SALON

Thursday, Feb 11, 2010 1:26 AM UTC

John Mayer’s Johnson hates black women

The singer calls his penis a "white supremacist"

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Topics: John Mayer, Race, Broadsheet,

John Mayer has accomplished the impressive feat of making himself look like an even bigger douchebag than before. No, wait — make that “an even bigger douchebag who also hates black women.” The soulful crooner and notorious cad recently sat down with Playboy for a candid interview. So candid, in fact, that it seems like he thought because the interview was for a dirty magazine, his reckless ramblings would evade the mainstream media. It’s like he forgot the Internet exists.

At one point in the meandering conversation, he proclaims, “Black people love me.” I would say that it’s at this point that things go south — only things are quickly headed in that direction straight from the get-go. He continues: “Someone asked me the other day, ‘What does it feel like now to have a hood pass?’ And by the way, it’s sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a nigger pass.” I think that’s meant as an irreverent joke; he should see how that goes over at a comedy club. Also: I’d love to see him try to use his “hood pass” now.

Then the interviewer asks him whether he’s dated many black women — and, if you haven’t already, it’s time to cue the sound of a record screeching to a halt:  ”My dick is sort of like a white supremacist,” he says. “I’ve got a Benetton heart and a fuckin’ David Duke cock. I’m going to start dating separately from my dick.” To recap: Within  the span of just a few sentences, Mayer unloaded the N-word and likened his penis to a “white supremacist” along the lines of David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. And you thought “Your Body Is a Wonderland” made him sound like a dumb ass. 

The Web was of course quick to explode with outrage and Mayer took to Twitter with an apology that, once coherently reassembled, read:

I am sorry that I used the word. And it’s such a shame that I did because the point I was trying to make was in the exact opposite spirit of the word itself. It was arrogant of me to think I could intellectualize using it, because I realize that there’s no intellectualizing a word that is so emotionally charged.

You got me: My emotional reaction to your use of the N-word must have obscured your highbrow intellectual commentary on “hood passes” — because it sounded a lot more like the ramblings of an arrogant and possibly inebriated fool to me.

And what of Meyer calling his Johnson a racist? (Insert here: Tasteless joke about hooded Klansman.) Look, as a general idea, I don’t object to people having racial preferences when it comes to sex partners; it’s only human to imprint on certain physical traits and gravitate toward particular “types.” (Although I think it’s a great idea to challenge the limitations of your personal “love map,” as psychologists like to call it.) That said, it is one thing to state an enduring preference for, say, Asian women and another to pronounce: My dick hates black women! 

To say such a thing, you have to either be a racist, an asshole, an aspiring shock jock, profoundly troubled or all of the above. I really hope for his own sake that Mayer has a drinking problem because, as he recently pointed out on Twitter, “they don’t make rehab centers for being an a-hole.”

Tracy Clark-Flory

Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter and Facebook. More Tracy Clark-Flory.

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