Attention, gays: Recently paroled felon and rapper T. I. thinks you are too sensitive.
And maybe he’s right. Maybe years of being treated like second-class citizens and being accused of and equated with pedophilia and bestiality and being at risk of losing jobs or homes or family and being bullied and beaten and even killed just for being gay has made gays a little sensitive.
Combine all of this with a love for Barbra Streisand, Broadway and Bette Midler and, yeah, I can see where sensitivity overload might be an issue.
I mean, a person can’t even tell a little gay joke these days without the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation putting out a press release.
Thankfully, T.I. has an exceptionally insensitive sense of humor, which he shared in a recent interview with Vibe magazine.
“Man, I will say this, the funniest joke I ever heard Tracy [Morgan] say during a stand-up was, ‘C’mon man, I think gay people are too sensitive,’” T.I. said. “‘If you can take a dick, you can take a joke.’ That shit was funny to me. And it’s kind of true.”
I know, right? It’s so true! I can’t stop LOLing at the hilariousness of it.
Actually, I don’t get it. How are taking “a dick” and taking “a joke” related? Maybe he’s saying that both dicks and jokes go in the same place? In this case, he’s talking about the butt. And there certainly are a lot of butt-related jokes out there, not to mention dick jokes. So maybe T.I. is just saying he loves his dick jokes good and gay.
In the same interview, T.I. accuses gays of being un-American for protesting antigay slurs.
“They’re like, ‘If you have an opinion against us, we’re gonna shut you down,’” he says. “That’s not American. If you’re gay you should have the right to be gay in peace, and if you’re against it you should have the right to be against it in peace.”
Ah, there you go. If only antigay folks were left to be antigay in peace, things would be fine. Never mind the fact that the only reason gays can’t be “gay in peace” is because of the antigay folks who not only want to deprive gays of their rights, they also want to deny that gays are fully human and would prefer that they disappear. That, to me, seems like a difficult position to maintain “in peace.”
T.I.’s aforementioned favorite joke comes from an antigay rant Morgan went on during a June 4 stand-up gig. Kevin Rogers, a gay man in the audience, detailed Morgan’s remarks on Facebook after the show.
Morgan made plenty of antigay remarks, including that lesbians just pretend to be lesbians because they hate men, kids learn to be gay from the media and that being gay is a choice. However, all of this paled in comparison to what Morgan said about his son.
Rogers wrote, “[Morgan] said that if his son was gay he better come home and talk to him like a man and not [he mimicked a gay, high-pitched voice] or he would pull out a knife and stab that little n- [one word I refuse to use] to death.”
Got that? If Morgan’s son was an effeminate gay man, Morgan would murder him in a gruesome and violent way. This certainly goes against the T.I. claim that you should be antigay “in peace.” There’s really nothing peaceful about Morgan’s comments. Or funny, for that matter.
As far as gays being too sensitive, Rogers wrote, “I figured at some point the gay jokes would fly and I’m well prepared for a good ribbing of straight gay humor. I have very thick skin when it comes to humor; I can dish and I can take.”
But threatening to stab your son to death for being gay? That’s not a joke. And it’s not funny. Morgan has since apologized for the antigay rant. T.I., on the other hand, seems determined to keep this “joke” alive.
D’Anne Witkowski has been gay for pay since 2003. She’s a freelance writer and poet (believe it!). When she’s not taking on the creeps of the world, she reviews rock ’n’ roll shows in Detroit with her twin sister.