have made a joke of it. He could have just said, "BC, Di bwoy good! Im ketch mi fi true!" The profanity would have been enough of a judgement.

The so-called 'bad' word, 'B' is a perfectly good word of African origin, meaning 'vulva'. But like many other elements of African culture in Jamaica, the word has been devalued. The word shows up in Eric Partridge's 1949 Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English where it's described as "West Indian; orig[inally] a negroes' word".

Our own Dictionary of Jamaican English, published in 1967, notes that in the Zulu language there's a similar word, meaning 'pubic region'. So a cloth for the B, like a cloth for blood, is simply a 'sanitary pad'. How a clean cloth could become a very dirty word in Jamaica is a whole other story.

And talking of cleaning cloths, I got an informative email from a Jamaican living abroad: "When I first came to Asia, I noticed that many men carried a small packet of wet wipes. I asked what it was used for. I learnt only Muslims did this. I learnt that they used it in the bathrooms to wipe their penises to ensure there was no dribbling after they passed urine. Urine on clothing is considered unclean and it is avoided like the plague." So our male cross-dressers at Caribbean Fashion Week do have a point.

All of the angry email-writers stopped short of saying that Dwayne should have been put to death. They couldn't quite go there. But none of them laid any blame on the woman who let the cock out of the bag. I think she should have taken a less scandalous approach. She could have called Dwayne aside and said something like this: "Hey bwoy! Yu mad! Yu no know dem man wi kill yu if dem find out? Mind yu self!" But she didn't.

Mastering art of deceit

Dwayne's deception is an extreme version of the sexual games people play all the time. These days, women have mastered the art of deceit. They completely re-engineer themselves: false hair, false eyelashes, false nails, false breasts, false bottoms, false everything. You can actually buy panties in local stores with padded bottoms. And men have been known to stuff their briefs, especially when the contents are very brief. A most wicked falsehood!

Picking up a 'man' or 'woman' at a dance is a very risky business. You really don't know if you're going to get fish or fowl. It's a big chance you take. And as for online dating, that's a whole other kettle of fish. People just lie, out and out. I'm amazed by the statistics you hear on American television about all the marriages that dating services have arranged. I keep wondering about the divorce rates.

I got a most intriguing email about a Chinese man, Jian Feng, whose unnamed wife gave birth to a rather ugly baby, in his opinion. The child looked like neither parent. Feng assumed the child was a 'jacket' and accused his wife of adultery. But that was not her abomination. The rather plain woman had done extensive plastic surgery to make herself beautiful. Genes don't lie so the baby came out looking like the 'real' mother.

Jian Feng filed for divorce on the grounds that his wife had deceived him. He won the case and was awarded US$120,000, almost as much as the US$100,000 his wife had spent on plastic surgery. I suppose if Feng had been a certain kind of Jamaican man he would have batter-bruised his wife physically.

But divorce, in this case, is emotional abuse. Why couldn't Feng have lived with the fact that his wife simply wanted to be beautiful? In much the same way, Dwyane Jones just wanted to be the gully queen. Death is a very high price to pay for that forbidden desire.

Carolyn Cooper is a professor of literary and cultural studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona. Visit her bilingual blog at http://carolynjoycooper.wordpress.com/. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com.

ENDS

As we look at this transgender issue another popular cross dresser passed quietly, Barbie Love affectionately known as Peanut made her exit after a brief illness. You may remember this story of here in the now defunct XNews publication.

go HERE 

UPDATE August 14, 2013

Police personnel had to rescue a man dressed as a woman in Portmore, St Catherine, last Saturday after an angry mob who had seen him in the community threatened to flog him.

Reports are that about 9 p.m., the police were called to Portmore Drive in the municipality. When the team arrived, they spotted a person in an orange wig, b... rider shorts and a

blouse with brassiere showing. The Star learnt that the cross-dresser was spotted by a group of persons who attacked him. The individual ran on to a premises and the police were called.

When the team arrived, reinforcements had to be called in as the mob decided to harm him. The police managed to take him to safety.

Persons told The Star that the man's action had provoked the wrath of those who had decided to attack.

A senior police officer told The Star that last week the man had to be rescued from another section of the parish.

Just two weeks ago, a teenager was killed by a mob in St James after he dressed as a woman and danced with another man.

Carolyn Cooper on Dressed For Murder (The Dwayne Jones Trans murder)

also see: Female cisgender imperative thwarted: 17 year old pre-op transgender woman murdered

Carolyn Cooper of the University of the West Indies aka the Patois doctor addressed the latest sad issue surrounding the awful murder of young pre-op transwoman named Dwayne Jones, thankfully she addressed the historical context of gender expression that seems lost to all the other comments, blog posts and articles I have seen. As long as we do not have a population that is sensitized as as our Cuban neighbours where their national systems via public television (CENESEX) pass on information on sexuality we will see incidents such as this one. It read as follows:

DWAYNE JONES probably thought he was dressed to kill when he stepped out to that fateful dance. He couldn't have known he was going to be the prey. But he must have realised he was making a risky fashion statement. After all, the dance was taking place just outside 'Gyal-tego' Bay.

That's the new name for Montego Bay in the twisted vocabulary of super-sensitive Jamaican males. And Mandeville is now 'Gyal-deville'. It's not a joke. It's a very serious matter. Sexually insecure men are so fearful of appearing to be homosexual that they cannot go into a 'man' town or city. Only gyal.

It's the same 'reason' bad man don't eat guinep. Dem don't suck seed. And, despite all the bravado, they don't succeed in hiding their weakness. If you have to go to such extremes to reassure yourself that you are a real-real man, something must be fundamentally wrong.

It's the fear of being tainted by homosexuality that drives irrational males to commit acts of violence against so-called sexual deviants. In Jamaica, even cross-dressing is seen as a provocative sign of other crosses. But most male cross-dressers are not homosexual. And both men and women cross-dress for a variety of reasons. It should be nobody's business but their own.

ABOMINABLE FASHION

The diabolical mob that murdered Dwayne Jones must have been made up of men and women who believe that cross-dressing is sinful behaviour. The Bible is to blame. Deuteronomy 22:5 declares: "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God."

The problem with applying the abomination rule to fashion is the indisputable fact that there is no universal standard of male and female dress. Gendered dress styles vary across cultures. In some parts of the world, men wear kilts and sarongs. They may look like skirts. But they are not 'female' dress. Many Fundamentalist Christian women don't wear pants because that "pertaineth unto a man". I suppose these pious women do wear underpants. Not to do so would certainly be an abomination.

The word 'abomination' turns up a lot in the Bible. But it's not only homosexuality and cross-dressing that are abominations. There are lots of other sins that self-righteous fanatics conveniently forget. Adultery is an abomination. But if we were to stone adulterers to death in Jamaica, there would hardly be any of us left.

Proverbs 6:16-19 gives a long list of abominations that includes shedding innocent blood: "These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren". That primitive mob outside 'Gyal-tego' Bay was clearly very selective about their abominations. Their feet swiftly ran to mischief, shedding Dwyane's innocent blood.

CARIBBEAN FASHION WEEK

Most of us are much more sophisticated than those anonymous murderers. Take, for instance, the patrons at Caribbean Fashion Week. For the last several years, two male cross-dressers come to the event and no one would think of attacking them. In fact, I've seen other patrons taking pictures with them. They are part of the fashion scene.

The only judgemental response to them I've gotten is from a woman who heard one of them in the women's restroom asking for toilet paper. "Fi wipe wa?", she wondered. We have a wicked way of getting right down to the nitty-gritty. I did laugh at the observation. But laughter is a far cry from murder.

Fashion is often about transgressing boundaries. It's about role play. In 2009, the Trinidadian designer Claudia Pegus stirred up quite a bit of excitement at Caribbean Fashion Week. All her models wore masks. At the end of the set, one of the female models returned to the stage and unmasked. 

She was actually a male cross-dresser. In an article in The Gleaner, published on June 16, 2009, the reporter noted the "awe" and "in some cases disgust" that the male model's performance of female identity had provoked.

Some Jamaicans may be uncom-fortable with this kind of masquerade. But Trinidad and Tobago is the land of mas. On Carnival Monday, cross-dressing men use pillows to create big buttocks and breasts. They wear wigs and dresses. It's all playful. It's not about an identity crisis. Men play women and women play men. And they even play themselves.

JONKUNNU CROSS-DRESSING

We don't have to go all the way to Trinidad and Tobago to appreciate the arts of role play. We have our own forms of traditional masquerade and cross-dressing. Just think about jonkunnu. The Bellywoman character is usually a man dressed as a pregnant woman. And she gets a lot of laughs as she jiggles her fake belly while dancing.

There was a time when jonkunnu maquerades were seen as an abomination. They were vulgar and sinful. In 1841, the Mayor of Kingston banned the 'John Canoe' parade - as the word was then spelled. The current spelling acknowledges the African elements in the ritual. The banning of the parade caused a riot. Angry revellers clashed with the Militia and the Mayor had to run for cover. He was forced to retreat to a ship in Kingston Harbour.

It's a real tragedy that Dwayne Jones wasn't so lucky. There was no place of safety for him in 'Gyal-tego' Bay. A 17-year-old child was slaughtered because he was only trying to play himself. His murderers must be brought to justice.

A mob is made up of individuals who choose to suspend responsibility for their actions. As a society, we cannot afford to follow suit. In this season, as we celebrate Emancipation and Independence, we must liberate ourselves from those biblical 'abominations' that threaten to turn us all into truly abominable brutes.

Carolyn Cooper is a professor of literary and cultural studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona. Visit her bilingual blog at http://carolynjoycooper.wordpress.com/. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com.

ENDS

my two cents continued:

Sadly the lobby has missed out too the other historical piece to this that there are at least five other cross dressers/transwomen who have been murdered before in a street dance space and that said personalities have been going to such spaces as a rite of passage of sorts in the quest to fulfill their female cisgender imperative, trouble is one has to be careful when in such spaces and not be too outlandish or outperform the biologically identified females in the space especially when persons may suspect one is a cross dresser. Sometimes it is the over exuberance in the space that becomes the trigger point of for the attack as was the case here as new information comes forth. Young Dwayne was too inexperience here in navigating the space and did not make good his escape in time hence the fatal end to this.

Check out my older post linked above where I got into it more.

Peace and tolerance

H