Last week the UWI allowed a group of people who believed humans were created by alien scientists to have a seminar on their campus. This wasn’t handled very well by most of the students in attendance.

Last week also, two male students at UTECH were caught in a bathroom in what is rumoured to be a ‘compromising position’. This was handled even worse.

The issue at hand is our extreme intolerance of anything different or other. It’s not that the students were right in fraternizing (or whatever it is they were doing) in a public place, but that’s not why one of them was attacked. If we’re going to be entirely honest, everyone knows that if he had been caught with a girl whoever found them would have simply looked the other way. Maybe even shared a knowing look with him afterwards. The incident would have probably sent his ratings up a bit.

But because of the who and not the what, this young man was held against his will by the same security guards he ran to for help. He was abused physically and verbally by the persons whose job it is to ensure the safety of all UTECH students. But there is something about the Jamaican mind that can conveniently separate the homosexual from the rest of humanity (aided by the derogatory words we call them) therefore making it okay to treat them like crap.

When you listen to the video, it’s all ‘battyman’ and ‘fish’ and some student telling the guards that they can’t have all the fun. All any of the observers cares about is that he’s gay, not that he was caught in a public bathroom doing something he probably shouldn’t have been doing.

On the other hand (and I’m probably going to get a lot of flak for this): these guys must have been either really brave or really stupid to do their business in a public bathroom in one of the most violently homophobic countries in the world.

ETA: 
Just to keep you informed:

• There was a petition floating around to get the security guard fired (he has been).
• Observer and Gleaner had been following the story up until three days ago, but I don’t see anything new. This is the shortest 9 day wonder like, ever.
• The delightful Carla Moore has a (rather lengthy) spiel on the whole incident in which she tries to decode the “bun battyman” mentality of Jamaicans. And I love her for it.