Punk is a ghetto . . .
(This is my final project for a mini-course I took on environmental justice. It is primarily in response to Peter Young/Evasion, Endgame, Crimethinc anarchy and my own experience with punk communities. It's an emotional response in the form of an essay-poem, so each example hasn't been totally thought out and analyzed.)
Punk is a ghetto . . .
Racing down suburban roads at dusk and daylight, our two-wheels trail behind soccer mom station wagons and convertibles filled with Armani Exchange clad teenagers. We brag about gears and recycled parts rather than gas mileage, our bike grease fingers gripping dumpstered onion bagels. Our clothes are Goodwill and Really Really Free Market, but we wear them as if they were Chanel- every rip and discoloration essential. Carefully cultivated stench leaps out of the fabric, a nod to ABC No Rio or the punk house next door. In cities, we cram into nice buildings in impoverished neighborhoods, relishing the “ethnic” vegan food and the all-ages liquor store around the corner. In the country, we grow gardens- raising carrots, strawberry and basil untouched by Monsanto and migrant labor. Sometimes we march down the streets in black bandannas and serve reclaimed food in local parks. Occasionally, we even smash a corporate window or free a couple dozen fur-farmed minks-but only occasionally, in case our parents find out and cut us off.
Too often, what we relish most is the blood on our dollar-store bandannas. Espousing politics with the hobos who populate the intersection of 10th and A; race, class and gender become divided and divisive. Knowing we are fiercer and more beautiful than the girl with ironed hair and a knock-off handbag, we never stop to ask who taught her to carry those things. We already know, and the answer is passed among us like the best places to dumpster dive and news of the latest ELF actions. The culture is insane, and we guard our sanity in basement venues and abandoned buildings- “anarchy” and “dismantle the patriarchy” serving as passwords. When the apocalypse comes, at least WE will be left, skillfully picking through the trash of bombed out inner cities. Upper-middle class folk punk refrains on antiquated guitars will usher in the new anarchist reality. In solidarity we will build rubble statues of Derrick Jensen over the boneyards of asthmatic welfare children.
. . .Revolutionize your world, not your scene.