May 08, 2009   | COMMENTS     

To the Editors:

Re: “Time to boycott Jamaica?” (editorial by Laura Douglas-Brown, April 3)

I think it is disingenuous of Michael Petrelis, the group in San Francisco and others to use my release of last year to support their boycott issues of this year.

I was part of the Canada-based attempts at a boycott last year. We learned numerous lessons from that attempt, not the least of which is the fact that the lives of LGBT persons in Jamaica are at risk. I have therefore changed my strategy and will do nothing without the inclusion of my colleagues in Jamaica. I implore you to do the same and do not support your present efforts.

The struggle to gain rights and freedoms for the LGBT community in Jamaica will never be won by groups acting independently, but through a coordinated effort of selfless persons, groups and organizations both locally and internationally. 

This call for a boycott of Jamaica is outrageous and counter productive. The attack on Red Stripe is appalling and unacceptable, of all the corporations in Jamaica, they were the ones who were willing to stand out and denounce violence against any group of persons.   

This effort by the group in San Francisco needs to end now. JFLAG has stated it does not support the boycott and that needs to be respected. If the community that you claim that this boycott will benefit is not in support, then what is your purpose of continuing it? 

It is only when we work together that we will make a difference.

GARETH HENRY

Editors’ note: The writer is former co-chair and program manager for Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays.


Amazon guilty of censorship after de-listing gay books

Re: “Amazon restores sales rankings for gay materials” (news, April 17)

A disturbing pattern of censorship recently emerged on Amazon.com. Books defined as “adult” were “de-ranked” and suppressed in the search functions of the site. The frightening and dangerous books that were suppressed include: “Heather Has Two Mommies,” “The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students” and “Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America.” None of these books are adult in nature. The phrases that seem to trigger “de-ranking” include lesbian, gay and transgender. There has been no evaluation as to whether these books are explicitly adult or not. In fact, “Playboy: Wet and Wild the Complete Collection” and “Sex 101” are still ranked and found with a quick search from the front page.

Mark K. Probst, a self-published novelist, contacted his Amazon representative when he discovered that his novel, “The Filly,” along with hundreds of other gay and lesbian titles, lost its sales ranking. “The Filly” is a young adult novel that happens to feature a non-explicit romance between two male teens. The answer that he got from Amazon was, “In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude ‘adult’ material from appearing in some searches and bestseller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.”

Such titillating titles as Radclyffe Hall’s “The Well of Loneliness,” in which the sex scene consists of “And that night they were not divided,” have been captured in this sweeping gesture, along with non-fiction titles such as “Gaylaw: Challenging the Apartheid of the Closet,” “The Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lesbians on TV,” and “Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws,” which have been deemed “adult” when they are in fact, a law book, a film history book, and a suicide prevention manual respectively.

The classics “Lady Chatterly’s Lover” and “The Adventures of Fanny Hill” were de-ranked, as were some romance novels. However, the application of this policy was spotty at best. For example “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” by Jean-Dominque Bauby 1997 Knopf edition was recently de-ranked, while the 2007 Vintage International edition was not.

The entire publication list of Kensington Aphrodisia and Torquere Press have lost their sales ranks, but Harlequin romance books and Playboy photo books have not been touched. The publication lists of manga publishers, which specialize in yaoi (boy’s love graphic novels) have been de-ranked, while those from manga that feature more hard-core erotica, but do not specialize in M/M novels, were not. This has led to some speculation about favoritism. There is, however, no evidence to support those allegations.

The de-ranking even led Elysa Cross, a Virginia resident who has been using Amazon to sell her used books, to remove her listings stating, “I refuse to support any form of ...