Following a controversy from 2017, Cardi B is once again taking heat for perceived slights against the LGBTQ community. This time, the debate stems from a video she posted to Periscope on Saturday defending Migos rapper Offset, to whom she became engaged last year. After garnering criticism from fans for using homophobic language, Offset recently apologized for his verse on YFN Lucci’s “Boss Life,” which included the line “I don’t vibe with queers.”
In the video, Cardi says, “You know, there’s bad words that your parents teach you that you’re not supposed to say,” Cardi says. “Nobody taught us that. Nobody taught us that in our school.” Watch the whole video below:
In response, some fans dismissed her claims of Offset’s ignorance.
Last week, Offset posted a screenshot of the primary dictionary definition of queer (“strange; odd”) to Instagram, claiming not to know about the word’s other use as a widely known and derogatory slur for LGBTQ individuals. “I don’t mean someone who’s gay,” he writes. “I mean lame people who film you, post it, and stalk you.” Though the rapper says he’s developed friendships and working relationships with queer people in the fashion world, the matter is complicated by the fact that last year, Migos were rumored to have declined to appear on stage with drag queens for a performance with Katy Perry on SNL.
In her video, Cardi — who alludes to the fact that the couple are currently estranged — repeats her partner’s claim that he was unaware of all of the word’s connotations. She pins the gaffe on a faulty education system. “I haven’t even been talking to this guy like that, and that’s just personal problems. But I’m not going to let someone call him homophobic because he’s not…He literally told me ‘I didn’t know that was a word for gays.’” In the aftermath of the very public revelation that Offset allegedly cheated on Cardi, not all fans were convinced that she should be held accountable for his actions.
Cardi likens the firestorm of criticism towards Offset to the outrage over a notorious video she posted last year, in which the rapper claims she would trick her man into sleeping with a trans woman if she caught him cheating on her. The implication that this would be a punishment, coupled with her repeated use of the word “tranny,” raised questions in many fans’ minds of whether the “Bodak Yellow” rapper was transphobic.
In this latest video, Cardi again insists that this is not the case, calling for the LGBTQ community to prioritize educating those who make ignorant statements rather than stigmatizing them. “So because I used a word that I didn’t know that you’re not supposed to say, you’re going to label me something? Why don’t you educate me and say ‘Hey, you’re not supposed to use that word?’” Not everyone was dismissive of Cardi’s call to use incidents like these as teachable moments.
https://twitter.com/raeyeeezzyy/status/955462882312912897
https://twitter.com/NonHispanicJuan/status/895722069081673728
Cardi also asserts, using “tranny” as an example, that some words are not universally considered to be slurs. “Trans people use it and let’s not front like they don’t,” she says. Cardi ends the video by dismissing any further rejection of her viewpoint. “I know that I’m making a perfect point.”
[H/T Billboard]