http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/44446-interview-bad-brains
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Daryl Jenifer: So [how] I'm gonna get back on the racial thing was I noticed that if a lot of rock bands or white bands do shit that's awkward or weird or the fans don't like, they take it as lore. When the Bad Brains do some shit, some motherfucker is like, "Aw, them n-words, man. See how they do" and shit.
Pitchfork: Have you heard people say that?
Daryl Jenifer: I feel it. You can see it in the book they wrote about how that whole hate-Bad-Brains shit started with MDC and Big Boys, way back in the 80s. People don't realize that band, MDC, was short of us having to put a protection order against them, that's how up our asses they were. Not literally, you know, figuratively speaking. Like we had fans and bands that like us and dig our style, but this particular band, MDC, was awkwardly stuck on wanting to sound like us, hang around us or whatever.
I'm trying to paint you a picture of how the hate-the-Bad-Brains shit can be racial, and there's a few stories that are significant, that speak to that. One is, if you read the first book about American hardcore or whatever, the only thing that's really brought up in there is this particular story where we were in Texas, staying at this band's house called the Big Boys, and the Big Boys happened to be gay. Now we were budding Rastafarians, trying to find our way, some black kids from Washington, D.C. trying to seek out ourselves, spiritually. But we were young; we were all in our twenties. So here's what's happening now: We get out there in Texas and the Big Boys, they're thinking, in a frat boy-ish sort of way, that that's funny, like, "Let's tease them or do something to see what type of reactions we could get out of it because they're probably homophobic, because if they're into some Christian-based faith then that's probably what their doctrine is."
All right, now we're talking about some deep shit. Now the one thing you gotta know-- because people have been calling us homophobic and shit like that, but people are not realizing what I just described to you: That's when we were young. People have to understand and grow and be and live. But now I'm going to take the story back. So we're some young Rastas, man, we just know one thing: what Jah tells us. But then you got these frat boy-ish gay dudes who thinks that's cute, they don't have a sense of respect, for whatever reason. They think that's cute. So they do shit, provocative shit, around us to try and get a reaction from us, and the reaction they got from us is that I asked them could they give me a bag of weed, $40 bag of weed, right? And they went and got the weed and then HR got into a confrontation with one of the dudes from the Big Boys [who] tried to rub up on him or something, and [HR] said, "Fire burn, Jah says the way you're living, the lifestyle is not right. You have to circumcise your heart and your soul and your spirit, get yourself right." But you gotta understand this is a young dude that's like anybody overzealous about anything, you know what I mean? It doesn't have to necessarily be religion, but it's all about a rock band staying at somebody's house.
Now, we took the weed, left, and said, "That's the way y'all treated us out here, we're out. Gone. We're the Bad Brains." Now that turns into "These n-words roll into town, steal our weed, call us fags, with a Bible in their hand, and they're homophobes and criminals." This is the description of a band that's always started all-youth movements in D.C., playing the hood, like the Clash, always saying, "We come to unite black and white," always singing about peace and positivity. Our whole existence is based on peace, love, and positivity, even before we discovered Rastafarianism. And now you got one incident in our struggle within ourselves and the struggle within the band's self that stuck with us. I'm telling you: This is all simple, stupid shit, and that to me is racist, because if the Dead Kennedys would have came and done the same thing, that shit would not have stuck on and stigmatized them. If Black Flag would have came through there and called them dudes fags and took their weed, Mugger or somebody, that shit would not stigmatize them as homophobes and carry on throughout their careers.
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Comic strip about Bad Brains homophobia [last panel of strip is an in-joke for folks familiar w/ covers of Bad Brains releases]:
http://www.mitchclem.com/nothingnice/358/