Going to Jamaica
dallasvoice.comNevin Powell, center, meets with some residents at a previous safe house location in Jamaica in February. (Photo courtesy of Jasmyne Cannick) As a Black lesbian, let me tell you why I travel purposefully to one of the most homophobic countries in the world JASMYNE CANNICK | Special Contributor Like millions of other Americans, Jamaica is my top destination in the Caribbean.
But unlike millions of other Americans, I don’t just come to Jamaica to vacation and soak up the sun. As a Black lesbian, for the past year, I have traveled throughout Jamaica, bearing witness to a modern-day underground railroad while speaking to LGBTQ people about what it’s like living in a country that seemingly encourages their murder.
Beyond Jamaica’s carefully designed and monitored tourism corridor lies a much different Jamaica that is seldom talked about in America: a country filled with people who advocate for and then ignore the murders of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
I believe that Americans and our government choose to overlook Jamaica’s state-enabled violence against LGBTQ people because, unlike in Russia and Iran, in Jamaica the only people being harmed are Black, and to acknowledge what’s happening could mean having to vacation in one of the other 12, less popular, countries that make up the Caribbean. Guess who’s coming to dinnerI am always asked if, as a Black lesbian, I am scared to go to Jamaica.
