Brace yourself, because this article is about to go in one direction you may have thought I would never head. I am going to defend a rich white man!
The Guardian says Harry Styles is a middle-class white man with a nice face and an enormous bank account. “People like him” are not usually considered an oppressed minority. And yet the 29-year-old pop star has been widely accused of claiming to be a member of an underclass during the Grammy awards on Sunday night. “This doesn’t happen to people like me very often,” Styles said as he scooped up best pop vocal album and album of the year. Cue confusion and uproar as people pointed out that white men win awards rather often. Meanwhile, a black woman hasn’t won album of the year since Lauryn Hill in 1999.
Styles’ wording was clumsy and embarrassingly tone-deaf. I can see why it upset people. But vitriol towards him is misplaced: it seems to me that he is just a nice, slightly dim guy who can’t quite believe his good fortune and who has run out of things to say at award shows. Why vilify him for that?
