“The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about,” wrote famed poet Oscar Wilde, and its a message contemporary gay musician Steve Grand seems to understand all too well.
In an interview with PrideSource.com, the musician said:
“I just know people have really, really low expectations of me and that’s what the Internet does. I’m such an easy person to target. Young, good-looking, white gay men – we love to hate those people. But there’s been a real person there the whole time.”
That comment was immediately pounced upon by the media and the public as being not only politically tone deaf, but an insult to the millions of people who have been legitimately hated upon for reasons far less ennobling.
Writing for Jet Magazine, Chicago-based writer Terrence Chappell observed,
“Intentional or not, Steve Grand’s comment was highly problematic because it undermines harsh realities that consistently pervade marginalized communities, in particular gay black men and trans women of color. Gay black men still don’t have proper access to HIV programs and services, and that puts them more at risk of contracting the deadly virus. Trans women of color are still targets of many hate crimes. Twenty-two transgender women were murdered in 2015, and 19 were trans women of color."
“So, while Grand may be a “target” of internet trolls like most of us, based on his race and gender alone, he is not a target of discriminatory legislation, faulty judicial decisions and medical services, or even homicide.”
And, as Gawker points out,
“Steve Grand’s natural tendency toward feeling the negative while ignoring the positive makes him a less-than-ideal expert on the plight of young, gay, white, and (by his estimation, at any rate) good-looking men. His self-centeredness is too detrimental to make him any kind of sociologist.”
Ironically, as The Gaily Grind reported here, those very same qualities that Mr. Grand appropriates as the basis for his argument about white victimology are the very qualities he so grandly exploits to get ahead.
#blessed with a punch able face. The Jesus lightning soothes my soul. pic.twitter.com/PJJ4wd2oTZ— Steve Grand (@SteveGrandMusic) March 22, 2016
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