Technogeek Moments and John Mayer

Holy technogeek moment, Batman! I believe I just imported this blog into my Facebook account, so let's see if it works. Testing. Testing. One, two. One, two. John Mayer's a douche bag! (Isn't douche bag a lovely term? It's so deliciously crass.)

Hee. Hee. I know that's not a routine mic-testing sentence, but it should be. Alright. I just needed a segue into discussing John Mayer. I am referring, of course, to the now-notorious Playboy interview wherein Mayer makes some bizarre, if not outright sexist and racist, comments. To me, his tidbits about race were particularly disturbing and offensive. Here's the passage that has received the most flak:

PLAYBOY: If you didn’t know you, would you think you’re a douche bag?

MAYER: It depends on what I picked up. My two biggest hits are “Your Body Is a Wonderland” and “Daughters.” If you think those songs are pandering, then you’ll think I’m a douche bag. It’s like I come on very strong. I am a very…I’m just very. V-E-R-Y. And if you can’t handle very, then I’m a douche bag. But I think the world needs a little very. That’s why black people love me.

PLAYBOY: Because you’re very?

MAYER: 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.’"

PLAYBOY: It is true; a lot of rappers love you. You recorded with Common and Kanye West, played live with Jay-Z.

MAYER: What is being black? It’s making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something that’s seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or you’ll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dude’s.

PLAYBOY: Do black women throw themselves at you?

MAYER: 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.

PLAYBOY: Let’s put some names out there. Let’s get specific.

MAYER: 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.

Let's get an insignificant issue out of the way first: Even if he believes this crap, isn't the boy bright enough not to say it in a major magazine interview? Yeah. Apparently not.

The next distasteful statement is that African-Americans love him because he is so "very." I'm not sure what the hell it means to be "very." Very what? If he's wanting me to fill in the blank, I can present several choice adjectives after reading that interview. I am curious to know precisely what attribute in in his noggin because he's generalizing an entire group of people based on it. And I'm convinced that the African-Americans who did like him prior to this interview are not particularly fond of him now, despite his Twitter apology. (Who chooses a medium that limits you to 140 characters for a genuine apology?) At least he then has the good sense--after making broad generalizations about African-Americans again--to say that his so-called struggle is not "like the collective struggle of black America." Really? I can safely say that I never, ever thought that John Mayer's "struggle" was equivalent to the struggle of African-Americans. Just for the record.

Next, he refers to a "hood pass"--a term that I fortunately had not previously encountered--and then flippantly drops the N-word. The latter is simply unacceptable, especially for a white person, and we'll just leave it at that. As a term, the former implies that a white person can access and own the often traumatic history of African-Americans by being a cool pop star. In his own inarticulate fashion, he rejects this notion, but does so with an example of racism (being refused at a restaurant) that is so mild that it makes me wonder if he's ever heard of slavery and racism. If being refused at a restaurant was the worst thing that occurred during slavery and the ensuing years of oppression, we'd be in much better shape.

Then there's the "Do black women throw themselves at you?" question. When I first saw excerpts of the interview, the snippet would begin with this question, and I always wondered why Playboy was asking such a bizarre question. Well, now that I've read the larger interview, it makes a bit more sense, but it's still a demented leap in the dialogue. Then again, it is Playboy. I guess I wouldn't expect them to be grilling Mayer about his feelings on Anna Karenina.

And here we are at my favorite part, the piece where he compares his penis to a white supremacist. Talk about wandering into all kinds of dangerous territory. By adding the sexual element (i.e., referencing his penis) he brings to the surface all kinds of crazy history. Off the top of my head, I think of the historically fraught relations between white men and black women and between black men and white women. More specifically, it summons black slave women suffering rape at the hands of their male owners and the lynchings and violence perpetrated against black men as punishment for alleged and/or imagined crimes against white women. I could go on.

Even apart from that, his comments that he doesn't "open [him]self up to" the attentions of African-American women, that his heart is a Benetton ad* (read: multicultural and open), and that his penis resembles David Duke are bizarre. The last detail is really the worst for me. Bringing a prominent KKK member into the equation upped the creepiness quotient about a thousand-fold. A charitable interpretation of his comments would be that even though at heart he is a tolerant soul, he's just not physically attracted to African-American women. (I find this hard to believe because of Halle Berry, at the very least. I am attracted to Halle Berry. That woman is stunning.) On a side note, I was under the impression that desire emanates from one's heart and brain. Can't that Benetton heart override his penis? (Insert joke about men thinking with their penises.)

And then he lists a few exceptions. By name. Is naming a few women that would be worthy of his attentions--if he could "start dating separately from [his] dick," that is--supposed to cancel out the fact that he has just said he is not attracted to any African-American women? He then insults white women with the "white-girl crazy" line and ends with on a charming note by pulling this horrendous train wreck of a discussion back to a shallow plug for his song.

Whew. On that note, I'll wrap it up. I know Mayer is just a singer and not a political and historical brain trust, and I guess we shouldn't expected him to be. And why devote so many words to the putz? I just wish that people in general would be a bit more thoughtful about the ideas they espouse. This especially applies to celebrities because their status confers a degree of authority (or if not authority, at least significant media time). And that authority can influence people's opinions.

Note: Farai Chide at The Huffington Post had some insightful commentary: http://huff.to/aPjIEw. And this article (http://bit.ly/aukSBE) by Andrea Plaid from Racialicious was also interesting.

*The Benetton ads are problematic representations of diversity, but that's for another article.