When keeping it real goes wrong

"What is being black? It’s making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something that’s seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or you’ll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dude’s." -- John Mayer, in an interview with Playboy

It's funny he should say that, because John Mayer's struggle is similar to one black dude's: this black dude's. John Mayer, apparently, is like what I'd be like, if I were a good-looking, famous musician, rather than a bad-looking guy who (barely) gets paid to discuss his sexual proclivities on the Internets, for a rap magazine

Take for example the following segment, in which he's says what I've been saying about Internets pr0n.

PLAYBOY: Masturbation for you is as good as sex?

MAYER: Absolutely, because during sex, I’m just going to run a filmstrip. I’m still masturbating. That’s what you do when you’re 30, 31, 32. This is my problem now: Rather than meet somebody new, I would rather go home and replay the amazing experiences I’ve already had.

PLAYBOY: You’d rather jerk off to an ex-girlfriend than meet someone new?

MAYER: Yeah. What that explains is that I’m more comfortable in my imagination than I am in actual human discovery. The best days of my life are when I’ve dreamed about a sexual encounter with someone I’ve already been with. When that happens, I cannot lay off myself.

See, if I said it, people would think that's just because I couldn't find a woman to have sex with if I wanted to. Which is only true in the sense that it's not false. But John Mayer has made sweet, passionate love to the likes of Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson, and even he realizes that Internets pr0n > ___. Granted, neither of them is anywhere near the top of my list of famous white women I'd like to have sex with, which is an actual list, but I'd be willing to be that some of the civilian stank he's gotten is way hotter than either of them. Not that I'd kick either of them out of my bed for crackers.

But never mind the pr0n stuff, even though it was mad fascinating to me. (One of these days, John Mayer, ?uestlove and I should get together and compare external hard drives. No homo.) The Internets, especially Twitter, is more concerned with what he said about his dreaded n-word pass, and his peen.

Namely, the following exchange.

PLAYBOY: If you didn’t know you, would you think you’re a douche bag?

MAYER: It depends on what I picked up. My two biggest hits are “Your Body Is a Wonderland” and “Daughters.” If you think those songs are pandering, then you’ll think I’m a douche bag. It’s like I come on very strong. I am a very…I’m just very. V-E-R-Y. And if you can’t handle very, then I’m a douche bag. But I think the world needs a little very. That’s why black people love me.

PLAYBOY: Because you’re very?

MAYER: 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. Why are you pulling a punch and calling it a hood pass if you really have a hood pass? But I said, “I can’t really have a hood pass. I’ve never walked into a restaurant, asked for a table and been told, ‘We’re full.’"

PLAYBOY: It is true; a lot of rappers love you. You recorded with Common and Kanye West, played live with Jay-Z.

MAYER: What is being black? It’s making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something that’s seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or you’ll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dude’s.

PLAYBOY: Do black women throw themselves at you?

MAYER: I don’t think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I’ve got a Benetton heart and a fuckin’ David Duke cock. I’m going to start dating separately from my dick.

PLAYBOY: Let’s put some names out there. Let’s get specific.

MAYER: I always thought Holly Robinson Peete was gorgeous. Every white dude loved Hilary from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And Kerry Washington. She’s superhot, and she’s also white-girl crazy. Kerry Washington would break your heart like a white girl. Just all of a sudden she’d be like, “Yeah, I sucked his dick. Whatever.” And you’d be like, “What? We weren’t talking about that.” That’s what “Heartbreak Warfare” is all about, when a girl uses jealousy as a tactic.

John Mayer must have been smoking that same shit he was smoking when he wrote "Your Body Is a Wonderland" (which takes on a whole new meaning, given what we know about how he spends his free time). Not that I necessarily disagree with anything he said, but come on. The dreaded n-word?

He must have felt like it was okay for him to go there, both because he's friends with a lot of rappers and because he was actually dismissing the notion of a hood pass, i.e. the idea that a white man can become an honorary black person just because he writes the kind of songs that appeal to black people who don't have a proper frame of reference with regard to black music. It was like when Don Imus tried to mock light skinted black people for thinking they're superior to dark skinted black people, with bad hair - what he said was actually somewhat progressive, if you think about it.

I'm not even mad at him.

But like Don Imus, John Mayer tripped in publicly admitting that he's just not that into black women. If all he did was drop an n-bomb, would this be the talk of Black People Twitter? You know he moonlights as a standup comic, and white standup comics are allowed to drop the occasional n-bomb, as long as it's not to berate someone in the audience. But John Mayer must not have gotten the memo about pretending to want to fuck black women, even if you don't. When the guy from Playboy asked him that shit about whether or not black women throw themselves at him, he should have somehow turned it into a discussion of how attractive Michelle Obama is. He should have been like, "No, black women don't usually throw themselves at me, but I wish they would. Because the black woman is a queen, who deserves to be treated with respect and adoration. That's why I'm always kicking it with ?uestlove, in hopes of catching some pussy shrapnel." As if.