David Banner recently released a seemingly valiant song called Something Is Wrong condemning the savage violence that claimed the life of Chicago high school student Derrion Albert. Banner’s first two verses are a rally cry against black-on-black crime. But, in verse three, the song derails into an ignorant, homophobic faux-narrative.

He had apple bottoms on./So I walked up to him and I asked “what’s wrong?”/He said, “What’s wrong with you?/Ain’t nothin’ wrong with me, it’s just the life I choose.”/This is what it do, so I said “What’s the use?”/But if it’s man on man, how the hell we reproduce?/Test tube babies./He said, “David Banner, I remember when he raped me/Taped me to the bed/binded both legs./I blanked out and woke up in a pool full of red./That changed my whole world/I guess my stepdad thought that I shoulda been a girl.”

First, homosexuality isn’t a choice – let’s get that out of the way. Anyone who’s even bothered to talk to a gay person knows that it’s something they’ve always felt. They didn’t wake up and decide that being gay sounded fun, nor would many of them choose it if they could. It’s a difficult life full of prejudice and misconceptions, many of which are evident in Banner’s third verse, the most frightening being his assertion that rape is the only acceptable cause of homosexuality.

It shocked me so much that I immediately sent the link to fellow blogger Ron Mexico with the question, “Did I miss something, or is that third verse completely out of left field?” Not only did Ron confirm my suspicion, he (hilariously) wrote about it in his Negro Please column at XXL, where he has a long history of confronting homophobia in hip hop.

After all, this isn’t the first time hip hop has waxed homophobic, just ask Kanye West what happened when tried to put an end to it a few years back. (Yes, the man occasionally tries to do some good.) All it did was goad half of hip hop into accusing West of being gay.  Three years later, he’s still defending himself.

I’m not surprised that hip hop’s homophobia has raised its ignorant head yet again. In fact, I’m listening to Father’s Day on Blackout 2 right now, and Method Man just said, “If you dress in a metrosexual way, then mothafucka, you gay”.  But, I never expected to hear it in a song like Something Is Wrong, which is supposed to be a tribute to a teen’s untimely death.

Derrion died of a blunt-force trauma, not homosexuality. Neither he nor his assailants were gay as far as anyone knows.

Banner’s homophobia should’ve been sold separately with Like A Pimp 2. Instead, he decided to make it a self-righteous value meal that Derrion’s family and friends must cope with in addition to the premature death of their loved one.

Banner may have intended the verse to tackle the ills of domestic violence and sexual abuse. That alone would’ve been a noble cause. But, bringing homosexuality and cross-dressing into it makes about as much sense as Soulja Boy blaming white people for the notion that his music is ruining hip hop. It ignores the bigger picture where intolerance is tearing our society apart.

Derrion’s high school was no exception. The fight that claimed his life was reportedly the result of a long-standing beef between two factions: the neighborhood students and those bused from a neighboring area. Their only difference a matter of geography.

Yet, we can hardly trivialize it when so many larger conflicts have resulted from this same distinction. What happened in Chicago, and subsequently on Banner’s track, is symbolic of a world at war where the arbitrary has taken precedence. We see it every day, from the streets of Chicago to the roads in Iraq, from the halls of Fenger High School to the halls of congress.

We’re taught from a young age to categorize and label one another, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that from a developmental standpoint. It’s the practical standpoint where the problem arises.

via David Mongan, 9 October 2009 12:08pm | |