At the most recent Awards-Show-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, un-famous rapper Machine Gun Kelly (also known as “MGK”)–you never heard of him? Me neither–spoke to a reporter on the red carpet where he felt the need to announce his feelings about the sexuality of black women.
So Mr. Machine Gun has a black daughter, which he thinks gives him a pass to claim he loves the chocolate in one breath, use the next breath to big-up black women by praising the supposed superiority of their sexual skills, and then, finally, to ensure that there is no doubt left in anyone’s mind that he is an immature idiot, he uses the next breath to go on a tirade and call a black woman–who said absolutely nothing to him, but was still guilty of having the unmitigated gall to leave his presence–a bitch. Whew! It took me at least 20 breaths just to regurgitate his nonsense.
There can be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Machine Gun Kelly is a misogynist. Don’t be fooled by talk of how he has a black daughter and can’t wait to announce that fact to the black female interviewing him. Even the worst misogynists love to talk about how they love their mother’s, their sisters, and especially their girl children–it’s those other ‘bitches,’ er, women, that they can’t stand. Which means that the misogynist hates about 99.99999 percent of female-kind.
As much as I hate to admit it, Machine Gun Kelly’s words and behavior shouldn’t be surprising to anyone. After all, this is a man who calls himself Machine Gun Kelly, a man who has been steeped in the black woman hating culture of most mainstream Hip Hop; MGK is signed to Bad Boy and Interscope records. And lets not forget that Hip Hop culture is largely created and promoted by black male rappers. It’s this last fact that I’m disappointed that the writer at Womanist Musings seems to be forgetting when she makes the following statement in her takedown of Kelly’s behavior:
You must be wondering why I am raising my time on this low rent fool. The truth is as much as Kelly was a sexist racist ass, his comments fall into normative when it comes to White men talking about their attraction to Black women. We don’t get to hear about being educated, beautiful, graceful, charming, intelligent or any other positive attribute. It’s continually about the ways in which are sexual thus reducing us to the stereotypical Jezebel. There may be a beautiful accomplished Black woman residing in the white house as FLOTUS but the licentious Black women meme still rings large in society.
I, for one, hear plenty of non-black men talking about the non-sexual when discussing their interest in black women. However, I am also not surprised that non-black men, being not only men, but heterosexual men at that, would find black women to be sexually attractive. Black women have to stop promoting the idea that if a non-black man sees black women as sexually attractive the guy must be deviant in some way–he has to be looking at her through the prism of the Jezebel stereotype.
I seriously doubt that Machine Gun Kelly has ever heard of the terms “Jezebel” or “normative” as it relates to discussions of the prism through which black female sexuality has been viewed in a historical context–this man calls himself Machine Gun Kelly fer chrissakes, let’s not give him too much credit! He was simply speaking from the standpoint that many misogynistic males speak from they take on the ideas and modes of behavior that have been deemed as being acceptable by Hip Hop Culture(tm).
The white men that I know and have known who were dating or involved with black women have NEVER made public pronouncements about what kind of sex they were having with said women. But I hear black male rappers talk like this all the time.
And while this one weaksauce white male rapper says something incredibly ignorant and–rightfully-get’s called out for it, his words are considered to “fall into normative when it comes to White men talking about their attraction to Black women” but when black male rappers say the same disgusting things there are people who will give black male rappers a pass. These people don’t see the vile things that individual black men say about black women to be “normative,” but the exact same words fall into the nebulous category of “normative” when mouthed by a non-black man. What gives?
We can talk all day about the Jezebel stereotype and what effect, if any, that stereotype has on the average black woman. But we can’t have that necessary conversation when we are making excuses for the way that black men routinely talk about us within Hip Hip while at the same time thinking that the words of one no-name white rapper represents the way that regular white men who date black women routinely talk.
Machine Gun Kelly represents himself and he represents the culture out of which he grew–Hip Hop Culture. Lets not let one white rapper’s stupidity be used as a tool to install even more fear about interracial dating into the hearts of black women.
