Frank Ocean's Letter

Frank Ocean is a swooning, singer songwriter who is part of the controversial California group Odd Future. About two summers ago, in July 2012, he released to the world in a subtle and heartfelt letter that during the summer that he was 19, then being 23, he had engaged in a love affair with another man. Frank never explicitely said he was gay nor did he label himself with any kind of term insisting on such. The way in which he described his relationship itself, paralleled any other one. The love story was written the same way it would have been, had his love interest been a woman. I think Frank's goal in doing so was to show how normal homosexuality is, but also that in essence it was just as "natural" as the relationship between his mother and father. Here is an excerpt from it ....

"4 Summers ago, I met somebody. I was 19 years old. He was too. We spent that summer, and the summer after, together. Everyday almost. And on the days we were together, time would glide. Most of the day I'd see him, and his' smile. I'd hear his conversation and his silence.....until it was time to sleep."

I find it interesting that automatically after releasing this statement, newspapers read verbatum, "Frank Ocean's Coming Out Letter". It shows that despite the one encounter that Ocean had with a member of the same-sex, he was already deemed to be gay. This related to my last blog where I discussed the problem that people have when understanding that sexuality is fluid and that it runs on a spectrum and that labelization of individuals, such as gay, lesbian, and transgendered can actually work to diminish the importance of such a profound event. Many would argue that Frank Ocean's letter is quite revolutionary, especially within the context of hip hop. The media has already assigned a sexuality to Ocean, although *logically speaking*, he did not really come out. So what is the fixation then on this celebratory attitude that the hip hop media is trying to concur. There is much of a self-congratulations being given to black celebs that are publicly coming out and supporting ocean, so it leads me to question who is the attention being given on? Who's voice is actually important hear, and who's opinion matters the most? this same kind of dynamic, that being detracting the attention away from the unfamiliar, such as homosexuality, to something familiar like non-gay celebrities. This same situation can be found within the topic of Affirmative Action, which is actually supposed to somehow compensate for the long-lasting impacts of slavery and Jim Crowe, marginilization and racism of blacks for the past 300 years. Instead it has become a marketing tool to create an aesthetically pleasing campus for white students. Diversity is set up within the interests of whites, to teach them about people of color's uniqueness, essentially a prop for them to expand their thoughts on the world. Yet, within both structures it still reenforces the binary of you & "the other" (non-white, non-hetero). Although Frank Ocean's courage should not be undermined, it may take longer for the world of hip-hop to truely understand him.