Lil Nas X Was Interrupted As He Patiently Tried To Explain Anti-Gay Prejudice To Kevin Hart

[Eugene]

Source: BuzzFeed News

Lil Nas X Was Interrupted As He Patiently Tried To Explain Anti-Gay Prejudice To Kevin Hart

"Kevin Hart acting like he doesn’t know why Lil Nas X would be scared to come out is like someone who stole the thing you lost helping you look for it."

Michael Blackmon
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on September 4, 2019, at 12:23 p.m. ET

Lil Nas X is winning praise online for explaining to a confused Kevin Hart, who quit as Oscars host last year after renewed attention to his past anti-gay comments, that he wanted to come out in order to combat anti-gay prejudice.

In a clip from Tuesday's episode of HBO's The Shop: Uninterrupted that's been going viral online, the "Old Town Road" rapper was asked about his decision to come out as gay.

"And with all that early success, you felt it was important to make an announcement recently?" asked marketing executive Paul Rivera, referencing Lil Nas' record-breaking run atop the Billboard Hot 100.

But before Lil Nas could properly answer, Hart blurted out, "He said he was gay! So what?"

Link to tweet

Lil Nas then said he wasn't "forced" to come out but made the decision to live openly because "growing up [he had been taught] to hate that shit."

"Hate what?" Hart interrupted again. "Hate what?"

"Homosexuality, gay people," Lil Nas explained.

-snip-

But Hart's apparent surprise at learning about anti-gay prejudice from Lil Nas reignited a conversation online about whether he'd truly reckoned with his own past.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/michaelblackmon/lil-nas-x-kevin-hart-gay-homophobia

[dawg day]

1. it's a weird anti- thing, to now claim that "it's no big deal, so what"

Someone who has long been against some civil right or group- vocally- will then turn and pretend that "it's no big deal".

"So what? He's gay. I don't care. I'm not prejudiced. Why does he have to make a big deal about being gay?"
"I'm color blind. What's the big deal? Why do so many black people have to act like being black is something now we need to notice when they spent all that time telling us that they wanted to be treated like everyone else?"

"I'm not sexist. Okay, women are equal. So why do they keep expecting me to give them extra rights, like this maternity leave? If they want to work and have babies too, why should they expect special rights?"

"So what?"== it doesn't just deny everything said before in denial of the person's rights, but also dismisses the very important and interesting experience this person has lived. Lil Nas has a fascinating experience to share, and also an important decision to come out at this moment in his career. But Kevin Hart says, 'So what?' to cut that off, to say that this experience is "no big deal", and that even mentioning it is expecting more than he has a right to expect.

That said, we're wishing a quick recovery for Mr. Hart and his companions after that crash (in what would have been my dream car in the 70s, a blue 'Cuda).

[zaj]

2. Such a weird framing of this story...

Focusing on the "interrupted" word as if the interview was unethical somehow. That clip showed a powerful answer to a perfectly normal question.