“Bernie Sanders” and “anti-gay rap” aren’t really terms one expects to see together, but that was the story that has been circulating this weekend. After Sanders’ campaign denied it, though, the creator of the video came forward to admit that he had edited the video, adding the DMX song himself.
On Thursday, a rally in support of Sanders was held in Lancaster, California. Several videos purporting to be from the event surfaced online. According to The New Civil Rights Movement , one of these came from a Twitter account by the name of @edwinprime. As of this writing, that account is either temporarily disabled or permanently deleted.
That video is described as depicting Sanders entering the rally to background music of DMX’s song, “Where The Hood At.” That song’s lyrics incude anti-gay slurs, and a line suggesting that rather than “show love” to [anti-gay slur] people, the rapper would, “…empty out, reload and throw more slugs.”
The song also includes anti-transgender sentiments, referring to individuals who, “…think they broads.”
Because of the slurs and profanity, the full lyrics won’t be reproduced in this article, but AZ Lyrics has them (not work or child safe, in case that’s not clear) here if you want to judge for yourself.
However, when Sanders’ campaign was contacted, they issued a statement denying that an anti-gay song had been played at the rally.
A press secretary for the campaign also tweeted a denial.
Never thought I’d have to say this, but no @BernieSanders did not walk out to a #DMX song in Lancaster earlier this week.
— Symone D. Sanders (@SymoneDSanders) May 28, 2016
According to LGBTQ Nation , Edwin Acuna, the owner of the now-defunct Twitter account mentioned above, confessed to editing the video, “as a goof” and then circulating it as a “social experiment.”
“To those Hilary supporters, I hope you feel at a loss for words and I say that with all due respect, I respect your stance but I’d like to ask you how it feels to believe you almost had a 1up on Bernie and a reason to shame him only to come up short?”
Acuna’s statement further scolds those who passed the video on for “blindly believing everything you see on the internet.”
In an interesting quirk of timing, the controversy was sandwiched between two of Senator Sanders’ recent tweets in favor of transgender rights, which stack on top of his record of being supportive of LGBT rights in general — the record that led his followers to be suspicious when allegations of anti-gay sentiment were lobbed at the candidate.
No matter what school you go to or where you live, transgender students must be protected from discrimination. It’s about basic equality.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 19, 2016
The attacks against transgender people are part of a bigotry which has got to end.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 28, 2016
Though Acuna is depicted as a supporter of Sanders, who by his own description, was trolling Clinton supporters, it’s difficult to affirm that with his Twitter account deleted. It’s also impossible to verify whether he deleted the account himself, either due to harassment or for any other reason, or whether Twitter booted him due to complaints from other users.
AmericaBlog located other videos from various sources, all purporting to be from the same rally, and with varying sound backgrounds — different music, or even silence. The author does posit that some footage may be from different rallies, since Bernie held a few in California this week.
However, it appears that the original from Lancaster had no music. A video uploaded to Bernie’s own YouTube channel shows him entering to nothing but applause and cheers, and, presumably in the interest of proving that it is from the correct event, it goes far enough to allow the viewer to hear Sanders greet the crowd.
“Thank you all. Lancaster, thank you!”
Before the denial was issued, DMX responded to Billboard regarding the video, neither confirming nor denying that he supported the candidate or the Democratic party, merely saying the following.
“When God shows up, he shows out.
“The debate on social media now is whether Bernie Sanders anti-gay controversy, however brief and false, lost any support for him, or whether his supporters were too confident in their candidate to believe the narrative.”
[Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]