Petrelis Files

Reggae Hate Singer to Perform in NY;
Call 585-546-3887 to Protest

Another homo-hating musician from Jamaica is coming to America to make a profit from his music. In recent months, I've worked with activist colleagues to apply pressure on other hate singers from Jamaica, Buju Banton and Capleton, and over the weekend I was contacted by two friends concerned about Beenie Man coming to perform in Rochester, NY, this Friday, March 12.

Mitch Trachtenberg, a key leader in the campaign that forced Capleton to cancel performances last month in California and who operates the Humboldt Against Hate blog, has alerted the gay community about Beenie Man's upcoming concert back east.

Trachtenberg, along with longtime gay writer and advocate Jay Blotcher and myself, are asking anyone wanting to put an end to murder music that advocates bashing and killing gays, to contact the Water Street Music Hall in Rochester and let them know you don't approve of any singer calling for the physical harm against any group of people.

Call to action:

Here is the phone number to call at the music hall: 1-585-546-3887.

Emails should be sent to: waterstreetmusic@aol.com .

Back in September, this Rochester club allowed Buju Banton to perform, prompting a picket by the local Gay Alliance Anti-Violence Project.

This is the letter Jay sent to Rochester's Mayor Robert J. Duffy over the weekend. We hope he will take a strong and public stand against murder music performers and the Water Street Music Hall club, for booking him or anyone who advocates violence.

I am Jay Blotcher, who interviewed the Mayor and Brie in the fall of 2007 for The Maxwell Perspective, the Syracuse University alumni magazine.

I am writing today as an individual interested in human rights. This is not an SU appeal, nor is it connected with the school.

A singer whose lyrics call for "a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays" and who has sung of hanging lesbians "with a long piece of rope" is scheduled to perform in Rochester on March 12 at the Water Street Music Hall. The singer is named Beenie Man. If this man were singing "lynch the blacks" or "burn the Jews," people would be in uproar. But because he sings of killing gays, there is no outcry.

I am hoping you will make the Mayor aware that even singers with hateful rhetoric can be guilty of advocating hate crimes.

For more information about this singer, Beenie Man, please search "Stop Murder Music" using any internet search engine. The promoters backing these singers do everything they can to explain away the singers' lyrics, but the plain fact is that this music calls for murder and torture of gays and lesbians.

Over several years, gay activists attempted to get the singers involved to agree to stop singing this music; the result is that many such singers will point out that they've signed something called the "Reggae Compassionate Act." Although they may refrain from using these lyrics in the United States, they regularly perform them in Jamaica, elsewhere in the Caribbean, and in Africa.

I'm attaching a document from the British group "OutRage!" titled "Dancehall Dossier" that documents the problem. Click here to read it. You may also be interested in this link from Amnesty International USA:

http://www.amnestyusa.org/lgbt-human-rights/country-information/jamaica/page.do?id=1106567

Thank you for any efforts on your part to bring this issue to the attention of the citizens of Rochester. Performers like this should not be allowed to perform without the public being aware of what they stand for.

This morning, Jay received a reply from one of Mayor Duffy's executive assistants, confirming receipt of his note and that it will be brought to the mayor's attention.

Please do you part to end murder music. Call 1-585-546-3887 and let the club know you don't approve of Beenie Man and his advocating bloody harm on gay people.