Jann Wenner is having a pretty terrible week, and for good reason.
Wenner was removed from the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame board of directors due to some pretty racist and sexist comments made during an interview with The New York Times over his new book The Masters. When asked why he didn't interview any women or black musicians for a book about the history rock, he said "Insofar as the women, none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level."
He later added: "I suppose when you use a word as broad as 'masters," the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn't articulate at that level."
Wenner was blasted by Living Colour, who said that the "very idea of a book called The Masters, which blatantly omits the essential contributions of black, people of color and women to Rock & Pop Culture speaks to a much larger and more systemic problem." The band said later added that Wenner's comments smacked of "sexist gatekeeping, and exclusionary behavior" and called out the guy's half-assed apology.
Now Ted Nugent has chimed in and even he thinks that Wenner went too far. Which is frankly amazing – Nugent has had a questionable history when it comes to racism, so clearly Wenner screwed up pretty bad.
"Jann Wenner righteously and wonderfully created Rolling Stone magazine to celebrate the artists that have never been given credit except by me and us here at 'Nightly Nuge' on My Real America's Voice that the music that touches our soul came from black heroes who had more soul because they had to get out of the curse of slavery and celebrate freedom musically," said Nugent in a YouTube video.
"[Wenner was removed] because of racist and and misogynistic attacks that said that black and female artists are not articulate enough to reference in his book about rock and roll history, which is so clearly biased and so clearly racist and so clearly misogynistic. And those are the things that he has always accused me of…"
So there you have it. We agreed with Ted Nugent for once.
