Azealia Banks

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.

unrelated but the stuff about sam smith at the bottom of the first twitter thread rev linked is otm

Ha. He told me the Sam Smith stuff was based on something I'd said that got him thinking further.

i just remembered that the last high-profile queer person to get into trouble for using "fag" as a pejorative was...perez

cis white gay middle-class men and their institutions deserve the draggings they get but riding on azealia banks's coattails to deliver them is nagl, and neither is ever saying you're fine with any gay man being called a fag

the sam smith stuff is v otm though

azealia's points are pretty agreeable i think just poorly argued

i generally pull for her whenever these sorts of controversies pop up because i feel like her entire career is discussed under sexist pretenses (i.e. like every album review has to first justify the basic legitimacy of her art simply because she disses people on twitter)

also like..... i can't imagine who many shitty white gay men she's personally encountered

i think Wale and Lupe Fiasco album reviews probably have to address them being twitter crybabies just as much at this point tbh

Cover star of the next Playboy music issue apparently.

I'm already cringing at the aftermath.

Not sure if I want to see her nude. She's got a nice ass I guess but I dunno:

https://galoremag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Galore-Issue642s.jpg

I don't think I've seen a playboy magazine in decades so not sure what's their type now. There's not that many attractive female rappers under 30 right now, though. Brianna Perry? Angel Haze? Iggy Azalea might count I guess.

Not a man so no idea if men find Azealia hot.

M.I.A. and Lauryn Hill on their prime are the sexiest female rappers I can think of.

think that debating whether azealia banks is "hot" is not a good thing for us to be debating.

That's what Playboy is there for, isn't it? To objectify.

she's hot imo

think that debating whether azealia banks is "hot" is not a good thing for us to be debating.

think that debating whether azealia banks is "hot" is not a good thing for us to be debating.

debating

sorry i stop