What do we talk about when we talk about Azealia Banks?
The “Broke With Expensive Tastes” rapper is certainly talked about more for her volcanic Twitter persona than for her actual work. Music magazines gleefully track her feuds with other female rappers; her vendetta against Iggy Azalea (whom she rechristened “Igloo Australia”) has eclipsed the memory of prior scuffles with Angel Haze and someone called Kreayshawn. Most notoriously, Banks referred to blogger Perez Hilton as a “messy faggot” two years ago and has since continued using that slur online amid a wash of protest.
This outrage over Banks’ alleged homophobia that has lately constituted the rapper’s main spotlight says a lot about our selective hearing when it comes to social issues.
In an interview for SiriusXM, Banks explained that she learned the word “faggot” from her mother as a term for a man, gay or straight, who hates women. While this may be what the word means to Banks personally, it still carries an undeniable legacy of violence towards gay men. As such, it is not hers to wield in a public forum.
I’m not saying anything new here. I think just about everyone except Azealia Banks agrees that Azealia Banks shouldn’t be saying and typing “faggot” all the time. I’m more interested in why we have decided to seize on this one facet of her identity.
In the same interview, Banks criticized listeners (specifically white women) who chastise her for her use of the word “faggot” but do not apply the same outrage to her use of the n-word and “cunt.”
“America cannot pick and choose when it wants to be offended,” she said, and she’s right.
Where was our outrage, where was the deluge of think pieces, when Banks called out Iggy Azalea over the latter’s lyrics, characterizing herself as a “runaway slave/Master?”
It’s all too easy to label Banks (who identifies as bisexual) a homophobe as that identity would totalize her and dismiss her comments on topics such as music-industry whitewashing and gay male misogyny. Her continuing use of the word “faggot” and her justification for it are ludicrous, but they do not discredit her entirely.
Beyond straining for buzzwords to set off our collective alarms, we’re not really paying Banks any attention. We’re not engaging with the rampant cultural appropriation in the music industry when we frame the Azealia vs. Azalea feud as a petty cat fight.
We’re not making ourselves look any more tolerant when we pigeonhole a complex individual as a Homophobe, capital H. We can’t pounce on Banks when she’s wrong as a means of suppressing her when she’s right. It’s just not that simple.
Charles McCrory is a junior English major from Florence.
