Sir, Google is free.
I hate to do this to Sam because I love his music, but I have to. Why doesn’t he know anything?
First, Mr. Smith is “absolutely speechless” that racism is a thing in London. For those that are unfamiliar with the story, in January of this year, Sam Smith and his black friend were out and about parlaying somewhere in London when a random bigot decided to verbally attack Smith’s black friend with racial slurs.
Smith took his speechlessness to Twitter with a string of tweets about his speechlessness. Ironic. In his tweets he talks about how utterly shocked he was that racism was alive and well in London. He actually said, “I can’t believe this happened here.” I guess he thought racism is just an American thing. Then he fixed his fingers to type, “I feel like I should shine some light on this.” Sam, sweety, these tweets make it very apparent that you have not been paying attention at all. POC (people of color) all over the world, yes that includes London, have been screaming about all forms of racism since…forever. But Sam “never ever ever ever thought it could happen” in London. Okay, Sam.
I gave him a smooth side eye for that but eventually got over it. I thought he learned his lesson since Black Twitter (black folks on Twitter) opened him up and read him to dirt. Nope. Sam said, “Nah, my brother. I’m going to keep speaking about things I don’t know about.”
So fast forward to Sunday night to that white mess they call the Oscars. Sam Smith won the award for best original song for Writings on the Wall. And rightfully so, the song is wonderful. But then he began to speak and it was downhill from there.
During his acceptance speech he stated that he is the “first openly gay man to win an Oscar.” Loud and wrong as usual, Mr. Smith.
In response to this, Dustin Lance Black, an openly gay winner for best original screenplay for Milk clapped back with a tweet saying, “Hey @SamSmithWorld, if have no idea who I am, it may be time to stop texting my fiance. Here’s a start.” I can’t even lie, I chuckled at this. Not only did Black drop receipts off in Smith’s mentions, he also put him on notice with “stop texting my man.” Comedy!
Anyway, this is another example of Sam not knowing what the hell he’s talking about. I was just about to cut him some slack because apparently he just mixed up some facts on the article he read (even though you should always fact-check, especially when giving a very public speech).
But here’s my question is, if you’re trying to be this super advocate for the LGBT community, why wouldn’t you be familiar with the work of your openly gay predecessors? If you truly just wanted to dedicate your award to the LGBT community, why did you even need to mention that you’re the first openly gay man to win? Sam Smith is giving me a real Taylor Swift vibe with this ambiguous comprehension of conscientiousness and advocacy.
Jamieson Cox from theverge.com wrote,”To many LGBT people, Smith is the embodiment of relative privilege: he’s a cisgender, white gay man, the kind of person who’s benefited the most from the larger societal push for gay rights. He can afford to be cavalier with his activism because he has a lot less ground to make up; he can offer vague platitudes and factual inaccuracies when ANOHNI isn’t even invited to perform in the first place.”
Smith has made comments about the perceived lifestyles of other gay men, suggesting that there’s a right and wrong way to be gay. And only the “right”gays deserve equality (at least that’s how I recieved the information).
Rick Juzwiak from Gawker wrote,”Smith distances himself from certain stereotypes that small-minded, under-sexed people might negatively associate with young gay men who enjoy multiple partners and the ease at which modern technology can deliver them to your door…If I’m being realistic and surveying his entire way of conducting himself as an out gay man, I’d say that what he’s suggesting is that you have to behave in a certain, non-deviant way to be considered equal, and that’s bullshit.”
Of course, these are all personal opinions. I’m not here to tell not to like or respect Sam Smith. But from where I’m sitting, if you’re going to try to advocate for the LGBT community, advocate for the whole community and not just what you think it is a “honorable gay.”
So even after all of this, a reporter informed Smith that he wasn’t the first nor the second openly gay man to win this award. The reporter cited Howard Ashman, a songerwriter. Ashman won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1989 and 1991. Smith ignorantly replys by saying, “I should know him. We should date.” Ashman passed away shortly after his latter Oscar victory in 1991 from complications from AIDS.
Why don’t you know anything, Sam!? Moreover, why you don’t try Google? I promise you it works. I’m sure you have a smartphone. 99.7% of the information you need is right in your pocket.
Talk to Siri, talk to Jesus, talk to someone and think/read before you speak.
Let’s all learn from Sam Scatterbrain Smith and do our research before speaking (especially publicly).
Avery Ware 