This article first appeared in the May 2010 edition of University of Sunderland's DN Magazine
On John Mayer’s Playboy interview and Black Female Beauty
John Mayer has since apologized for his ill-thought-out interview with Playboy magazine where he made disparaging remarks about his exes Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson and compared his penis to former KKK leader David Duke when asked about his sexual relationships with black women.
Before I go in with the article, here’s an excerpt of the ‘David Duke Dick’ comment-
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.
Now, for those who have seen Mayer’s now famous apology, he blames the whole incident on trying to be clever when being interviewed, he admits that this ‘cleverness’ obviously hasn’t worked, and he would stop playing the media game and just play his guitar.
I won’t consider myself a fan of Mayer, but I do have a couple of his songs and I have watched a clip of him playing the guitar- it’s clear that this man is very talented. After this interview came out my opinion of him dropped significantly, Mayer seemed to be playing on that notion that as a white guy he can say something racially insensitive, but because he has ‘black friends’ it’ll be okay. I think Mayer bought into this illusion of ‘honorary blackness’ which caused him to not only use the ‘N word’ in the Playboy interview, but to trivialize the experience of being a racialized minority in America by stating “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” (emphasis mine) Mayer is suggesting that the limitations and confinements that being racialized imposes on the subject are not real struggles, but merely perceived to be so. This viewpoint erases the fact of power imbalances that are central to all forms of discrimination and sees being black as merely experiencing specific discomforts in an otherwise easy life.
However, my principal reason for writing this article was not Mayer’s definition of being black, but rather his thoughts on black women. I probably wouldn’t have written this had I not read a blog by African-American academic Marc Lamont Hill, who while rebuking Mayer for his comments suggested “Next time, John, just say “Everybody has their preferences. Black women haven’t been mine.” Then, no harm, no foul.
No harm, no foul? Really? Now this is not to say if you are a white man and you don’t consider Kelly Rowland beautiful then you are a racist. No, I’ll break it down further.
The statement- Everybody has their preferences. Black women haven’t been mine is a product of an idea that not only can black women never be considered beautiful or preferable, but it is odd for a ‘white’ man to consider a black woman beautiful (or in Mayer’s case attractive enough to sleep with). In fact, the Playboy question which led to Mayer’s answer (and Lamont Hill’s suggested answer) was ‘Do black women throw themselves at you?’ this question is already loaded with the premise that there should be some sort of compartmentalization of women based on ‘race’. So while it’s a given that women throw themselves at rock stars, the question wants to know specifically if black women also do it, and how do white rock stars react to these women whom American society has historically vilified and maligned.
Lamont Hill’s suggested response Everybody has their preferences. Black women haven’t been mine also suggests that there is something essential in ALL black women that causes them to be preferred by some, but repels others. His suggestion was not Everybody has their preference, Whitney Houston hasn’t been mine, but his use of the term ‘black women’ homogenizes all women who fall under this term, and the only possible factor for this homogenization is their skin colour.
The other side to that reply is Everybody has their preferences. White women happen to be mine, perhaps this clearer illustrates the racialized framework from which that response arises. It disregards the individuality of women, and links their desirability to one physical factor- skin colour.
But it comes as no surprise to me that racialized people have internalized this assumption that because of their essential physical difference, they can never be considered desirable. This is the message that is transmitted subtly and not-so subtly around the world, particularly in the beauty industry. This is what causes dark skinned Asian and African women to put toxic chemicals in their skin in an attempt to be lighter. This preference for European facial structures is what leads South Korean women (and men) to undergo surgery in order to have larger (read European) eyes and cheekbones.
I guess the issue at heart here is not just this social construct we call race, but also the continuous reduction of women to physical parts. Hair colour, breast size, and race are seen and encouraged as serious markers for desirability. The hegemonic white-male normative gaze will then always reproduce notions of race based desirability, often at the expense of ‘black and brown women’
The second part of Mayer’s original reply was his crude reference to his penis. His admitted attempt to be clever led him to say he had a ‘David Duke cock’, for those that don’t know, David Duke was once the Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan an organization that historically used the rape of black women as a form of terror. This was who, Mayer in his ‘cleverness’ decided to liken his penis to? It displays the mind of a vulgar, insensitive and ignorant man, who would choose to be shocking simply for the sake of being shocking.
In preparing this article, and reading other people’s thoughts on Mayer’s words, I have come across those who say ‘perhaps you are reading too much into it’
It is a sad state of affairs when someone can say something so misogynistic and racist, and people still think it shouldn’t be explored further. There are many John Mayers out there who just say things without understanding the process that led to them having that thought in the first place. When aspects of racism or sexism are normalized in a society we can simply utter them without a thought, we are unaware of the complex power structures that led to the normalization of our words. Only by vehemently disabling power disparities and deconstructing our society can we come to make a truer sense of the things we consider normal.
