Identity and power
-
While listening to the song, I found myself entertaining the thought of applying two different definitions for Ghora that I am familiar with, both "horse" and "white people" primarily because in my head both images made sense because of the presence of the gun. I was lowkey getting confused, cause my knowledge of Hindi isn't that good. So in this discussion, I will be talking about the song through both ways I imagined it in my head. To answer your specific question I have no idea. There is the glorification of gun usage, especially with the naming of different weapons throughout, but only to some degree. In the music video, they don't have real guns like many rap music videos, instead, they use their hands (pew pew/clack clack). They also explain near the end of the song "I don't shoot guns don't get it twisted kid, it's a metaphor meaning all the rhymes I spit". Here the constant reminder that they got a revolver among white people or (on a horse) to me is more of a prop to symbolize power and aggression than an actual weapon to hurt people, especially because they direct this to a listener who's a kid. Essentially, letting them know that they don't really mean that they're aggressive, and to not follow the literal violent footsteps but actually are showing their strength with their lyrics and voices.
Homonationalism here is described as the intersection of LGBTQ+ rights and the state's expectations of normativity, but also how it can be used against South Asians to be oppressive and enact superiority upon which leads to non-straight people hiding the visibility of their different identities. For example, a Pakistani queer man shared "My sexuality has taken a back seat to my ethnicity" (p.173). Their bodies were showing more imaginary "terrorist" or resistance to assimilation vibes than anything else.
I think she uses the words "monster-terrorist-fag" to show that the public, in this case, Americans view the other as a mix mash of everything that is wrong, (non-heterogenous, living by racialized terrorism, the unexplainables in general). South Asian bodies with religious symbols/extensions on people's bodies, act as a threat to national norms rendering them to more impacts of violence and exclusion.
Cultural blackness" is not about racial identity in the biological sense but about the adoption and adaptation of cultural practices and symbols traditionally associated with African American life, demonstrating how cultural identities can be fluid and adaptive in the context of migration and diaspora in the U.S. This reading reminded me when I was younger, my suto mama (youngest uncle on my mother's side), had a Micheal Jordan figurine in his room. I never questioned why he had it, I used it to play with as if I was playing with dolls. If I look back, it makes sense with the area that he was living with and the socio-economic status my family was living in. It was the most accessible sport at that time, and a huge part of the neighborhood was black people (near George Vanier metro). I am pondering how he related to the figurine, and what it meant to him. How much of his intrigue with Micheal Jordan was because of his interest, and how much of it was because he was creating an identity for himself in a space that maybe would not fully understand South Asian identities?