Hey y'all, Kiki here, MondoHomo organizer. I got an email from one audience member at the PinkEye "Pansy Division" screening, regarding the ukelele player Ben Lerman and his songs. I'm posting the question here (below) so anybody interested can discuss it.

Here's some discussion guidelines:
1. Listen to Ben's songs first: http://www.benlerman.net/benlerman/music.html

2. Keep the discussion about the ISSUES. Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

3. Racial politics are VERY difficult to discuss, especially in a web or email forum, where it's difficult to tell people's intonations. Keep this in mind, and give people the benefit of the doubt.

4. Diversity is good; diversity of opinion is good. We won't all agree, politically or otherwise. So let's approach this with a "this is what I think" attitude, not "my way is the most correct."

5. We're all coming to this with different social, class and political backgrounds. Be patient and go overboard in explaining what you mean. And have tolerance for folks with different experiences or politics than you.

Here's the question:

"I wanted to ask if any one addressed the overt racism that was present in that comedic mandolin players delivery on that night at the eye drum. It was really upsetting and in retrospect some of my friends and I wished that we had shouted out about it and walked out of the performance."

I'm glad that you said this because we felt exactly the same way but thought maybe it was because we were some of the few Black people in the audience. I personally think that it is sad that white people don't tend to display much solidarity in these situations!

Hi everyone,

First, I am deeply sorry that I offended anyone.

Secondly, I am not racist. I have never been racist, overtly, covertly, or any other vertly. I hope to correct this misunderstanding, but at present I'm not sure I understand how it even came about.

Maybe if you guys tell me what I did that you thought was racist, that would be a good starting point. Was it the cover version I did of Riskay's song "Smell Yo' Dick"? Was it something else? Please be specific so as to help me understand what is at issue here.

Again, I never meant to offend anyone. I am not about propagating racist stereotypes. If anything, my work seeks to subvert them through exposure of their inherent absurdity.

I welcome your criticism and questions, and I will respond to them as best as I can.

Sincerely and respectfuly,
Ben Lerman

Hi, I am the one that posted that comment and Kiki and I have been having a dialogue about it that hasn't gone out to the list serve, so here is some of my response to her that i feel is relevant to this conversation.

It was the "Smell your dick" song that I was referring to. The song was offensive in terms of a white man missapropriating black culture and using it to gain laughs in his performance to a primarily white audience in which most of us sang and laughed right along with him.

I don't think that as a white person it is honest to say that you are not racist....It is impossible to be white and live in this world and not have some racist patterns, attitudes and actions....it is something that we (I am a white person) need to be working on everyday and all of the time...

I think there is a long history in the white g,b,l,t,q movement that many of us think that we understand opression and therefore cannot be racist like white heterosexual people are....which is utterly not true since white skin regardless of gender and sexual orientation affords us a level of access to priviledge far beyond that of people of color....

I think that your (Ben's) performance of that song was a modern day equivilent to wearing a black face in a vaudeville performance.

i knew the riskay song before i heard his cover, and when he announced he was doing a cover, i must admit i was concerned. i was actually horrified that he did not replace the n-word. it made me very uncomfortable.

Hey...

I'm glad you started this thread. I also felt a little squeemish about two of the songs in particular-- the Riskay cover and "Greencard" songs. I understand the point that these songs were supposed to be critical through humor (at least "Greencard," although I'm not 100% sure how the Riskay cover song was meant to be critical), but given the rhetorical context I'm primarily disturbed at how that humor was generated-- along culturally assumed notions of racial difference.

Take "Greencard" for example. I can understand that this song, told I assume from the perspective of a white business owner to a non-white immigrant worker, could be said to be a critique of a system that takes advantage of immigrant labor. So the theory would be that the offensive stereotypes ("wetback," "my short friend," etc.) could be stereotypes spoken from the business culture, or that even capitalism, contributes to if not creates these racist, divisive stereotypes. I'd buy it if it seemed like the humor was directed at the employer, and not the worker-- it almost seems (and this is again, part of the rhetorical context of assumed white speaker and predominantly white, English-speaking audience) that we are invited "in on the joke"-- shared with the employer at this worker's expense. It's hard to imagine something that does more to build xenophbia and crush solidarity than a type of humor that demarcates racial difference and thus creates hierarchies based on those differences.

Sorry to be so long-winded.