Things to read 1:
Mimi Nguyen reviews James Spooner's documentary Afro-Punk: The "Rock and Roll Nigger" Experience at Worse Than Queer. Here's a big sample just in case you're a lazy sod and don't follow these links:
Biracial Mariko Jones insists she is glad her friends tell her, "You don't act like a black person, you don't act like an Asian person. You're just Mariko." Because no one has ever called her "nigger" or barred her from a show, she doesn't seem to believe that race or racism has an impact on her interactions in punk, and says, a bit reproachfully, "I feel like the ones complaining are the ones who aren't doing anything." But her sentiments are contradicted in a series of cuts to interviews that powerfully (in both quality and quantity) argue otherwise. A young woman outside a club notes, "A lot of white people put black people in categories, like the safe black person." Laughing, she continues, "A lot of people mistake me for that safe black person." As one subject notes, while punk rock answered for a part of his alienation, it highlighted another aspect -- being black in a white-dominated scene. The interviewees testify to the range of racisms reinforcing punk rock silence about race. Many mentioned former friends who believed that every other black person except him or her qualified as a "nigger." With palpable disgust, another targets the color-blindness of righteous punk rockers, "anarchists [who tell me] their politics transcend race and gender." And Chicagoan Rachel sums up this frustration with punk rock's racial politics: "People are not trying to have a dialogue with you, but they do want to tokenize you. People want a multicultural vision of punk rock, and they want to showcase you, 'Look at all the Negros!' But at the same time they don't want to deal with you as a person who experiences race."
On a shallower note, be sure to check out Worse Than Queer's snazzy new electro-pop design aesthetic while you're at it...
Mimi Nguyen reviews James Spooner's documentary Afro-Punk: The "Rock and Roll Nigger" Experience at Worse Than Queer. Here's a big sample just in case you're a lazy sod and don't follow these links:
Biracial Mariko Jones insists she is glad her friends tell her, "You don't act like a black person, you don't act like an Asian person. You're just Mariko." Because no one has ever called her "nigger" or barred her from a show, she doesn't seem to believe that race or racism has an impact on her interactions in punk, and says, a bit reproachfully, "I feel like the ones complaining are the ones who aren't doing anything." But her sentiments are contradicted in a series of cuts to interviews that powerfully (in both quality and quantity) argue otherwise. A young woman outside a club notes, "A lot of white people put black people in categories, like the safe black person." Laughing, she continues, "A lot of people mistake me for that safe black person." As one subject notes, while punk rock answered for a part of his alienation, it highlighted another aspect -- being black in a white-dominated scene. The interviewees testify to the range of racisms reinforcing punk rock silence about race. Many mentioned former friends who believed that every other black person except him or her qualified as a "nigger." With palpable disgust, another targets the color-blindness of righteous punk rockers, "anarchists [who tell me] their politics transcend race and gender." And Chicagoan Rachel sums up this frustration with punk rock's racial politics: "People are not trying to have a dialogue with you, but they do want to tokenize you. People want a multicultural vision of punk rock, and they want to showcase you, 'Look at all the Negros!' But at the same time they don't want to deal with you as a person who experiences race."
On a shallower note, be sure to check out Worse Than Queer's snazzy new electro-pop design aesthetic while you're at it...
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