John Mayer Didn’t Hurt This Black Girl’s Feelings

By Leslie Pitterson  Memo to black girls everywhere: John Mayer may think you’re attractive, but he probably won’t be taking you home to meet his mama.

Oh, wait. You already knew that didn’t you? Did you have a feeling? Woo-hoo?

Now look, before all the “she hates her brown skin” mess starts, I want to preface this by saying that I am a black girl who loves herself and loves being black. I am not secretly self loathing nor am I the ‘kill-whitey’ type either. I am, like most people, somewhat hard to explain. I went through a prepster phase in middle school, but I wore Kente cloth for my children’s choir performances at church in the Bronx. My home is full of laughter, curry goat and reggae music on Sundays but I went to school with friends who played lacrosse, summer-ed in the Hamptons and introduced me to indie music- and John Mayer.

When Mayer dropped Room for Squares, he became a staple in my fold out CD case. His lyrics were detailed and lush. I mean who says things like “I love the shape you take while crawling to the pillowcase.” He could play guitar like nobody’s business (fast forward to his riffing to “Human Nature” at MJ’s memorial service). To this day, there are few artists who can cover classics like Tom Perry’s “Free Fallin’” and make them new again while simultaneously hopping on new joints and making them hot (see his collab with Wale on “Letters”).

John Mayer has been sampled by Kanye and Common, been featured on tracks with Alicia and was even background music to the infamous Merwin 1st season split on Mara Broc Akil’s The Game. Besides Memphis’ own Justin Timberlake and Coldplay lead singer, Chris Martin, there have not been too many white boys who hip-hop embraced. And now two weeks into black history month, I find myself sitting here asking the question- how, Mr. Mayer, how did you screw this up? CONTINUE READING...

Within hours of his Playboy interview going online, John Mayer got subjected to a twitter scolding like I have not seen since Chris Matthews forgot Barack was black (that was just two weeks ago you say? Yes. My point exactly.) In the now notorious (no Biggie pun intended) interview for the March issue of Playboy, John Mayer talks in detail about his relationship with Jen Aniston, Jessica Simpson (whom he calls “sexual napalm”), his addiction to porn and then the two topics that have lead to the “John-Mayer-is-a-secret-racist” charge: 1. having a hood pass and 2. having a “Benetton heart” and a “David Duke d*ck.”

On being asked how it feels to have a hood pass, Mayer said,

“…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.’”