N Words, John Mayer etc...

Ah John Mayer. There's always been something wrong with him but it was easy to overlook...before now.

Lately he's been all over the news right? Saying one thing or another that's been misunderstood or misconstrued but saying things that have become progressively more bizarre.

So he doesn't stand at attention for black girls...and he used the word n****r.... In context what he said was not disagreeable. Like a friend of mine tweeted, "Is it really all that bad... I mean really?"

The whole fuss is reminiscent of a couple historical moments for me. Howard Cosell yelling, "Look at that little monkey go"...a joke my father and I shared which makes me laugh to this day. The second was the time I went to watch March Madness my 4th year of college at my neighbors house with all my guy friends. We all just sat watching the game and my friend Chuck didn't like a play one of the players made and inadvertently said something like, Pass the ball...fucking lazy n*****r". Everyone glared at Chuck! He looked at me and froze. Time really did stop. He was probably saying he was sorry or something but I didn't hear him. My ears were burning from heat and I excused myself quickly from the room and walked across the street, back to my own home.

The funny thing was I could care less about the actual word. He was being himself I suppose. I think it was two things actually: that it was a side I'd never seen of him and I was offended he would say it in my presence. Just give me the courtesy of not having to be present when you're running off at the mouth that way, if that's your thing.

He apologized later by coming to see me...a few of our friends came by too to say, he didn't mean anything by it...it was a slip up, that it wasn't really him, he just gets worked up about sports. Yada yada yada. I still found myself bothered by it but I didn't exactly know how to remain true to my feelings when we had been, until then, rather close friends. I was learning in that exact moment if I could keep the friend but not condone the action.

How did I feel? I asked myself over and over and mostly came up with I thought it was beneath him to use the language. He was a smart guy, I'd always viewed him as more evolved than most. He played football and basketball--the team sports most responsible for the majority of our university's 1% black enrollment--he seemed to get along real well with all his teammates. In that sense it was a huge disappointment. I didn't think of myself as harboring the word honky or cracker anywhere in my repressed psyche just waiting to unfurl it in a moment of frustration, "DAMN YOU WHITEY-ARRRRGH!"

No, it really never was put away somewhere like that, although I can confess to having moments where I just couldn't explain a particular behavior and just summed it up as "that's just white people". Like when my college roommate started a food fight with the cake my parents brought down from graduation as my mother stood in our off campus house, appalled. Is it the same? I suppose that's a relative thing since I would say no, but I'm most certain there's a white person somewhere saying yes as they read this post.

When he came to apologize I really just wanted to know if it was something he said all the time or something he truly believed about the person he was saying it about...and he said no but I wasn't convinced so I grilled him some more. Later in the conversation he admitted to using it sometimes but not really meaning anything by it and since he was a pretty cynical and critical guy about lots of people of all nations, I tended to believe that more than anything else. I also asked him if he thought of me and that term in the same way...definitely not was his reply.

I wanted to forgive Chuck but it stung me that he would say it in a room full of people--our peers, our friends--without notice for me and that I could be or might be offended by virtue of being the only someone of the same race in the room--even if I weren't actually offended, even if he didn't really mean anything. You know, just looking out for a friend, on general principle. I felt like I had been fooled by him and I didn't know how to take that type of humiliation.

The weeks after the incident I remained distant though it wasn't genuine anger, I can say now, in retrospect, I just felt uncomfortable letting him off the hook too easily. He should suffer a bit I thought. After about a month, he said to me something like, hey I apologized and if you want to still be my friend cool, if you don't cool, but I'm probably done apologizing, besides I don't know what else you want from me. It was a mistake.

And with that I let it all go. Unfortunately it's just hard to get back to where you were; a little air had escaped from the ball and it never bounced as high. When we graduated that May we said congrats and gave each other a knowing look. I remembered him fondly and the way we used to be together. When we co-captained our bowling team, "Four White Guys & a Black Girl Named Dar" we all laughed at and accepted his name suggestion since it was crazy and steeped in realism. But maybe that should have been an indicator of something? We weren't the Strikers or the 10 Pins or some other clever yet traditional bowling pun. Just maybe all the writing was on the wall that he wasn't being clever; he was being sardonic and he couldn't help himself from viewing things in black and white. Who knows?

As for John Mayer, well, he's going to figure it out and I'm sure his friends will help him. Those who are offended by his comments may get over them in time, some won't and still others will treat him good (and I mean that in the black way, that he will get treated -verbally assaulted for those who don't understand,i.e., treated). Still more will attempt to overlook, and even more will try to understand--some of whom actually will.

When I think about these recent events, Mayer is a lot like my friend Chuck in the way that their grossness came as a surprise because it was never on display before--always masked by their quick wit, sarcasm and racial openness--it would not have been something you would imagine coming from that person.

But in general, I have nothing to say about his statements, his characterization of his member or his apology. I will say this however, if he practiced more moderation in his comments, he'd be a whole lot sexier right about now.