During a recent interview with the online publication Pride Source, Grand said: “People have (such) incredibly low expectations of me, that I just need to show up. For my performances, I need to not be terrible and people will be impressed. I just know people have really, really low expectations of me and that’s what the Internet does. I’m such an easy person to target. Young, good-looking, white, gay men—we love to hate those people.”
Say what?
Grand is a stereotypically attractive 26-year-old gay white male from a middle class background who jumpstarted his singing career by taking shirtless selfies and uploading videos of himself to YouTube, complaining about how his race somehow puts him at a disadvantage. He raised over a quarter of a million dollars in online donations to finance his first album, appropriately titled “All-American Boy,” after winning over gay men’s hearts with a music video featuring him skinny dipping with a white adult film star.
Is anyone else totally confused by this?
Last I checked being young, good-looking and white was sort of like winning the lottery of life—especially if you’re vying for a career in Hollywood. Sure, one could argue being gay poses a challenge for Grand, but his nearly 130,000 Instagram followers and 11+ million YouTube hits suggest otherwise.
Grand has accomplished something truly extraordinary. He utilized the internet to build a brand for himself as a breakthrough musician and, as a result, landed a place on Out magazine’s “Out100” list of prominent LGBT people in 2013 and a spot on the cover of Instinct magazine as one of the publication’s “Leading Men”. He’s appeared on Good Morning America, CNN and countless other national media outlets, posed for glossy photo spreads, landed partnerships with the Human Rights Campaign, GLSEN and other LGBT rights organizations and continues to perform regularly. And he did it all in the first half of his 20s.
That’s no easy feat, and there’s not question Grand is talented and charismatic. But don’t think for a second his success isn’t in small part because of his looks—particularly his race.
That makes it sort of understandable why Grand’s world view would be so narrow. You can’t fault a person for not knowing something they don’t know. But you can fault them for not wanting to learn.
After people on social media criticized Grand for his comments, he brushed them off, saying he was just “shootin [sic] this shit” with the interviewer. And how nice for him, right? Because he’s young, good-looking and, most importantly, white, Grand can “shoot the shit” all he wants about things like race and racial discrimination one moment and then go back to posting tantalizing photos to his Instagram account the next. Meanwhile, communities of color are stuck living with the mess that sort of privileged, nonchalant attitude perpetuates.
A white gay celebrity making a racially insensitive comment and then brushing it off as simply “shooting the shit” isn’t just obnoxious, it’s damaging. It both distracts and detracts from the actual social marginalization people of color experience in our society every single day. It belittles their struggles. It deepens their plight and their pain. Even if that wasn’t Grand’s intention, that’s what he did.
Sadly, as with his previous gaffes and naive statements, few will actually hold Grand accountable for his latest remarks. Some will agree with him. Others will give him a pass because of his advocacy work, saying it demonstrates that he is a deeply caring and thoughtful person at heart. Many will forgive him simply because he’s a “young, good-looking, white, gay” man and, as he says himself, expectations for him are “really, really low.” He’ll continue to accumulate Instagram followers, rack up views on YouTube, play at Pride festivals, and partner with LGBT groups eager to accept any quasi-celebrity willing to appear at their fundraiser or shoot a 30-second PSA in exchange for a little free publicity and a gift basket.
But for those of us with slightly higher standards for ourselves, take Grand’s comments as a reminder of the steep hill we’ve yet to climb when it comes to confronting race not only in this country.
Checking our privilege as white gay men and reminding our peers to do the same may not be the final solution to the problem, but at least it’s a start. Perhaps Grand could start by looking inward rather than constantly taking selfies in pursuit of praise of what truly is only skin deep.
Don’t hate Steve Grand because he’s white. But don’t forget his privilege either.