racism in indie music

[louie_ludwig]

this is from 2 months ago, fyi, but i hadn't seen it...

if you have a minute for interweb fighting, and especially if you're an anti-racist who travels in indie rock scenes - take a minute to weigh in on the below. hey, at least you don't have to watch a team gina video.

Gravy Train!!! Calls out the Black Lips and gets bashed by Atlanta indie

Comments

[jac_gorodetzky]

the golf course killed me! i also loved "antithesis of racist".

[louie_ludwig]

YA KNOW??? i've been wondering what the antithesis of a racist was for SO LONG.

[louie_ludwig]

oh, so i take it yr NOT mad that i commented on behalf of the band then. ha. good. phew! and here i thought maybe you'd be taking jared's side. i mean, after all, he was just tryin' to blow off some steam after the show, dude.

[ariellabella]

dude what really blows my mind is how if people, instead of being all I AM NOT A RACIST, were like "hmm, clearly you are saying i was fucked up. maybe i should learn from that."

we have somehow made being a racist the most horrible thing you can be, this antithesis of a good human being. with white imperalism the way it is, it isn't anything more than a statement of fact: i am racist. so is everyone else. if it was less like "YOU ARE A CHILD OF SATAN" and more like "you are an asshole" or "stop being such a jerk" i feel like people would get so much more done in terms of learning to deconstruct and resist our own racist upbringings. i don't react like this when people correct my behavior in other ways. somehow being a racist has become this huge insult, instead of just truth. not that it isn't a problem...but it's not that revolutionary or surprising a problem.

[louie_ludwig]

well. i hear what yr saying, and of course have experienced the horror of "oh my fucking g-d i hadn't realized this fucked up way i was thinking" in myself and others. while i agree that we should not see allegations of racism as "insult" so much as important and expected critique/call-out, i also think that sometimes white people use the "we're all racist so it's NBD" line as a way to opt out of processing guilt, and/or other, legitimately BAD feelings - that are appropriate to have about our oppressive thought patterns. it's not about self-flagellation, but i'm sure you'd agree that some kind of BAD FEELINGS are involved in any growth process of this kind. teshuvah might be a good parallel.

[louie_ludwig]

but also -- i think a lot of the people in question in this story -- white hipster "successful" ironic indie kids - don't give a rat's ass about racism, and so adopting the "everyone's racist so this is NBD" line would be particularly awful! they're largely in a place where racism and anti-racism exist in some fantastically boring and uncool Past, and their irony and coolness hinges on pretending to exist in a post-racism world, where race/historical signifiers/etc. are just irony-fodder.

[ariellabella]

"they're largely in a place where racism and anti-racism exist in some fantastically boring and uncool Past, and their irony and coolness hinges on pretending to exist in a post-racism world, where race/historical signifiers/etc. are just irony-fodder."

exactly. thanks for posting this article.

from tara.