Carlos Santana faced criticism on Thursday when a video of the musician making anti-transgender comments during a concert in New Jersey in July resurfaced on social media.
“When God made you and me, before we came out of the womb, you know who you are and what you are,” the guitarist is seen saying in the clip.
He continued, “Later on when you grow up, and you see things and you start believing that you could be something that sounds good but you know it ain’t right, because a woman is a woman and a man is a man — that’s it.”
The thing about bigoted statements is you have to take it back, not just feel bad that you said it
The other thing about them is you can’t really take them back; you’ve revealed yourself. As a queer-positive person, why would I support him when there are so many other artists I could support who don’t have bigoted beliefs?
Just keep your hate to yourself. It does no good to put it out into the world.
Well, sometimes people can make statements because they don’t understand. They can realize they were an asshole and change their mind about things. This may or may not be the case. Anyway, I think it’s a good thing that he didn’t double down.
True. Like there’s room to learn and change and be forgiven. But the bad doesn’t disappear.
Also like seriously it’s a weird time and situation for people like him to come out as publicly transphobic. Like Chappelle fell into it in the way many comedians do, an out of touch old person learning that classic punching bags are now comfortable calling people out. But like if you’d asked me what an old rock star thought of trans people I probably would’ve responded with “not good”. Like I bet his views on lots of things are iffy at best. And like I definitely wasn’t assuming he had any interaction with trans people beyond looking for drugs and prostitutes, given him being an old rock star.
You really apply some kind of ideology test when choosing which artist’s work to enjoy?
EDIT: Perhaps this hinges on what you mean by “support”
I’m not obligated to patronize businesses or artists who promote things I object to.
No one is obligated to patronize any business or artist (generally speaking). Obligation isn’t the issue. But it sounds like, yes, you choose not support/patronize artists who have certain opinions you disapprove of.
I’ve seen this sentiment floating around the Internet sometimes, and it always strikes me as very limiting.