The Only Black Chick in the Mosh Pit
At a stoplight on a northbound number six bus, the driver–a 30ish African-American man–leaned back:
“Watchu listening to?”
I spared a glance out the window at people along Michigan Avenue enjoying a sunny, Sunday afternoon, self-consciously touched my ear buds and told the truth:
“Eric Clapton.”
“Eric Clapton!” The bus driver crowed, bemused. Snort. “Haven’t you ever heard of [insert laundry list of appropriately black musicians and music here]?”
I love music and every memory in my life has its own eclectic mix tape. My life score features genres from American roots music to zydeco, but it is a little more White Stripes than Barry White. Two things I know to be true: A whining, sinuous guitar will make me tingle like Chris Matthews’ leg. And, as a black woman, I’ll inevitably get shit for my shivers.
Music journalist and race blogger Laina Dawes understands. In her soon-to-be-released book, What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal, Dawes “questions herself, her headbanging heroes, and dozens of black punk, metal, and hard rock fans to answer the knee-jerk question she’s heard a hundred times in the small clubs where her favorite bands play.”
So, You Think You’re White?
White acts have long mined the work of black performers for inspiration. And hip-hop’s juggernaut status has even more to do with suburban, white kids than inner-city black ones. Dawes points out that white music lovers could always “head to Harlem or over to the local juke joint” to enjoy music traditionally created and performed by African-Americans. Meanwhile, black folks crossing the racial divide, embracing music forms traditionally seen as white (even those that owe their existence to black music), remains taboo — and not just due to pressure from outside of the black community.
I can’t count the number of times over the years that my musical tastes have caused my black card to be pulled. And I don’t even get down with hardcore rock. Dawes says the push back that rock-loving blacks get from within the African-American community can be attributed to the “fragility and history of black cultural identity.” It is hard to be black, even in these allegedly post-racial times, and Dawes notes that there is a lot of resentment toward African-Americans who appear to be rejecting their race and culture, and distancing themselves from the community, in favor of an easier route — even if that “easy route” is just loving the same music as white folks do.
In her book, Dawes shares the story of Pisso, a black female fan of the punk subgenre, Oi!. In Berlin after college, Pisso joined the skinhead scene — an involvement that is not, by the way, synonymous with white power or Nazism. But her family found her musical choices at odds with her West Indian heritage, as well as other norms of race, gender, and sexuality.
“A big part of West Indian culture is to present yourself in a nice way: always clean, nice clothes. When I switched from punk to being a skinhead, my mom definitely noticed when I shaved my head. I had gone over to a friend’s house and to do it, and when I got home, she freaked out. She was very upset, like I had shaved her hair. She was also worried for years that I might be a lesbian. I was really tomboyish, wearing boys’ clothes and playing sports, so [my] cutting off my hair probably just cemented all of those fears she had.
“With my dad, it was definitely more of a problem,” she adds. “He actually stopped talking to me from the time I was fifteen until I was like, 20-something. He eventually told me that he didn’t like that I was into that ‘punk stuff.’”
Race matters add complication to what should be joyous. In What Are You Doing Here?, Mashadi Matabane of Emory University, who is writing a cultural history of black women electric guitarists in U.S. popular music and maintains the blog Steely Dames, says:
“When I was a kid I loved New Kids on the Block. Everybody had something to say about it—my grandfather, my mother, the kids at school—all of them were always clear that I was not the right kind of black girl. No matter what I did, it wasn’t enough. That parochial blackness is as dangerous as hell … It steals your joy.
“It’s something that infects our minds and our decision-making process, because it forces you to always think, ‘What are they thinking about me now?’ If someone asks you a question, like, ‘What kind of music are you writing about?’ or ‘What concert you are going to?’ before you even answer you are processing the expected response — ‘What are people going to say?’
“You have practiced the response, practiced talking about it to beat them to the punch. It’s this extra layer that hovers over us and has the potential to cut off what it really means to be black.”
What are you doing here?
Make no mistake. It is not just the African-American community that is uncomfortable with black people embracing alternative music genres. Said one interviewee, “I once dated a white guy who grew up in a black neighborhood and was trying to be ‘down,’ and he yelled at me for listening to Led Zeppelin: ‘Don’t you listen to any black music? Why do you listen to that white music for?’ — the funniest thing I ever heard.”
Live shows are a crucial part of the metal scene, and many black metalheads avoid concerts, for both their peace of mind and safety. Dawes says that reception by mostly white music fans depends on the band, the venue, and the city. “People may not give you a second look or they may say not very nice things to make you feel uncomfortable. I wouldn’t go to a metal show in Boston, but Chicago has a great scene. There are a lot of black women into metal in Chicago.”
More millennial black, female fans of punk, metal, and hard rock — a generation with greater access to multiracial groups of friends — are recognizing their right to enjoy the music they love, in the spaces where it is played. But too many still feel the need to keep the rock love on the low, just as they did 30 years ago. Dawes says, “I spoke to a lot of black kids who said, ‘Yeah, I’m really into metal, but don’t tell anybody. I can’t be interviewed and I don’t go to shows, because I’m afraid of being beaten up.
“There is still the fear of rejection.”
Black metal and punk performers also often lack support within the music industry – in black spaces and white. Dawes tells the story of a black hardcore band who grabbed the interest of a record label, until the group showed up for a meeting and was decidedly browner that their demo led execs to believe. They were sent home.
“We just can’t market you.”
So, why bother?
All music lovers gravitate toward sound that moves both their asses and their souls. Rock speaks to Dawes and the women interviewed in her book (including Skin of Skunk Anansie — see video above). Some of these women, many of whom are members of the hip-hop and MTV generations, also enjoy traditionally black forms of music, but there is something special to them about metal, punk, and hard rock — something liberating that speaks directly to their womanhood and blackness, and the oppressions inherent in both. Says Dawes, “The live show is such a fantastic place to feel alive, to express your anger and to feel all those things that black women are asked to repress. We aren’t supposed to be angry and loud or aggressive. [Hardcore] rock shows are where I feel free to release my frustration.”
When the author was younger, she says, she missed sharing this release with her black, female friends, who were disinterested in her favored genres. She wrote What Are You Doing Here?, in part, to find other women who understand this feeling, to lend support to the lone black rock chicks and provide them an opportunity to roar.
“I wanted people to know that these musical genres are diverse. There should be no gender and color barriers to music.”
Many black, female fans find liberation from racialized and gendered stereotypes in the raging, screeching, and grinding of hardcore music and spaces.
“Society allows white guys to utilize this music to get their aggressions out, act like He-Man and go crazy. The same benefits they get out of the music, black women not only get, but need even more. Black women need spaces in society where we can be free and express our individuality and be who we want to be.”
First off..love EricClapton…”Old Love” is the business…Erykah Badu used the tune for “Tyrone”…..I have been to several concerts where I was the only Black person along with a friend and I am completely comfortable with it….Alanis Morisette at the Tabernacle next ;)
Alanis! I am jealous! I love her acoustic redo of Jagged Little Pill. It stays in heavy rotation on my iPhone.
Yes!! I have been waiting since I was 16 to see her!!! Too excited!
Oh the acting black crew and the race inclusion board are always funny. I think she hit the nail on the head about how black people feel you are rejecting blackness or trying to take the easy way out by acting white or doing things white people do. This is why “acting white” is supposed to be such an insult. People see you as trying to do things that white people do not because you could possibly just enjoy hard rock, opera, skateboarding, or Shakespeare or something but because you want to be accepted by white people, move into their circle, and drop your blackness like how some successful black people do.
I listened to pop music when I was younger. No one cared really. I think a lot of black girls were listening to NSync and Britney Spears and people like them. I think genres like rock and classical music are seen as white more than pop. It’s funny because black folks contributed greatly to rock n roll but some black folks will look at you sideways for enjoying The Beatles who were influenced by black entertainers.
Usually I don’t really care what the acting black crew thinks is black enough. They are pretty close minded. If I try to listen to music outside of hip hop, R&B, should, or reggae, I’m acting white. If I want to learn ballroom dancing or ballet, I’m acting white.even iIf I try to learn about other non-white cultures or do yoga or listen to K-pop, I’m also acting white. Why is it that white folks listen to Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley, Whitney Houston, Kanye West, Beyonce and other black artists, but folks black and white get upset or shocked when black people try to take in other folks’ music or culture? Those white people that listen to hip hop aren’t acting black, and we aren’t acting white.
I’m sort of on the fence with this article, it’s IMO the classic African American that has eclectic taste in all things pop culture yet some how believes themselves an intraculturl oddity. I find this perspective disheartening as it paints our folks as a monolith with limited thought processes et al…pcs
Thanks for your comment, ivorp.
Black folks are not a monolith. I agree. But I think that we can’t deny the experiences of some black people, simply so we can present a diverse picture of blackness to the world.
Do I know a lot of other black women with eclectic music tastes? You bet! I am obsessed with that game, Song Pop (it’s kinda like Name That Tune), and I get my butt kicked in the rock categories by other black women on the regular. But did a lot of those black women grow up getting demeaned for their interests? Yes, to that, too. And is that still happening somewhere to some black kid? Unfortunately, yes.
I think all of these things can be true at once. And I think it’s okay to talk about it. Whenever topics like these come up, I sense some people’s defensive exasperation. (Not you, just sayin…) “Ugh, are we gonna have to talk about how you got told you ‘act white’ again?” But the reality is, a lot of black women were told that and were beaten down by that and we should discuss it as a community.
I am pleasantly surprised by your reply to my post. And your point is duly noted, however wouldn’t you agree that our folk, infact most of the world is inundated with alternative-genres/imagery via TV,the www, cinema etc? In in that respect our tastes invariably become eclectic so much so that we often neglect and embrace the beauty, history and cultural significance of what we contribute to the world? I have young children in my family who while they attend diverse school systems they’ve adopted this same train of thought when I find it a non issue…thanks for the thought provoking discourse and your well written piece! pcs
You’d be surprised how close minded some individuals can be, in spite of us living in such a “progressive,” age. In fact, my friend’s son who lives on the West Side of Chicago, came to me and whispered “Can I get some of the songs on your mp3 player? I really want that Foo Fighters song.” He was all quiet about it because he told me his family and friends had been harassing him about “acting white.” He was tired of trying to explain why he enjoyed listening to different genres and feeling like he had to apologize for being “different.”
The truth is, this attitude is prevalent because hegemonic structures have always dictated what is for “us,” and “them.” And it’s not limited to race, it can be a mingling of different forms of discrimination including socio-economic status. For example, before 1950 or so, only “rich” people went on holiday in certain areas of the world, and only upper class people traveled to places to Malaysia or vacationed in Milan. Just recently Black athletes were often steered towards basketball, football and track, and it’s only now that we’re seeing Black faces in tennis and gymnastics.
Basically, this attitude was shaped and created by systems outside our communities that have been co-opted and perpetuated both outside and within those same communities. Studying these processes are important in breaking down barriers and destroying stereotypes. Sorry for the rant. :-)
Yeah, I like to think it’s getting better. In the book, Laina writes about how the internet and new media has opened up a lot of musical genres. Any kid can be exposed to and get access to any music. In theory, that should lessen some of the stigma associated to black kids listening to “white music.” Also, I think more kids have access to multiracial groups of friends.
But she noted she still found that young people felt they had to hide their interests from black friends and family, and also not take part in live shows because of reception from white people.
I can only speak from my experiences, but I would love to talk to girls and young women to hear what their experiences are today. You’d think it would be better.
I on the fame fence with this article. I think it’s definitely a valid perspective, however, the tone of these “I’m an eclectic unique black woman who does ‘non-black things’ and this makes me an anomaly” articles tend to come off as self-aggrandizing navel-gazing. It may because they often don’t seem to have a purpose other than to “big up” oneself- there’s no attempt to appeal to readers who stay within the ‘black box” or even show genuine support for those who don’t and feel alone.
And there are so many of them on Clutch since the rise of the “Awkward Black Girl.” I think it’s getting overwhelming.
Anywhoo, black people definitely listen to a variety of music- just look at the variety of songs sampled to make rap songs. Also, West Indian party playlists tend to have more diversity b/c when they listen to music from the States, it seems to be all bundled as “American music” and they’re spared the US racial hangups about “what white people do” versus “what black people do.” Her family’s reaction is probably less about the music she was listening to and more about not having a conservative appearance.
Pseudonym, I speak for myself and the other women I interviewed for the book: they are not “self-aggrandizing, navel-gazing” women. They are people who grew up having access to the same music and culture as their peers – some white, some not and chose to diversify their musical and cultural tastes. I think we should celebrate “Awkward Black Girl” and Quirky Black Girls because they show how diverse our experiences are.This book is focused on people involved in the extreme, underground musical scenes, scenes where there are very few people of colour, which makes their stories interesting and unique. But do they get off on it, and expect a cookie? Definitely not. Thanks for reading.
@ YB black culture is always homebase!
personally i love all sorts of music..except country… i mean i have maybe 4 country songs on my ipod but i just can’t get into it. i know people will judge me because of it.. but i like rap too.. the old kind.. but i also love dark rock music..i was into indie music once..and techno and electronica..i listened to alot of blues when i was having a rough time ,and billie holiday when i was having more rough time.. my musical taste is always evolving and with the world changing ipod i can have it all at once.. right now i’m on trip hop..very dark beats over a bit hip beats.. and nu-metal which is rock over hip hop beats..music is like therapy for me :-) .. i feel like those who judge any music that isn’t within their “culture” are close minded people stuck in their ways and not the kind of people i associate with.