They say you learn something new every day, and today I learned about Bryson Gray, a rapper (I’m using that word loosely) and social commentator (using these words loosely, too) who just released an Eminem “diss” track called “Like Eminem.”
It is… not good. But that’s not the point. The song is incredibly anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-women, especially anti-fat women. Its goal is to be offensive, and it succeeds.
I don’t recommend watching it, but Gray does have 260,000 subscribers on YouTube so while this is fringe reactionary stuff, apparently a lot of the fringe digs it.
The point (?) of the video seems to be that Gray is upset that Eminem, who has made homophobic comments in the past, doesn’t get his videos taken down or banned from places like YouTube and Spotify. Oh, and I’m sure Eminem’s roughly 56 million YouTube subscribers stings a little bit. The fact is, Eminem has talent and this guy does not. I can assure you that Eminem is not thinking about Gray. At all.
The video for “Like Eminem” is surreal. It seems like a parody, but sadly it isn’t. It opens with Gray sleeping on a couch in his “Super Bigot” costume, which looks like a knock-off superman costume you might get at a Party City along with a little red eye mask from the dollar store.
Someone is hollering for Super Bigot to wake up. “The world needs you,” the voice says.
He springs awake and it cuts to a close up of a young woman’s face. She looks sad. Then we see that she’s wearing a softball jersey with rainbow sleeves. She gets up and retrieves a vial of pills from a cabinet. It looks like she’s about to take the pills when Super Bigot shows up and yells, “Stop, that’s gay!” and they both disappear.
Soon the young woman is back but she’s wearing a plain white hoodie, no rainbows in sight. She then dumps the pills in the toilet as Super Bigot smiles approvingly.
I don’t really understand what is happening here, but it seems like Gray is arguing that committing suicide or self-harm is inherently gay, and that people who aren’t gay don’t kill or hurt themselves. Which is a pretty heinous, and factually inaccurate, thing to say.
He’s rapping about all kinds of nonsense including the lie that LGBTQ+ people are “coming for the kids.” He also brags that he got 97% on the homophobic test, but is disappointed he didn’t get 100%. He assures us he’s transphobic, too.
“They say this song’s so offensive/but only if you get offended,” he continues. “I can’t offend you without your permission/and you don’t even have to listen.”
And he’s right, you don’t have to listen because I did it for you. You’re welcome.
The video then cuts to a man coming home at night, presumably from work, and the house is a mess. His wife yells at him as soon as he comes in the door, they start arguing and Super Bigot appears. The scene rewinds and we see the man come home not only to a clean house, but his wife has an apron on and has dinner ready. Then they pray together at the table.
“Being a president isn’t a job for women, calm down, put on the dress, back to the kitchen,” he raps.
Um, yikes. In another part of the song he raps, “Why can’t we force workout plans on fat women? I need to lose a few pounds, too, but that’s different.”
So to be clear, Gray is super proud to be a bigot and he hates LGBTQ+ people and women.
He loves Donald Trump, though. In a 2019 New Yorker piece, Gray claims that he went from Barack Obama to Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump. In the same piece, Gray’s father calls him a “right-wing nut.”
Why Gray became a member of the right-wing fringe is not clear, but as he explains it in the New Yorker piece, his political interest coincided with him reading the Bible a lot. Make of that what you will.
But Gray is a Black man who is openly cheering for people who literally hate him. Republican policies bolster systemic racism. And today’s Republicans are gleefully racist. I’m sure they, too, would wear a “Super Bigot” costume un-ironically.
Gray appears to be making quite the living as an outspoken Black conservative. He’s a rare find, and Republicans fall all over themselves to use guys like Gray as “proof” that the Republican Party is open to all.
In Gray’s online store you can buy a shirt that reads LGBT: Liberty Guns Bible Truth.” You can also buy hats that read “Facts>Feelings,” which is ironic considering that conservatives are anti-fact and have real big hateful feelings about people who aren’t just like them. But maybe I just don’t read the Bible enough.