John Mayer, let me count the ways...

His shallow take on life is no surprise.  Becoming a pop star at a young age has never proven to be much of a character builder.

But about that deceptive little penis of his....

John Mayer claims that his penis is racist. Bullshit. I wish it were possible for a penis to be racist - that kind of racism would have spared black  women untold agony throughout  American history. But, for good or ill,   the so-called "races" have always met in complete and total harmony below the waist.

John Mayer, like all heterosexual white men, is more than capable of being sexually attracted to black women.  What he's not capable of  is valuing a black woman enough to develop a relationship with her. That's the nasty truth lurking between the lines of his slanderous comments on black women's beauty.

White people have always used sex to degrade black people. Black men are degraded by being  portrayed as giant walking phalluses, a flesh and blood parody of male sexuality: testosteronic freaks  to be feared by pale and dainty white vaginas.

What's done to black women is even worse. They are told, "Not only are you - like all women - sex objects, but you will never be more than the dimestore variety. The disposable kind." 

White men's message to black women has always been: we will desire you intensely, we will fuck you every chance we get, but we will never, EVER, let you get away with thinking that you're beautiful.

The truth I'd love for black women to hear is this: your inherent sexual beauty  is not up for question. It never has been.  It has only been used as a weapon against you. We hit you where you lived:we sliced open the soft underbelly of your womanhood. It's been very effective. Hasn't it?

Your only hope is to stop believing what your enemies tell you about yourselves. But they're everywhere, aren't they? They loom over your heads like the sky, on billboards, on movie screens, and on the covers of  magazines (have you checked out Vanity Fair this month?).

White women knowingly risk skin cancer and premature aging to darken their skins. They stick needles into their lips and pump them full of silicone to achieve a look that most black women are born with.  We do this, all the while implying that black women, with their naturally dark skin and naturally full lips, are the "lesser" beauties.

And how about that hair? The kind of hair most valued in this culture is the kind that hangs from a horse's rear-end: horse tail hair. I think "mane and tail" is actually a popular form of hair-care product used by both horses and people. 

But black women's hair is uniquely human. That spun-sugar, light as froth angel-hair is only to be found on the heads of human beings. And yet, black women have  successfully been convinced that it's ugly. I think the word they use to describe their hair is "bad."

The last thing black women  need is the approval of John Mayer's pale little penis. But that's beside the point. By claiming that his human heterosexual reproductive organs are incapable of responding to black women, he impicitly cast them out of his species.

Some people think this issue is trivial or funny. I don't.

Somewhere in the United States today, a young black woman is looking at herself in the mirror, and wondering what is so repulsive about her  that she can't inspire even the most base and instinctive sexual response in a man. That's not trivial.

Whoever that girl is, she is precious and  important. We owe her. And what we white folks will get for repaying that debt, is a good bit of our own humanity back.