Azealia Banks

believing she had the right to appropriate gay terminology

A thing I've noticed gay men routinely doing is making "gay culture" synonymous with "gay male culture" in this way that is deliberately exclusionary of queer women. So this notion of Banks, a black queer woman, as some kind of appropriating outsider to gay culture that needs to be put in her proper place by Mitchell Sunderland, this gay white dude is some grade-A trash.

I think we can equate Azealia Banks to Varg when she eventually murders a collaborator; right now it just seems premature

I like your use of "when" rather than "if."

hope i'm not being too much of a cisyboy if i say that spitting 'fatherless' like that seems in some ways nastier and more depressingly normative than her being a dumb self-clowning loudmouth sportsbro about her gender patting her pussy at people

bleagh not even gonna bother clicking the vice piece

She retweeted “white gays have no culture only appropriation” :(

― Vasco da Gama, Monday, February 2, 2015 10:23 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

how is this not a legitimate thing for her to express (or even express agreement with) as a queer woman of color?

also it should be abundantly evident that most aspects of gay culture, especially the hip slang that even heteros and mainstream media have started using in the past couple of years, have been appropriated from queer people of color

― dyl, lunes 2 de febrero de 2015 20:34 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not going to delve too much into it since the last time I was about to get permabanned but I think Americans love to segment way too much and all the political correctness only serves as a reminder that there are people different to you.

If you're a black gay woman you are allowed to discuss black + gay + woman issues despite how much hate or controversy there's behind your words? I think everyone should be allowed to discuss and use whatever words they like as long as they're not being used in a negative matter. Azealia Banks is being hateful it doesn't matter what color or sexual preference she has and it will never matter to me. You Americans can continue seeing who is making the comment before dissecting the comment.

moka 100% otm

huh, i don't think so

i like azealia banks but things she says are offensive. i don't get why people would want to tie themselves into knots to "not" be offended, especially because her goal is ultimately, at some level, to provoke people. if she wanted to make a principled critique of appropriation or whatever she would have said that instead, she's not an idiot. choosing to not be offended, or to explain away her statements, is almost like saying her voice could not possibly have any power.

Who exactly is tying themselves into knots to not be offended? Her statement was offensive and also the particular way this dude chose to critique her statement was dumb. Azealia is hateful and Mitchell is an idiot.

Also I adamantly refuse to take seriously anyone who uses "political correctness" in 2015 without a hint of irony.

Who exactly is tying themselves into knots to not be offended?

dyl

she's not an idiot

well...

choosing to not be offended, or to explain away her statements, is almost like saying her voice could not possibly have any power.

This a gigantic logical fallacy. A person could not be offended because they agree with her, or because they are viewing her statements as an understandable overreaction to persistent racist attacks, such as when Lily Allen tweeted a picture of her boyfriend's penis decorated like a golliwog and said it was a picture of Azealia Banks, which then was defended by Allen fans/Banks detractors as a) not being racist, and b) not looking like a golliwog. None of these imply that Banks' voice has no power, including thinking she's an idiot.

anyone is allowed to discuss any issues regardless of how hateful, prejudiced or negative the language is. it's great if you legitimately think that the race/gender/sexuality of the person speaking the words has no bearing on how you will judge them or respond, but that would make you different from 99.99999% of basically everyone living in the modern world where those factors so clearly define the cards you're dealt in life and how other people interact with you.

as a white queer man in america, i might feel disappointed that a black queer woman is directing so much anger toward people like me, but it wouldn't hurt me in the same way that a heterosexual directing vitriol at me for being gay does. azealia banks pointing out that the white queer men dominating gay culture and visibility have appropriated much of their trendy styles and practices from queer communities of color is essentially correct, even if she puts it in such a blunt and clumsy manner suggesting that white gay men have no culture at all or w/e. i can set aside my tiny urge to be all "well actually here's one white gay dude who contributed something original to gay culture maybe" because her criticism doesn't perpetuate harmful and culturally pervasive ideas about white people or men the same way a homophobic stranger calling me a wimpy faggot normalizes all the bullshit i've had to go through for my whole life for being gay.

tl;dr i think ppl who believe that they are blind to race/gender/sexuality etc when they evaluate who is saying what are lying to themselves, and i believe that being aware of these things is actually essential to fighting pervasive + socially sanctioned prejudices based on gender/race/sexuality/class/etc

i guess some of u will read the above as my way of tying myself into knots to not be offended but really i just see it as the best explanation i can muster as to why azealia's words don't make my heart race and ruin my day the way anti-gay rhetoric can and often does

dyl otm

her criticism doesn't perpetuate harmful and culturally pervasive ideas about white people or men

it perpetuates harmful and culturally pervasive ideas about gay people - white and non-white - in a really hateful way, and she's been pretty consistent about this.

Her statement was offensive and also the particular way this dude chose to critique her statement was dumb. Azealia is hateful and Mitchell is an idiot.

Also I adamantly refuse to take seriously anyone who uses "political correctness" in 2015 without a hint of irony.

― Greer, Tuesday, February 3, 2015 7:47 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^all that needs to be said really. anyone who thought elevating banks as a totem of social justice was never going to have it work out well

agreed w/ djp above, you put it so much better than i did but i didn't see until now

lex she definitely has said some really offensive shit about gay people that i can't defend. i actually haven't read the other stuff going on between her and this vice editor bc i don't think it needs any more attention, just trying to explain why i am not rly mad about her retweeting that white gays don't have culture

and lol obv she is not exactly a beacon of social justice wisdom

I am that young sis the beacon...I guess dat cunt gettin eaten! I guess dat cunt gettin eaten!

lol :D

We live in anonymous times, context of who is saying what is being blurred each day. We know Azealia is a black, bisexual, woman but she could very well be a faceless stranger on the internet.

An offensive comment should be offensive wherever it comes from, no-one should be allowed a free-pass for context. You can be a japanese gay man or a hispanic girl and I'll be offended likewise if you call me a spic bitch with the intention to offend me. I also don't see the point in using the term at all but according to ILM's slur reappropriation rules I can use the term freely no matter how offensive it is because I'm culturally-entitled to. That's bullshit to me but again, I don't live in the US where you have to overthink how to offend someone.

And then, I'm not a white gay man and the posters on ilm will be fast to remind me this is not my fight. I'm not putting on a cape, it's just that her comments begin to ruin her music for me and it'll be inevitable when it stars permeating her future lyrics.

Also sorry if any of you think I'm expressing a controversial or offensive opinion. That's opposite from my intention.

I think at route Azealia's homophobia appears routed in an assumption that she is close enough to the gay community to be able to call it out in its own terms. Which is ironically similar to the casual misogyny which some gay men slup into wrt women. The Vice writer appears to fall into that category a bit.

Ugh "at route"

I was going to make Tim's point but couldn't word it eloquently enough to not look like I was being a dick about gay people.

that's a good point tim

OMG the auto-incorrect on my phone was even worse than I realised.

Reads to me as 'Hey straight people, we know it's not cool if you discriminate us but don't worry, we're doing it pretty well ourselves.'

don't worry: Tim knows that gay men don't slup women.

But yeah this guy complaining about Banks' references to twinks in one breath and then casually proclaiming:

"Anyone who knows anything about gay cultures knows being a gay man doesn't mean you want to appear feminine. Many gays identify as masc (Grindr-speak for masculine) and deride femmes on a daily basis. Even if Banks invented feminine character traits—which she didn't, since she's not fucking Eve—these qualities would never apply to all gay men."

and:

"But Banks had written enough homophobic bullshit for me to feel comfortable to bring out what my childhood friends called "Bitchell""

... is so nagl that I don't even know what to say.

Also LOL at the idea that one of his tweets "shut her down" until the next morning. Like once you've got twitter beef regular sleeping hours are not an option.

Tim F you have been stating things really awesomely for as long as I've been on this board and I thank you

Thank you

"Anyone who knows anything about gay cultures knows being a gay man doesn't mean you want to appear feminine. Many gays identify as masc (Grindr-speak for masculine) and deride femmes on a daily basis. Even if Banks invented feminine character traits—which she didn't, since she's not fucking Eve—these qualities would never apply to all gay men."

good lord what a stupid rebuttal O_o

#notALLgaymen

But isn't the idea banks puts forth in her tweets that gay men appropriate femininity radically offensive? And isn't it also ignorant about what gay identity is actually about? The vice writer is whatever but banks is saying uncool things and doing so bc she knows they are uncool and will piss people off.

I dunno, "you are appropriating femininity!" is not exactly a simple slur.

Really Azealia is expressing in crude, tweet-ready form ideas that have come out of radical feminism and lesbian feminism, which in certain corners are intensely critical of gay men and trans women, in part due to allegations of the appropriation of femininity and the way this is used to further marginalise women and in part the position (espoused esp. vis a vis trans women) that such appropriations cannot make you a woman (see Adrienne Rich, Sheila Jeffreys, Julie Bindel etc. Also I'm trying to remember the name of the charming writer who argued gay men were sexually attracted to other men only because they hated women even more than they wanted to fuck them).

I profoundly disagree with the general thrust of those positions and find them offensive on several levels, but simply to call Azealia "radically offensive" or just homophobic/transphobic is to ignore that these are popular positions (though certainly not uncontested ones) within various stripes of leftist discourse which would say the real problems are misogyny/sexism and cultural imperialism.

Julie Bindel peddles a lot of transphobic crap in The Guardian, for instance.

To be clear, I think Azealia does engage in homophobic/transphobic posturing, but the issues are involved enough that gay men who appear to be somewhat misogynistic themselves should think twice before they jump on the high horse they affectionately name "bitchell".

Ehhh radfem has little to no purchase among black Americans -- especially, I presume, for someone as race-conscious as Azealia, even if her rhetoric sometimes coincidentally aligns with their stances. Like unless she spent a lot of time in white womyn's spaces, which I somehow have a hard time seeing, that's probably not where she picked up those ideas.

Anyway, these threads pretty much sum up my thoughts on the matter:

https://twitter.com/perlucidum/status/554053026889998336
https://twitter.com/smallspooky/status/562687132477968384
https://twitter.com/smallspooky/status/562687479841837057
https://twitter.com/smallspooky/status/562688194966478848

Sigh

I'm not saying Azealia's been reading rad fem, just that the propositions are similar.

the proposition is rigid, essentialisti definitions of gender. she probably picked it up from mainstream transphobic culture

Is transphobia an issue in black / race conscious feminism? The only such stuff I read tends to be very scrupulous about recognising intersectionality.

huh, that smallspooky twitter has blocked me, and i've never seen them before or know of being blocked by anybody else

I'm blocked by iggy and azaelia

im ok with that although sometimes its annoying for work purposes

haha

Start a second Twitter account that only follows, never posts.

Is transphobia an issue in black / race conscious feminism? The only such stuff I read tends to be very scrupulous about recognising intersectionality.

― Tim F, Thursday, February 5, 2015 4:07 AM Bookmark

Not ~usually~, but as treeship says, pervasive mainstream culture is transphobic as hell, which has the chance to infect all corners.