Your initial response read: "If a white singer had an unreleased song from 25 years ago and on it they were saying all kinds of racist stuff and using the N word..."

So you did reference the time period of said hypothetical song.


>song. If your problem with the analogy is that in 1991 people
>weren't fully aware of homophobic bigotry, then imagine the
>hypothetical racist song to be from a time when racist bigotry
>was more mainstream. Take a Frank Sinatra or Johnny Cash and
>let's say they did a blatantly racist song in the 50's that
>was uncovered 25 years later in the late 70's. Would it be
>appropriate for their black fans in the 70's to have wanted an
>apology?
>
>Again, in my original post I wasn't getting into the specifics
>of every situation - I was just saying that Tribe was wrong
>for that song and that it's reasonable for an LGBT fan to want
>some kind of an apology. I also think that it's pretty tone
>deaf for people in this post who are straight to be dictating
>how a gay person should feel after hearing the song.

Word. I never said that they shouldn't apologize. But there's some nuance to that as well:

Unless prompted, why would Tribe open up that can of worms ? Seems kind of unnecessary. Were the group members to be ASKED about it by an interviewer or something, and ignore or inappropriately answer the question, that'd be one thing. But to expect the group to just randomly dig up a hardly-known 25 year old song and self-snitch and apologize seems like kind of a ridiculous request for anyone to make, gay community or not.

But with all that said --- I do think that this should be brought to their attention, that way they will be kind of forced to answer to it and hopefully that will put everyone's minds at ease.

In other words, I don't think it's ridiculous for members of the gay community who are aware of this song to want some sort of acknowledgement from the group about it. But I think, like someone mentioned earlier in the post, that it will need to be brought to their attention by some people for that to happen. Can't expect them to hang themselves.


Lastly, I agree that it's tone deaf for people to tell people how they should feel in response to hearing a song but I *don't* think it's overstepping any boundaries to expect that someone wouldn't say they will "piss on Phife's grave" in response to something like that. That type of comment deserves just as much vitriol as the song.