Race (or not) & "I don't want to sleep alone"

Two (possible) sideways perspectives: Joshua, a young poet and journalist from Bangalore, has a poetry/photo collaboration called "I don't want to sleep alone" which is nice and gritty, preview here. He also wrote a (tame) piece on looking black and not really knowing it - "Sometimes you have to use racism to your advantage" - available here, and could expand that into a family story, or at least the kind of story unfit to print in a family magazine like the one it originally ran in.

Homosexuality in Nollywood: Sinful Saints

Restless and daring AMAA ‘Best Director 2005,’ Dickson Iruegbu is set for another first.
He is currently shooting Nigeria’s first gay movie entitled ‘Sinful Saints.’

“Sinful Saints is a very controversial movie. It deals with a very sensitive but neglected topic; homosexuality. The movie will explore homosexuality in Nigeria,” Iruegbu revealed.
According to him, the movie would seek answers to such questions as whether it is African or a burrowed culture.

How did it creep into our society? How do we discuss issues relating to sex with our children? Do we frighten them with or experiences. The family is the ultimate unit of society but unfortunately, most homes lack good ways of teaching sex relayed issues.

Sinful Saints is the story of a sheltered kid, whose over protective mum (Clarion Chukwura) sheltered him so much that at age 19, he’d had no contact with a woman.
Meanwhile his hormones were raging but Ignorance has set in and he clings unto his fellow man to satisfy his sexual needs. Soon he is enmeshed in homosexuality.

According to Iruegbu: “ This is a topic we all shy from but it is there. People experience it every day and we have to talk about it and enlighten people. Some of us are trying to summon the courage to discuss it. For me it is high time we discussed it.”
It features steamy scenes of man-to-man love. It is an intricate web of ignorance, jealousy, betrayal and ultimately murder.

KOK, Charles Waran, Maurice Nwabueze and Clarion Chukwura will star in this movie that would stretch the limits of censorship in Nigeria.
On the challenges of shooting such a movie, Iruegbu said: “It took a long time to convince the artistes to play the roles. I paid three times what is obtainable for Nigerian movies. I have sunk over N8, 000. 000 in the project. I know it will shock Nigerians but the story has to be told. It is happening everywhere and people want to talk about it.

According to him, he is not out to witch-hunt the homosexual click believed to be very influential in Nollywood.
For Charles Waran, one of the lead actors, who plays a capricious role under the ‘Fag Lord’ (Kanayo O. kanayo) as a pimp, “the movie is important to me. It is a tragedy that young men could find themselves gay and be proud of it. I feel challenged playing this role. It’s a love story on the fag side of life.”

Story by Tony ogaga Erhariefe
December 2007

via Nigeriafilms.com

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh's threatens to behead homosexuals

Gay rights activists have condemned Gambian President Yahya Jammeh's threat to behead homosexuals. Last week he told a political rally that gay people had 24 hours to leave the country. He promised "stricter laws than Iran" on homosexuality and said he would "cut off the head" of any gay person found in the Gambia.

International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia

The International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) is celebrated every May 17 around the world. It is coordinated by the Paris based "IDAHO Committee" founded and presided over by French academic, Louis-Georges Tin. May 17 was chosen as the day of the event because homosexuality was removed from the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization (WHO) on May 17, 1990.

Gay Murders / Constabulary Force

A spate of murders of gays (known locally as ‘batty men’) and lesbians is just the most recent chapter in the sordid history of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). Though there have been some officers of integrity in the force, and many attempts at reforming it, criticism is again reaching avalanche proportions.
The JCF was formed back in 1865 amid a law-and-order panic following the Morant Bay Rebellion, when hundreds were massacred during a protest against the British colonial authorities that turned violent. It has never completely broken with its origins as an occupying colonial force.

Jamaica Constabulary Force, New Internationalist