If you know me well, you know that I absolutely, unequivocally, unrepentantly love John Mayer. On many levels, as a person, as a musician, as a celebrity. I’ve been a fan of his for about a decade now, and my love has only grown throughout his career. I’ve never cared about his relationships, I’ve never paid that close of attention to his personal life; I’ve been satisfied looking at his pretty lips, reading articles (from real magazines, not gossip blogs), and listening to his music. If you look at my last.fm, he’s my number one overall everything on every chart. That’s saying quite a bit, because I listen to a lot of music. I honestly thought there’d be nothing he could to that would change my opinion of him, ever. The rest of the world labeled him a douchebag for little media snippets and soundbites, while I appreciated his candidness, the fact that he was willing to open himself up and say off the wall shit, knowing how those that hated him would perceive him. How he didn’t let that stop him from saying what was on his mind. I appreciated that. Until yesterday.
Yesterday, as I’m sure you know, (along with my feelings about it if you follow me on Twitter) an article on Playboy.com was released to the world, and many of his fans, me most definitely included, were shocked to read much of what he said. Things like this:
Someone asked me the other day, “What does it feel like now to have a hood pass?” And by the way, it’s sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a nigger pass. Why are you pulling a punch and calling it a hood pass if you really have a hood pass? But I said, “I can’t really have a hood pass. I’ve never walked into a restaurant, asked for a table and been told, ‘We’re full.’”
I was just reeling from that. I re-read it a few times, like “did he seriously just say that? seriously?” Now I completely understand what he was trying to say. He was attempting to explain that he didn’t really have a hood pass (which is basically when black people love you so much, we almost consider you one of us) he’d be able to say the n-word. And since he can’t say that, he doesn’t really have one. He went on to explain that realizes white privilege but negated that by saying he identifies in a way with the black struggle, on a one-on-one level. He could have made that point without saying that word. He is white, and therefore he is not able to say that word without repercussions. Only black people, and sometimes not even black people, are able to say that word and obviously be devoid of racist intent. Therefore, no one else can say it, in my book. It doesn’t matter the context. You just do not say it. Period.
I don’t think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I’ve got a Benetton heart and a fuckin’ David Duke cock. I’m going to start dating separately from my dick.
It’s no secret that I’ve said if given the opportunity, I’d make sweet, sweet groupie love to John Mayer. Something about him just does it for me. I think he’s gorgeous. But it didn’t bother me that he said he’s not physically attracted to women of color. I completely understand preferences, there are plenty of people that aren’t attracted to members of an opposite race. It was the way he said it. Comparing your dick to David Duke? Ugh. And he didn’t stop there, he went on to talk about the black women he does find attractive, managing to be even more offensive to women as a whole:
I always thought Holly Robinson Peete was gorgeous. Every white dude loved Hilary from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And Kerry Washington. She’s superhot, and she’s also white-girl crazy. Kerry Washington would break your heart like a white girl. Just all of a sudden she’d be like, “Yeah, I sucked his dick. Whatever.” And you’d be like, “What? We weren’t talking about that.” That’s what “Heartbreak Warfare” is all about, when a girl uses jealousy as a tactic.
What the hell is white girl crazy?
I went deeper into the interview, but when he talked about Jessica Simpson as if all she were to him were a great piece of ass he enjoyed pounding, and then stopped himself short, not out of a realization he may offend her, but out of a respect for Jennifer Aniston, I couldn’t stomach anymore. I’m glad, because I was informed later that he went on to say more offensive things. To the point where I would believe him if he later claims to have been drunk or cracked out or something while giving the interview.
Yesterday, I was livid. I was hurt and disappointed and livid. I deleted everything scheduled to publish on Fuck Yeah! John Mayer, posted a snippet of the interview and left it at that. I was seriously tempted to delete the entire site but I realize how trigger happy I am, and how rash I can be, so I held off. I attempted to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my tickets to his show on March 15th, something I’ve been seriously looking forward to, for months. I wasn’t sure if I could go, if I could stomach listening to him trying to be clever and entertaining when I no longer felt him to be for that long, in person. Not only that, but much of the fun of going was being able to lust after him in person, and reading that article yesterday, immediately when I read that he said the n-word, all of that dissipated. As I went further into the interview, I was almost sad that I’d ever thought of him that way. My loins no longer ache at the thought of him, and his penis can continue on being a white supremacist.
As the day went on, I read his apology on Twitter and I believe it was genuine; he sounded completely defeated in those few lines, but he only apologized for the use of that word. He didn’t apologize for the misogyny, for the homophobic slurs, for the other offensive quotes. He should have apologized for the interview as a whole.
I talked to a friend about it, in depth, a fellow John Mayer fan and woman of color. Neither us believe John Mayer is a racist. He’s not a racist. He just really lacks that brain to mouth filter that most people have developed I believe he’s become so jaded with how he perceives himself in the media, that he says crazy things to deflect how fragile his ego probably really is and to prevent an interviewer, a paparazzo, a twitter follower, whomever, from being able to get under his skin before he can get under it himself. I do not know him of course, but this is just what I’ve felt. We both decided that we would sit and wait, we would watch closely what he did between now and forever to make this right, what he’d say, how he’d act. We’d hold off on our boycott of him completely, tossing out his music and everything else to do with him for a little while. I thought about how angry I was at Michael Vick – how angry I still am – but reading his apology after he was released made me realize that it was alright to let him continue on with his life and make something positive come out of this. I thought about how I’d easily forgiven Chris Brown for the physical damage he did to Rihanna. Those things were so much worse than this – this was a mistake of much lesser proportions.
This morning in my email I had a link to John Mayer’s apology last night at his Nashville show. I watched, and saw that man standing in front of thousands of people, so vulnerable, fighting back his tears with that nervous tick, pulling on his fingers and attempting to make some sort of amends, I was touched. I’ve maintained the entire time that he didn’t mean to offend, but that it didn’t take away from what he said.
So now, I’m not sure how I feel anymore. A little piece of my heart broke yesterday, the wind was completely taken out of my sails, which may sound silly but I really don’t care. I connected to him through his music and it hurts that he was so callous, almost like it would if these things were said in a blog post written by one of you – my friends. I still don’t know if I’ll be going to that show on March 15th. I thought yesterday that if I could separate his music from his person, like I can Michael Richards from Kramer when I watch Seinfeld reruns, that I could still go. My tickets are non-transferable, non-refundable and I spent much too much money on them, but I don’t think that’s possible. Maybe in between now and then, as my head levels, as I stop being angry, I’ll be able to appreciate him as a person again and have no qualms about going. I’m unsure.
All I know is while I’m still perturbed, I’m not as angry today as I was yesterday. I’m taking a breather from him and his music for awhile. Hopefully, I can get around this – never over it – and continue on with my fandom. Time will tell.
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