Shotgun Seamstress MRR Columns

Follow Up to "Don't Punch Me"

2011-02-11T09:27:00.000-08:00

A couple of months ago I wrote a column about physical violence at underage punk shows in New Orleans. I had so many thoughts about what was going on and about how to address violence in our communities and promised to continue the discussion later because I couldn't fit it all into one column.

The feedback that I got from writing that column and others (like the one I wrote months before that about ironic bigotry for shock value) makes me realize that there are just so many different ways of relating to punk, and that my way of relating to it is a minority perspective, and I use the word minority recognizing all of its connotations.

I grew up going to shows in a town where if certain people in the audience were making it impossible for the rest of the audience to enjoy the show by being violent or otherwise intolerable, certain bands would stop playing and wait for the idiocy to die down before they started playing again. That is punk to me: Creating the kind of atmosphere you want to have around you. Realizing that you are in charge of your own experience.

The point of writing that column wasn't to slam a local band but to show how a community or scene can deal with conflict in a way that doesn't dismiss or vilify the accused party so that actual change can happen. I guess that was a naïve goal because even though I thought I dealt with the issue respectfully, the negative feedback I got was pretty similar to what I would've gotten if I had explicitly called them out as being fucked up misogynist pigs. Looking back at my own history of calling out and being called out, I always imagine that a more diplomatic approach would bring better results, but that doesn't seem to be the case, so ladies, feminists, people in the scene who wish to confront difficult issues in your communities, go ahead and do it and don't mince your words. It doesn't matter how you say it, you'll get a nasty, defensive response that evades accountability no matter what. Even so, it's still worth doing. Just be ready.

Thanks to the people who wrote me about the difficult situations they've encountered in their own communities—from being sexually harassed in front of your peers and not being supported, to thinking about how to call out a rapist who is well known and liked in your community. These are important struggles that seem to happen in the margins, issues that most people don't have to deal with.

Local scenes are important, but most, outside of major cities, are very small and limited in their scope. Even though I've lived in cities with pretty large scenes, I don't think I would've been able to survive socially in punk if I hadn't been able to get in touch with other brown punks and queer punks through writing, traveling and living in different cities over the years. I continue to write this column for the minority of kids who need this liberating tool that is punk rock but who might also potentially be alienated by the people who make up the majority of the subculture. I want to retain you. I don't want you to leave! We are each others' audience and your experiences validate mine. We can support each other, even from really far away.

Anyway, it's time to retreat for a while. It's finally cooled down in New Orleans. The days are short and the nights are long and that means I'm spending way more time inside writing songs, making plans for next year, talking on the phone to faraway friends, working on projects and listening to a shit ton of music. Listening to music is the number one way that I create my own ideal world for myself. Here is my winter listening top 10 in no particular order.

Trash Kit
Lydia Lunch – Queen of Siam
Fugazi - Repeater
Next Stop... Soweto: Township Sounds from the Golden Age of Mbaqanga
Neonates (tape)
Chin Chin – Sound of the Westway
Hans-a-plast – 2
Echo and the Bunnymen – Songs to Learn and Sing
Moss Icon – Lyburnum Wits End Liberation Fly
Mydolls – A World of Her Own

...and lots of old mixtapes!

Write me: shotgunseamstress@gmail.com

The Revolution Will Not Be Funded

2011-02-11T09:25:00.000-08:00

Five folks who put on all-ages punk shows around town got together a few months ago to talk about creating a permanent all-ages venue in New Orleans, where we live. We are all in bands and we all book shows for bands on tour and we're all invested in providing an alternative to the 21+ bar show in a city where bar shows reign supreme. Some of us have been frustrated at the process of looking high and low for a house or other DIY space to put a show every time a band gets in touch to say that they'll be coming through town. We figured it would be worth it to sit down and talk about the possibility of having a spot that is available every night of the week and commercially zoned so we'd never have to worry about cops.

Of course, our first big questions were, where would this new all-ages venue be and how would we afford it? We were unanimously against charging high prices at the door in order to cover rent. It's enough to worry about getting gas money for bands without having to also worry about covering rent, and none of us seemed interested in passing the extra costs on to the people who would be coming to the shows. Next option? Become a non-profit, one of us suggested. Get funding from an outside source to make this thing work.

Throughout our discussion, it was understood that everyone wanted to make sure everything was going to be legit, which makes sense. Every house show you put on, you wonder if the cops are gonna come by and shut it down. It would be awesome to have DIY all-ages shows and not have to worry about all that. I get that. But then again, a bigger part of me is wondering, isn't this what DIY and punk and anarchism is all about is operating outside of the law and operating without funding?

A couple of months later, I was talking to this lady Corrina who sings for this local band called Crackbox. She's been thinking about starting Home Alive out here (if you don't know about the original Home Alive in Seattle, please look it up!) She's done self-defense training for women here and there in the past and wants to start having classes again on a regular basis here in New Orleans. Awesome idea. I've been to self-defense trainings that my friends and housemates organized when I lived in Portland and they were really important events. When Corrina started talking about how she wanted to get grants to fund a workshop featuring the women who founded Home Alive Seattle, I asked her why she didn't start small and just teach a class or two herself in someone's house or at Nowe Miasto, this warehouse in Mid-City where a bunch of our friends live.

It could be that I'm misunderstanding some part of Corrina's plan, and that non-profit funding would be the most ideal way for her to make Home Alive New Orleans real. But after our conversation I was really confused about why her idea had to be a non-profit, especially right away. I'm not telling this story to criticize her or her idea; I'd love to see women's self-defense classes happen in whatever way they're gonna happen in this city and when it does, I'll support it in any way I can. I just wonder, why make it so complicated? I want everyone to feel empowered to make things happen now with the whatever resources you have at the moment. Isn't that kind of urgency and self-determination central to who we are as a community?

I really think it's time to rethink the whole non-profit style of organizing and making things happen. As I understand it, in order to apply for grants, you have to register with the U.S. government as a 501c3 organization, which is the same as having non-profit status. I really do think it's a bad sign that the vast majority of today's activism in our country (whether it be political or cultural) is registered through the United States government. It wasn't always this way, and I think that the transition to non-profit activism has everything to do with our government being able to keep tabs on and contain political and cultural resistance.

Also, most grant money ultimately flows down from rich individuals and families who are just looking for a tax shelter for all of their damn money. When rich folks start up a foundation, it's so that they can hoard more of their wealth instead of letting their money flow into the public sphere in the form of taxes. In other words, if you're working on the books for minimum wage or close to it, you're probably paying more percentage-wise in taxes than a rich person is. I think accepting money from foundations in the form of grants reinforces the mythology that all life springs from corporations and corporate money, and that we are helpless without it. In many ways, being a non-profit makes your anti-establishment political or cultural organization part of the establishment.

I learned a lot of this stuff in 2003 when I went to this conference in California put on by this organization called INCITE Women of Color Against Violence. It's a bunch of academics and some activists that run it, and I know there's also a semi-active INCITE chapter here in New Orleans. Anyway, the conference was called “The Revolution Will Not Be Funded” and they also put a book by the same title, shortly after the conference. Don't let those middle-aged lady professors fool you, they are radical. They call the land of non-profits the Non-profit Industrial Complex and take us back to a time when activism didn't have corporate funding. The Black Panthers were not a non-profit, dude! And you can talk all the trash you want about how the National Organization of Women (NOW) is full of liberal, 2nd-wave feminist, white lady uselessness, but you gotta acknowledge the fact that as of the early 2000s they were (and probably still are) totally funded by individuals who believe in them, their members. NOW is not a non-profit.

As far as the all-ages show space thing goes, I also disagree with the idea that people can own property and believe that property ownership is a figment of our capitalist imaginations. I already pay my landlord rent every month, so I'm not really down to be involved in yet another rental contract with yet another landlord, even if it's being paid for with someone else's money. The more I think about it, the more meaning I find in the hunt for another underground space to put my next show.

I know people who do great things with their non-profits. An old friend of mine created the Prison Birth Project in Massachusetts where she acts as a midwife and doula to women in prison who are pregnant and giving birth. This is important work and there's no way I'm going to denounce it just because I am critical of non-profits. She's got a kid and she deserves to get paid for her work, just like anyone else. Besides, all of us are always picking and choosing which aspects of capitalism we're willing to deal with and which one's we're not. It's hard to be an anti-capitalist purist in a capitalist reality. I just want us all to be strategic about when we engage with the the system. It seems like turning your newest idea into a non-profit organization has become such a natural way to imagine things working, but it's not natural. It's actually a relatively new way of organizing ourselves. I think we should all look at the history of non-profit organizing and question it and consider whether it's absolutely necessary to use that model.

From The Revolution Will Not Be Funded:

“And what are our priorities? Perhaps the real problem is that we don’t spend enough time imagining what we want and then doing the work to sustain that vision. That is one of the fundamental ways the corporate-capitalist system tames us: by robbing us of our time and flooding us in a sea of bureaucratic red tape, which we are told is a necessary evil for guaranteeing our organization’s existence. We are too busy being told to market ourselves by pimping our communities’ poverty in proposals, selling “results” in reports and accounting for our finances in financial reviews.

“In essence, our organizations have become mini-corporations, because on some level, we have internalized the idea that power—the ability to create change—equals money.” --Amara Perez, Sisters in Action for Power, Portland, Oregon

It's always either love or hate: shotgunseamstress@gmail.com

Don't Punch Me in the Face

2010-10-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

There's this really bizarre phenomenon happening in the New Orleans underage punk scene right now. Me and my friend Candice found out about this local band called Vapo-Rats. They are an old-school sounding hardcore band comprised of 17 year old boys. We were initially excited about them because they're so young, because they had a black member, and because the recordings they made with their old guitar player (the black kid) were very reminiscent of Void.

Candice invited them to play a show with her band Necro Hippies, and the show was awesome except for one thing. Near the end of their set, Vapo-Rats' bass player punched this girl in the face! I was standing up close and saw the whole thing. I saw her fall back rather theatrically with a smile on her face, and almost instantly jump right up to shake the bassist's hand. My initial shock at the blow was quickly replaced with an eye roll; to me it seemed like seventeen year old horseplay.

After the show, some older punks were talking about what had happened and lots of people were understandably upset. To others at the show, this behavior was completely appalling and intolerable. I went up to the bass player to ask him what was up and to tell him how it made people feel to see that kind of behavior at a show. I told him that to me it seemed like a joke but that it didn't look that way to a lot of other people.

Almost immediately, his girlfriend jumps in between me and bass player/girl puncher dude (Why do girls do this? Your dudefriend can speak for himself!) and starts to explain, “Thank you for understanding it's a joke. They play around like this all the time. She even asked him to hit her. See, look at them.” At this point, I look over to see the girl that got punched in the face pummeling the bassist in the stomach with her fists. It's obvious that they're just playing around. Bass player's girlfriend continues, “Sometimes people just wanna get punched in the face. I mean, isn't it sexist that guys can hit guys but guys can't hit girls?”

Good lord. What kind of logic is that? Why is that the way that this girl and her friends are choosing to exercise their power as women, and is that even what's happening here?

This woman named Breonne who is the singer in this local band named Small Bones, who also played that night, had a really interesting take on the whole thing. I've had the good fortune of being in non-violent punk scenes that were pretty gender balanced and woman and queer positive most of my adult life. Breonne came up in a very male-dominated scene and this experience made he question the nature of these girls' consent. Looking back, she realized that, yeah, girls might say, “I want you to hit me,” but they say so only because there's this pressure to prove themselves to the boys in their scene. Please, if you are a person of any gender and you exist in a straight boy-dominated punk scene, think twice about the inherent pressure of being “one of the guys” and how that pressure informs your behavior.

At the Necro Hippies show, there were more girls in the pit than I ever saw at the shows I went to when I lived in DC. I felt like I couldn't really superimpose my own experience on the experiences of these kids because it looked so different to me, at least on the surface. As a girl watching scrawny white boys get naked and mosh to Pg. 99 in a church basement in DC, I felt like a complete outsider. I was probably only there to watch The Others (long defunct girl-fronted pop punk from DC) or one of Katy Otto's old bands, anyway. Another huge difference is the amount of underage drinking that goes on here in New Orleans that I don't remember seeing nearly as much in DC, where there was (and hopefully still is) more of a straight-edge culture in the punk scene.

I finally took a side on this whole issue a few weeks later when me and Candice had some folks come and pay us a visit from Pensacola. We heard that Vapo-Rats was playing a show downtown and we decided to walk over and check it out. We had missed Vapo-Rats but the show was still going on. There were tons of kids, and some of them looked really young, like way younger than 17. This pretty, long-haired girl who was obviously wasted to oblivion kept coming over to us to talk. She was nice but she was sooo drunk.

We didn't pay to get in. We were just peaking through the back door at the spectacle inside, and I'm glad we were being total deadbeats that evening because I wouldn't have wanted to support what I saw with my hard earned cash. In the middle of some band's set, this dude raises his hand, halls off and slaps this girl who is obviously shocked and hurt. It was loud and it was hard and I immediately felt stunned and disgusted. Twice is enough for me to see it as a pattern. I turned around and left right away.

What the fuck, New Orleans?! Candice said she saw the girl go back and shake his hand as if it was all an agreement, but she also noticed that the girl had also turned around and left the space after she was hit, as if her first impulse was to just get the fuck out of that place. This time, it felt out of control, and not at all like horseplay. And both times I've witnessed it, it was women being assaulted by men, not vice versa, and not even men fighting other men. FUCK THAT.

I think the real reason I wanted to talk about this is to tie it into a larger conversation about accountability in the punk scene. Instead of boycotting their band, Candice set up a date with the singer in Vapo-Rats and she broke it down for him. Violence, particularly violence against women, isn't cool (unless it's self-defense, which is another topic for another day), nor is it cool to write stupid shit about clowns raping people in the liner notes of your CD. The singer, who wasn't directly involved in any of these situations, but who does have an influence on how his band's shows go down, was really receptive to Candice's comments.

I really feel like Candice did the best thing for the situation. I'm sure her reaction would've been much different if they were 25, or even 20 for that matter. But the fact is, they're kids who are making mistakes and who will hopefully learn from them.

I feel like if you're still involved in the punk scene as you get older, the best thing you can do with all of your experience is be kind of mentor or role model to younger kids who are just getting started. I know it sounds cheesy, but I remember being much younger, dealing with calling out a rapist in our community, and really feeling like it would've helped to have some advice from someone older who had already been through it. We had zines written by other women who had done what we were doing and we had each other, but we were all in our young 20s, and militant as fuck. We couldn't see both sides, the way I can now.

As a person who has both called other people out publicly on their behavior and been publicly called out on her behavior, I have so much to say about the process of accountability particularly within punk and radical communities. I am also very curious about how all people, but especially women and queers are handling their shit across the country and the world. If you're trying to tackle issues of violence, assault, abuse or rape in public or personal settings in your community I'd like to know about it. I also have so many things to say about what I call “call-out culture” within punk rock and when and how it should be used, but I think I'm going to have to save those comments for another column.

People like to say, and I myself has said, that the same injustices that are found outside of the punk scene can be found inside of it as well. I still think that's true, but let's not lose perspective. The fact is, many punks hang out in a pretty insular world and have no real gauge when it comes to comparing their interpersonal struggles with those that are happening in “the real world.” I guess all I'm saying is that even though I always want to see us confronting hard issues head-on, I also want to see less drama and judgment and more understanding and compassion when it comes to resolving conflict in our communities.

This is one of those columns where I feel like I've left so much unsaid but I promise to revisit some of this stuff later.

Get in touch: shotgunseamstress@gmail.com

Bummer

2010-09-13T16:46:00.000-07:00

I finally made it out to Pensacola Beach a couple weeks ago for the first time since the oil spill. The closer I got to the beach, the bigger the lump got in my throat and when I got there, all I could do was cry. I cried because of this huge uncontrollable disaster. I cried because I was exhausted and because I'm going through a break up. I cried because I was relieved, in some weird way, that the ocean still exists, and still feels powerful and vast. And the ocean absorbed all of my sorrow and washed it away. Not all of it, but enough. Mostly, I just went to the Gulf of Mexico to wish it well. For a moment early in the spring when the spill began, people were talking about how there was to be "no beach" this summer. But Pensacola is the most amazing beach I've ever been to and I felt like it was stupid to never see it again, even if it's been ruined. It's like, if you had a friend in the hospital who was sick, would you just never go visit them and just figure they're going to die anyway? Of course, not. You go and you wish them well. So as pathetic as a gesture as it seems, that's what I did. And that made me cry some more. Sometimes all you can do is just let all of the grief move through you, just flow through. At the spot where I was at, the water still looked blue and the sand still looked white and we could see clean birds flying over head. Life does go on. I feel irritated by people's apocalyptic anxieties recently. It's not that I don't believe that the world is ending, and it's not that I do believe it, either. The fact is that none of us know what's going to happen. Since none of us knows the future, our choices are to fear for the worst or hope for the best and I choose to hope for the best, even in spite of all the doomy gloomy evidence to the contrary. Once upon a time a wise counselor told me that anxiety is fearing for the worst when the worst hasn't even happened yet, and when yr not even certain that the worst will ever in fact happen. I had a bunch of anxiety during the last half of my 20s and I finally got over it after a lot of hard work. Now, I'm living for today. I'm alive now and I love it, and I'm gonna keep singing and playing music and celebrating my life and life in general until I can't do it anymore.

Feminist Power

2010-08-12T10:51:00.000-07:00

Everyone's different, so not everyone's going to agree about whether feminism is still relevant or necessary. I mean, if you're a middle class, college educated white lady with a sensitive white guy boyfriend and you feel liberated cuz you have a hyphenated last name, maybe you feel like the coast is clear and that women are no longer oppressed and we don't need feminism anymore. I'm only saying this because I read this blurb about how Venus magazine has changed hands and how the new publisher says that feminism is outdated and no longer relevant to their magazine. I'm not an avid Venus reader so this decision barely affects me at all, but it did make me want to use the space I have to explain why I think that the idea that feminism is irrelevant is bullshit.

Even though I'm black and gay, I don't really identify as oppressed because I live in the U.S. and I can live where I want and travel around and I have a roof over my head and I've had a lucky life with relatively minor things to complain about. But I don't feel like we still need feminism because I specifically believe that all women are oppressed relative to men (I believe something way more complicated about that relationship that would take a whole other column to explain). I believe that feminism is still relevant because it speaks to the necessity to generally redefine power in our society and globally. If you've read any news lately, how can you not agree that we obviously need a new understanding of power if we want any peace?

When we were starting the Portland chapter of Anarchist People of Color in 2003, I remember sitting in the small group that comprised us, talking about how we wanted to define ourselves. You know, one of those boring activist conversations that seems to never end, but that we were 100% invested in having at the time. I remember talking about how even though I considered myself an anarchist, in my heart, I identified with feminism the most and I wanted that to somehow be reflected in our organization. Luette, my fellow organizer (who I recently just got back in touch with: Hey, girl!), expressed that there were aspects of feminism that she just couldn't relate to. She was probably thinking of Andrea Dworkin! I told her I felt the same way about anarchism, picturing Rick Mackin and his ilk, in all their manarchist glory. We decided to compromise and define ourselves as an anarcho-feminist group, and since then I've been able to see more and more clearly--in theory and in real life--how these two concepts work together and help us think of new ways to redistribute and rethink power dynamics. We decided to take the best of both of those worlds and leave the rest behind.

I could use war, or border politics or the U.S. Government as examples of why and how anarcho-feminist ideas can change your community and the world, but I'm going to use a far more simple example. And why not get personal since the personal is indeed political?

As you may well know, I set up shows in New Orleans for queer, female-fronted, and all-girl bands who pass through town on tour. I started doing it a year ago and at that point, I envisioned it as a collective. I set up a website for networking with bands & individuals and handed the password out to every girl or queer person I knew who was interested. I played music with lots of different women, and did my best to encourage them to start bands, have confidence in their skills and be involved with putting on shows. I got some help with flyering here and there, but mostly I did everything on my own. After months of operating that way, it inevitably became my "baby." I'm having fun doing it, and the process feels simple enough. I didn't realize until I talked to this fellow lady punk I know named Rachel the other day that a lot of women find the process of setting up a show daunting partly because of the technical aspects of it, for example, running a PA. I've been doing this stuff for a while now, and honestly I forgot that different people are at different stages of learning about it. I had actually begun to assume that most people weren't really interested in the process.

For me, being a feminist means, in part, learning not to put the idea of expertise on a pedestal. (Who knows, maybe this is something DIY culture taught me but I'm crediting it to feminism now. I guess in the end, it's all one and the same to me.) Somehow along the way, I realized that prioritizing technical knowledge over experiential knowledge is patriarchal. It's like how you might have a girl friend who never claims to know how to play music even though you've seen her play guitar in her bedroom a million times. What is that perceived gap between playing music and calling yourself a musician? What does it mean to "know how" to do something? Why isn't the action of doing something evidence that you know how to do it? Why do people, especially women, convince themselves that they don't know how to do things they already do? Why is it perceived that there is only one correct way to do something and that you probably need to take lessons or read a manual in order to learn it? (Is that enough questions for ya?)

Knowledge really is power. Convincing yourself or allowing yourself to be convinced that you don't or can't know things is dis-empowering. I recently checked out this book from the Iron Rail called The Power of Feminist Theory: Domination, Resistance, Solidarity by Amy Allen. In all honesty, it's a little bit dry but not overly academic, so if you're excited about the topic, it'll be a pretty easy read. Plus, it's pretty short, and it's especially great if you've read this kind of thing before but you need a refresher because it's pretty straight-to-the-point.

Allen breaks down three ways of defining power: as a resource, as domination and as empowerment. Feminists who think of power as a resource are basically the ones who think of Hillary Clinton as their saviour. They see power as a resource that has been unequally distributed and they think everything will be fine once women have as much access to power as men. They want more female CEOs and politicians. They don't see anything wrong with the power structure as long as women have an equal place in it. They are dying to wear pantsuits--definitely not going to create the kind of change in the world that I'd like to see.

Feminists who see power as domination define all women as oppressed compared to all men. They wish to end male domination and see power as something defined only by patriarchal violence and the subjugation of women. This conception of power is very black & white and relies on a strict dichotomy, and it doesn't do a very good job accounting for how race, class and numerous other factors change the experience of power for men and women. Plus, not everyone's either a man or a woman, right? This idea of power is compelling, but not the real deal.

Then there's the idea of power as empowerment. I was talking to this woman Gia, who helps to run a woman of color lead space in New Orleans called Gris Gris Lab and she said she doesn't like the word "empowerment" and prefers to talk about "building power." We didn't get to go in depth about it, but I assume she thinks that saying "empower" can give the idea that the group or individual you're refering to has no power and needs to be given power from an outside source. Obviously, that's not what I believe and I don't think that's what Amy Allen is getting at, either.

Empowerment is just a new way to define power--not as domination, but as "the ability to transform oneself, others, and the world," writes Allen. It means that if you have confidence, skills or knowledge, you don't lord it over other people or use it to bolster your own ego, you share it. The secret surprise is that you also get it back. It's about seeing power as a nurturing force in the world. Allen writes that the main influence for this idea of empowerment is motherhood (in it's most ideal incarnation)--fostering growth, not submission through domination. This type of power benefits everyone, not just women, and it can be applied to a variety of relationships, not just ones between women and men. It also works really well with anti-authoritarian and non-hierarchical ways of organizing ourselves. Power to the people, not over the people, right? This is an old idea that has yet to gain the popularity it deserves.

Tell me, how are these ideas no longer relevant? Until they are widespread and mainstream, they will continue to be relevant.

Anyway, back to my story. I am unintentionally hogging No More Fiction but I've realized that, and I'm ready to turn it over to the people in the interest of empowering queer punks and lady punks to create their own events and spaces in this city. Combining ideas about anti-authoritarianism with feminist ideas about redefining power should be central to the work we do, no matter how small the project. Even if I'm not psyched on putting on yet another folk-punk show, maybe that's an opportunity for another queer punk or lady punk to get practice putting on a show. Of course it's a two way street--people have to be interested and put in work to be involved. We're going to have a skillshare for queers & women this Thursday to share knowledge about the technical aspects of music that people often find mysterious and off-putting. I hope that event marks a change in the way NMF operates in this town from now on.

I want to give a shout out to the Bloody Rag Collective that is putting on shows for bands with women and trans folks in Chicago. I admire your collective approach and maybe one of these days we can overcome geography and join forces somehow.

Old columns at shotgunseamstress.blogspot.com
Send your comments & criticisms here: shotgunseamstress@gmail.com

No More Swastikas in Punk, Please.

2010-07-09T17:30:00.000-07:00

I went to a dance night last weekend to support some friends of mine who were DJing and one of the first things my girlfriend spots is a dude in a swastika t-shirt. Turns out he's in one of the bands playing that night, so he's not just a random guy in a swastika shirt, he's the center of attention. I'm not mentioning any names, because I don't wish to draw any more attention to this person or his band; they're well-known enough in this town. I will mention, that this t-shirt is related to an old New Orleans punk band who used the image of a swastika made of crawfish (what a horrible idea on so many levels!) to be shocking. Of course, the wearer of the shirt claims not to be racist. I'm not sure if anyone's every asked him if he knows that the swastika is mainly an anti-Semitic symbol that is also homophobic and fascist. I'm guessing it wouldn't make a difference.

As you may well have guessed, I've never been into using bigoted symbols or language jokingly, for shock value or for irony. In fact, it's been pissing me off for almost a decade now and I've finally hit my wall. Back around 2003 or so, this band Japanther was blowing up all over the country and it was no different in Portland. All of the sudden, everyone I knew had a Japanther poster hanging up in their bedroom or kitchen. Fine. Later on, it came out that Japanther was connected to the infamous Vice Magazine and their label Vice Records. I happened to find an article by one of the founders of that magazine in an online right wing journal called The American Conservative, in which he basically admitted that Vice had a right wing agenda.

Of course, a lot of people in my community were concerned. I remember, my housemate, Nate, contacted Japanther directly to ask them what was up. I also remember getting into an argument with another woman in my community who just wouldn't believe what I was telling her I had read in that article because, at least at the time, Vice's primary mode of spreading it's right wing ideas was through--you guessed it--irony and low-rate humor. For many, it's more difficult to see these kinds of messages clearly when everything's a joke. I never read an entire issue of that magazine and I haven't laid eyes on a copy of it in years, thankfully, but that situation really sticks with me.

Even though we've come a long way as a nation and a community when it comes to bigotry, the coast is not clear! Not even close. There was just a racist coup of a local government in Northern Louisiana a couple of months ago! (If you don't believe me, google "racist coup"!) I live in a town where Orleans Parish Prison is filled with poor folks and people of color and the majority of the black citizens are poor. I get confused with my ex-girlfriend who is also black on a regular basis and it happens to other people of color I know on a regular basis as well. God forbid I ever "fit the description" of someone who's done anything illegal. Look at all the anti-immigration and pro-life legislation going down in Arizona, and the white supremacist groups that are most likely making Barack Obama's life a nightmare. I live in a town that was allowed to flood on purpose because it's citizens were mostly poor and black. Rape is still a problem. Hate crimes against queers are still too common. These are just a few examples of the war that is being waged in the United States right now. Knowing all of this, how can you make a joke of it? Oh, it's because you're a straight, white male and none of this affects you directly so you don't have to care. I'm so fucking disgusted with that shit.

The ultimate problem with ironic humor when combined with symbols or language that many people find degrading is that the people who use it are being ambiguous about what they really believe. You're saying something racist, but then you say you're not racist, which means you've actually said nothing. Instead of saying something you don't mean, why not say something you do mean? If you're a bigot, admit it so I know never to come near you or go to any of your events. If you're not, then why hide behind irony? What is it that you're really passionate about? What is it that you really believe? Why not be clear? These days, I'm feeling that, "I'm not racist/homophobic/etc." doesn't mean shit to me unless you're explicitly saying and showing, "I am anti-racist," or "I am against homophobia."

It's time to pick a side. There is no being neutral when it comes to these things. Saying "I am not political," is a cop-out that basically means, "I'm fine with the way things are." And being fine with the way things are means that you support racism, classism, heterosexism and the patriarchy because that is the default in our society. If you're not against those things, then you're going along with it even if you don't mean to be because those forms of oppression constitute normalcy here in the U.S.A. Besides, what are you, depressed? How can you not have a passionate opinion one way or another about some of the most important issues of our time?

The old-school, straight-white-dude-dominated, New Orleans punk scene needs to catch up or get left behind. I am not talking about the old time and New Orleans jazz punk scene, which, as far as I've seen, creates welcoming DIY spaces in this city. The old-timers I'm talking about know who they are! This city is changing, for better or for worse, and all the punks you've alienated and written off as PC aren't just going to move to San Francisco or New York to get away from your stupidity. We're staying and we're creating our own scenes that are going be better than yours--stronger, smarter, and better music, too.

Old colums at shotgunseamstress.blogspot.com

Taqwacore

2010-06-02T20:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the last day "Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam" was playing at this small art venue called Zeitgeist here in New Orleans, so me & my friend/band-mate Candice went to go catch it while we could. I'd never heard of the book The Taqwacores until last night, so I had no idea what to expect exactly. The book, according to what I gathered from discussion throughout the documentary, was Knight's way of fusing together two worlds he took part in that never overlapped, except for in his own life.

Essentially, The Taqwacores is an Islamic punk rock fantasy, set in Buffalo, New York complete with “burqa-wearing riot girls, mohawked Sufis, straightedge Sunnis, Shi’a skinheads, Indonesian skaters, Sudanese rude boys, gay Muslims, drunk Muslims, and feminists.” The author, Michael Muhammad Knight is a white U.S. born convert who found Islam as an adult.

Knight says he assumed that writing the book would end his relationship with Islam, but instead it re-inspired it. How did a white punk dude end up converting to Islam in the first place? Knight makes it known in the movie is that his dad was a "rapist and a white supremacist" (Knight's own words.) His conversion to Islam is said in the movie to be a reaction to being raised by a bigot.

The movie follows Boston based, Pakistani-American punk band The Kominas on tour in a painted green school bus with "TAQWA" stenciled across the front. (Taqwa, by the way, is a concept in Islam that refers to the idea of a higher consciousness.) Knight and solo performer Omar Waqar accompany The Kominas on their journey, bringing taqwacore to the rest of the nation, and eventually to Pakistan.

Punk rock has always used adversity as its ammunition and the taqwacore bands represented in the movie each had that raw, fuck-you thing going on, but that's where the similarities end. As a term, taqwacore--like afro-punk or queercore--speaks more about an identity than a particular sound. Aside from The Kominas, the other band you see the most footage of is Secret Trial Five, an all-girl band with queer members that formed in Vancouver and has since relocated to Toronto. They sound nothing like The Kominas and have actually withdrawn their affiliation with taqwacore since the movie was made. According to the band's website, they find the term limiting and they reject the assumption that their band came to exist due to the fictional writings of a white American convert.

At no point in the movie does Knight try to lay down some kind of Islamic punk ideology. In that way, we see punk's influence; taqwacore is anti-ideology. There are no rules. Even as they worship Allah and cover their tour van with pro-Islam graffiti, they simultaneously stand for blasphemy and irreverence. Throughout the movie, jaws dropped when bands sang lyrics like, “I am an Islamist/I am the anti-christ!” Knight talks about the fact that he portrays Muslim punk characters in his book drinking and doing drugs but then admits that he himself has never had a beer in his life. Alternately, they show the band on tour smoking a shit ton of hash when they're in Pakistan. Their stance seems to be, "We do what we want and we call ourselves what we want," and they dare you to disagree.

It is this type ambiguous location that gives taqwacore it's power. Like Knight says in the movie, taqwacore exists to piss everyone off. They exist to piss of mainstream America, which is largely miseducated about Islam. They aim to piss off Islamic conservatives who are patriarchal and who call music and dance haram (a forbidden act). They aim to piss off the typical punk rock atheist who thinks that organized religion just cannot go hand in hand with punk rock.

The most powerful parts of the movie are when The Kominas and Secret Trial Five play to mainstream Muslim audiences both here in the U.S. and also in Pakistan (just The Kominas.) Punk rock is supposed to shake things up in the world, but that is happening less and less as punk rock becomes more insular. We play to each other; we preach to the choir. The Kominas and Secret Trial Five somehow got booked to play this huge Muslim gathering (according to the website, the largest one in the country) and I was literally holding my breath, waiting to see how the audience would react.

Of course, people were outraged, especially when Secret Trial Five took stage because both bands had been told that no female singers would be tolerated at the event. But at the same time, you see teenage girls wearing their veils, looking the way teenage girls did in the 1950s and 60s at rock n roll concerts, freaking the fuck out and taking pictures with their cell phones. As the bands played on, you start to see some smiles and then you see some people start to dance and clap along. Music is amazing. I feel certain that The Kominas and Secret Trial Five changed at least a couple of those people's lives that night.

When The Kominas travel to Pakistan, they put on a totally DIY show on a rooftop in the city. They show the band passing out flyers ahead of time in the streets and getting into debates with strangers about whether non-traditional musical celebration has a place in Islam. There was no pre-established punk scene to rely on so trying to do something like that took an extra leap of faith. The evening of the show, you can see them begin to wonder if anyone at all will show up, but when it turns into a huge block party, you can't help but share in that feeling of triumph the band displays while they play. Punk rock makes dreams come true. You can tell that they'd all somehow accomplished something that they never dreamed was possible, and it was really inspiring to watch.

I'm not excited about this movie because I love to see organized religion and punk rock meet, or even because taqwacore is another space that people of color are carving out for themselves within punk rock. In fact, it was hard for me to not feel a little bit judgmental watching people who call themselves punk pray in mosques and participate in religious rituals. Furthermore, I instantly felt instantly cynical when I learned that Knight was a white guy. The Muslim struggle in the U.S. today isn't just about religion, it's a struggle against racism and xenophobia. The Taqwacore website states plainly, "The Islamic punk music scene would never have existed if it weren’t for [Knight's] 2003 novel, The Taqwacores.” But even though Knight speaks throughout the whole movie with the utmost humility, which is kind of endearing, in the end it's annoying that a white guy gets the credit for starting taqwacore because it just can't be true. As I mentioned before, Secret Trial Five deny that they spawned from the book, and claim independent origins.

I think the beauty of movies like Taqwacore as well as others like, "Trembling Before G-d," a documentary about gay & lesbian orthodox and Hasidic Jews, is that it shows people being something that everyone says cannot be or does not exist. When we say that certain individuals or groups “aren't punk” because they make choices that don't fit into our definition of what punk is, we are denying their right to define themselves as they wish. We also force people who are looking for a home in punk to leave part of their identity —part of who they are— at the door so that they can be accepted, i.e. “You can hang out, as long as you don't talk about __________.” This is just one way that punk continues to be a subculture that alienates individuals who would probably make our communities stronger if they felt more welcome.

As people who are interested in creating an anti-oppressive society, we can't buy into that way of thinking or behaving. As a black person, a queer person and the child of parents from a former British colony in Africa, I can't help but tie the importance of self-definition and self-determination to larger post-colonial struggles, or to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan or even to the LGBTQI struggle here in the U.S. and around the world.

When we deny someone's identity or choices, we deny reality, and if there's anything I want my politics to be it's realistic. In reality, the most surprising combinations of identities and beliefs can be housed in one body. I know black gay Republicans, anarcho-feminist Muslims, black punk Jehovah's witnesses and more. In order to move forward and create a non-oppressive society, we have to recognize and accept all of the subversion and cultural permutation that are inevitable parts of life, and that ultimately we all benefit from. At some point, we all have to admit that the words that we use to define ourselves, whether it's punk, feminist, Muslim, Christian, queer, or woman, are all words that mean a wide variety of things to the people who use those words on themselves, and that there's nothing we can do to control how those words get used or by whom.

Believe me, you don't wanna hear yourself say, “I don't understand how people get so sucked into religion,” in the same way you might hear someone else say, “I don't understand why someone born as a male would want to be female.” It's worth it to be able to come to that place where you can imagine how something that makes no sense to you in your life can make perfect sense to someone else without writing them off as stupid or insane.

I want to thank the Anarchist People of Color (APOC) movement that began at the first APOC conference in Detrioit in 2003 for helping me to see where anarchism and identity politics meet, and also Candice for proof-reading this and helping me hash out my ideas.

radical brown punx

2010-02-22T11:29:00.000-08:00

All eyes on LA Raw Ponx! This kid named Austin just got in touch with me the other day. He's involved in "Silenzio Statico", a zine that documents what's going on in the South Central LA Latin/Chicano/a hardcore scene right now. Before he'd gotten in touch, my friend Candice highly encouraged me to check out Tuberculosis and I did and I thought they were hella cute and then I watched an episode of LA Raw Ponx video fanzine "Fronteras Desarmadas". They totally got it goin' on down there and I'm so jealous!

When I lived in the Bay Area circa 2005, I remember having conversations with other brown punks wondering if we could ever have our own scene the way women in punk did with riot girl. I know damn well there's a tendency to romanticize past happenings that you weren't around to see first hand. I know it's not like every time Bikini Kill played a show, someone rolled out a pink carpet for them to walk down and then all of these perfect riot girl bands opened for them and then they all got naked, smoked some weed and prayed to Gaia together. But still, riot girl made other girls want to get involved with punk. It made women want to make their own feminist DIY punk culture.

For whatever reason, Afro-Punk doesn't seem to be doing that for black kids. Or perhaps it's doing it for individual black kids across the U.S., Canada & western Europe, but we don't have any kind of political DIY art movement yet. And hell no, I'm not counting the corporate sponsored Afro-Punk tours as signs of a movement. Please.

I think mostly it's just a question of numbers. In LA and parts of Texas, everywhere you look, you see a (light) brown face looking back at you. And since Latinos generally don't have that same kind of pressure to like a certain type of music according to their race, like black people do, it's generally gonna be easier to find LatinPunx than AfroPunx. There's always been a Latino HC scene in Cali, and "Mas Alla De Los Gritos" ("Beyond the Screams") came out long before the "Afro-Punk" documentary did. Of course, it all depends on where you are. I'm thinking about my friends Ana & Mando surrounded by all those white people in Portland, Oregon. They're Latin art punk kids orginally from LA and they play in a two piece called Magic Johnson, in which they sing all of their lyrics in Spanish to an audience who mostly has no idea what they're saying. I hope one day, they get to play with XYX from Monterrey, NL, Mexico cuz obviously not all Latin punx play hardcore. Adding Mutating Meltdown (Austin) to that imaginary lineup = dream show.

Having missed the 80s, I've never been much of a hc kid myself, but I'm inspired by how overtly political many of those bands are. The LA Raw Ponx are no different. From what I've seen, they can't wait to speak out about the fact that we still live in a racist police state that we should all be actively critiquing and resisting. Whenever I'm in a band, my lyrics tend to get kind of dreamy and personal, but after watching that Tuberculosis interview, I finally wanna try to speak what's on my mind instead of hiding behind abstractions.

This is such a cool time for punk rock! I'm so glad I didn't give up on it! MRR is run by feminists, brown punks across the country are trying to get together. This is the moment many of us have been waiting for. We can still change the world, and in fact we already have.

For DIY punk shows in New Orleans or to get in touch: nomorefiction@gmail.com

i can't believe i watched the superbowl

2010-02-22T10:17:00.001-08:00

Holidays make me grumpy. All that pressure to be in a good mood on a certain day automatically puts me in a bad mood. At the same time, something in me changed before I moved to New Orleans that made me want to be in a place where people celebrate absolutely everything. People either associate New Orleans with celebration or tragedy. After living in Portland, Oregon for six years, a place you could describe as pleasantly monotonous, I was ready for some highs & lows.

I actually watched the Superbowl on Sunday, or at least parts of it. Being in a town with an actual personality changes the way you live. I look at the scene I was involved in in Portland before I moved. It was pretty ideal, being a queer woman who plays music because there are so many others, and then after a while, more & more people of color started to move to Portland. So by the time I left, in the fall of 2008, I was leaving behind the scene of my dreams, in a way. But everyone who's ever lived in Portland always compares it to a bubble. My whole life revolved around this group of mainly punk inspired, queer, mostly female musicians who were transplants from other states, and all in their 20s. I was a nanny so it's not like I even knew people from work. My whole world was my housemates, my bandmates, other people in bands, people I saw at shows and then peripherally the folks at the feminist bookstore, or the community organization I volunteered with for a little while.

In New Orleans, there's more of a feeling of being a part of something larger than your particular group of friends. You're a part of a city with a strong historical identity and distinctive culture and you'd have to be the most jaded person in the world to not want to learn more about it and participate on some level, which is why I actually watched some football last Sunday. I just wanted to be around all of the excitement, you know? Of course it's half ecstatic and half annoying, like the exhilaration of zipping through standstill traffic in the French Quarter with everyone honking their horns to celebrate our victory, but then almost getting smacked in the face by people on foot & in cars who think it's a good idea to try to high five a biker. It's not just events or holidays, it's the actual culture itself that's so appealing. I've been able to see a few marching bands in second line parades that happen randomly throughout the year, and I also went to see a couple punk brass bands who are inspired by the traditional brass bands of New Orleans. I'm actually thinking about putting Chin Up (aka Slow Danger) Brass Band on a No More Fiction show with a touring band cuz they might as well get a taste of what's unique about this place if they're only gonna be in town for one night.

I was just telling Brontez today how queer of a town New Orleans is. It's the secret queer capital of the South. I mean, I guess it's no secret to people who are actually from the South, but you know how a place like San Francisco, for example, has a national reputation for being queer? Well, New Orleans doesn't have that, but it is. If you think about it, where else are all the freaks from Texas, Mississippi and Alabama gonna go? And I'm not talking queer as in mini version of the Castro, although that does exist here. There are also tons of black, poor & working class queers, too, who have created their own culture all to themselves. There's this hip-hop subgenre native to New Orelans called Bounce and queer bounce rappers created a sub-subgenre called Sissy Bounce, which is starting to gain national attention. And I see black MTF trannies on a regular basis walking around my neighborhood and the Quarter like it's no big deal. Part of me thinks a black transwoman would have a harder time surviving in Portland, Oregon--a seemingly more "liberal" place--than here. Obviously, I wouldn't know for sure.

Honestly, I'm still taking it all in. There are so many layers to this city, it's humbling. I feel like when I talk to people who travel a lot or move a lot, they often try to characterize a city in such a quick & simple way, as if you can really know a place after only being there for a few days, weeks or months. New Orleans is the type of place that defies easy categorization. It's southern, but it's got Caribbean influences; it's progressive and traditional at the same time. It's African, Spanish, French and Native American. It's beautiful and still cheap to live in relative to other major cities. I'm so down with living here. I hate where I grew up, my parents are immigrants so it's not like I have deep roots anywhere in the U.S., and I knew Portland wasn't gonna be my home forever, but here I am for the first time feeling a lot of pride about where I live. Like meeting someone you have instant chemistry with, I want to give this city more time and get to really know it. I don't have any plans to move on.

on tour with deny it

2010-02-22T10:13:00.000-08:00

MRR #322 MARCH 2010

As far as I'm concerned, getting to go on tour is the highest privilege in the world. After my last band ended, I walked away from it feeling so extremely lucky, like I never thought I would have the chance in my lifetime to go to Europe for free, meet my heroes and experience that positive exchange that happens with people who are moved by the music you play for them. My experiences touring with that band were so magical and unexpected that after it was all over, I couldn't help but feel extremely satisfied and accomplished--like, "I can die happy now. I've done more than I ever set out to do." Getting a second chance to go on tour with my new band, Deny It, felt like yet another dream come true.

Takiya who plays sax in Deny It travels most of the year, but she told me & Candice that she'd be back in New Orleans during November and December to work on band stuff. As soon as she got back to town, we practiced as much as possible, recorded a 5-song cassette and set off in my 1990 Honda Civic hatchback named Perl on a tiny little tour that took us to Austin, Houston, back through Nola, and then to Pensacola, Florida.

I set up the shows in Austin and New Orleans. For Austin, I got in touch with Mutating Meltdown who helped us get on a show at Trailer Space Records. This band called Metal Bunnies opened for us. Two boys in weird costumes playing instruments and three girls singing songs in unison about weed and getting their pussies licked. It seemed like the sort of band born out of friend hangouts and inside jokes, and I think I heard that the members were all teenagers. The multiple girl singer & minimal music thing reminded me of Delta 5 (even though they sound nothing like them) and it was refreshing to walk in and see a different kind of band setup. I feel like punks don't experiment nearly enough anymore. Three singers singing in unison sounds good! Dare to be different; try something new! We had also asked this band from Monterrey, NL, Mexico called XYX to play that show with us, but one of the members couldn't get time off from work. Booo! Also, when we got there, Mutating Meltdown said they couldn't play cuz their keyboard player, Chad, was sick, but then after we played, they decided to go for it anyway, with a friend filling in on keyboards. Mutating Meltdown put out my favorite 7" this year and I am so inspired by Veronica and Erin who have been in one solid band after another: The Carrots, Finally Punk and now Mutating Meltdown. Erin also plays bass in a two-piece called Hatchet Wound, and I just found out that Veronica is the one who makes all those cute matching outfits for the Carrots. Is there anything those ladies can't do?

I'm not gonna say "Fuck Houston" even though I really want to because I feel like there's gotta be some kindred souls hiding out somewhere in that city. First of all, I know no one in that city personally which makes setting up a good show kinda difficult. Candice got us on some benefit show at The Mink. This dude Jacob that set up the show told her that we'd be going on last and that we were the only outta town band on the show. Already, it sounded fishy to me. Even though setting up a good show for a touring band should be common sense, it just isn't. I would never put a touring band last unless they're a well-known band that everyone already knows about and loves. Duh. Anyway, we spent the entire night watching dude band after dude band (literally 10 bands and not a single woman in one of them! How is that even possible?) We were supposed to go on at 12:30am but everything was running behind. 2am arrived, the Pavement cover band called Davement brought the house down, we still hadn't gone on, and Jacob told us we had no time to play. Booooo on you, Houston. We sat thru DudeFest 2009 for nothing. Houston was the only show my old band played on a two-month tour where no one showed up. And hey, wasn't that letter-writer who called me racist a couple issues ago also from Houston? What's the fuckin deal?? I do think that Houston can be redeemed. Plus, it was cool seeing so many Latin kids in bands. Up the brown punks! If you're in Houston and you think you can help us out with a different experience, please e-mail me! Positives from Houston: 1. Hip-hop duo that used Black Flag sample "Gimme Gimme Gimmee!!", 2. meeting Sean Padilla of the Cocker Spaniels, 3. Getting out of all-lady lala land and realizing how important & necessary girl/queer punk shows are, 4. Realizing that even though we had a shitty experience, there was nothing else I'd rather be doing with my time. 5. Deeelicious vietnamese tofu sandwiches for $2.50.

Next day, back home to New Orleans. Another No More Fiction event! It probably wasn't the best idea to play a show that you're putting on while yr on tour because you get there and you can't just like hang out and let things happen, you have to make things happen. Set up the PA! Make sure someone's at the door collecting dollars! Run back to the practice space and get more mic stands! It was hectic but fun. Ixnay, all-girl folk-pop trio, opened up the night. Kicktease from Baton Rouge was second up. I've written about them before. Adee calls them black Black Flag, and they're getting a better & better crowd in New Orleans each time they play. Deny It played to a very sweet & appreciative audience, and it was Brice's 34th birthday! After ALL THESE YEARS (hahaha) he's still doing his part keeping Nowe Miasto warehouse going and putting out records for his friend's bands. Also I'd like to claim that I put on the blackest punk show in the country, with a whopping four black musicians participating--and all women!

Pensacola really delivered. We had our show at this house called 309 that's been a punk house for like 20 years or maybe even longer. I've known so many punks from Pensacola over the years, and for whatever reason, that scene produces some particularly bad ass women. Kelsey, who lives at 309, set up our show for us and I feel like she totally tapped into the spirit of diy punk rock feminism and made some amazing shit happened. First of all, she started a band with her friend Lara called Feral Pride so that she could play with our band. I know that everytime a group of girls gets together to play music, someone cries out "riot girl!" but I swear this time it's true! They switched off on drums (just toms and snare, no kick) & guitar. All the parts were super simple and their attitude was fearless. Kelsey doesn't seem to have a shy bone in her body. They sang their songs together (let there be a new trend of unison singing!) "Girl yr hair's so soft/Why'd you go and cut it off?" The first band that played was also stellar. They were called Solanas Judgend, that also formed to play our show. They started off with a sound sample from my favorite movie, BORN IN FLAMES. It was the part where Zella Wiley, played by Florynce Kennedy is amping the Women's Army up to take arms & start a revolution. She says something like "You've got to have the right time and the right place and I'm beginning to think that THIS IS IT!" and at that very moment, screaming staticy vocals and noisy guitar took over the room. Somewhere in the middle of their set, which was about 6 minutes long, the guitarist starts reading aloud from the SCUM manifesto. I know this sounds like something I would dream up, but I swear it actually happened. Can't wait to make it back there to play with those bands again. Pensacola, keep up the good work!

Thanks to Veronica, Erin, Trailer Space Records, Kelsey, 309, everyone who came to our shows and even Jacob for an amazing and eye-opening tour experience!

Houstonites, get in touch:
No More Fiction Shows: nomorefiction@gmail.com
Deny It: www.myspace.com/denitynola

everyone's not welcome

2010-02-22T10:08:00.000-08:00

from MRR #321 FEB 2010

I work with this 18 year old girl from Mobile, Alabama. She moved to New Orleans a year ago, looking for a more open-minded place to exist. We sling coffee together, bitch about customers and talk about feminism and music. She told me that when she was younger, her older sister played her Hole and then from there she learned about Bikini Kill and started to teach herself about feminism. She told me the first guitar riff she ever learned was "I Like Fucking." Since I set up shows in New Orleans for queer/girl bands, I've been trying really hard to get her to come. After the last one passed and she didn't show up, I had to know why. I kinda had the feeling that she wasn't going because she felt like she wouldn't feel comfortable, so I just straight up asked her and she said, "Yeah, I don't really look like a punk anymore and I haven't been to a show in so long..."

It bummed me out because in my mind, or in theory, someone like her should be easily attracted to that type of show. She's young, white, straight and likes punk rock but somehow she still feels alienated. Then I started thinking about my friend and bandmate, this girl Takiya, who's black, 20 years old, just found out about punk a little over a year ago and is traveling around the country, playing in bands, meeting all these people and just being a completely free & beautiful person. Activists and punks are always talking about trying to make spaces "inclusive". I've talked that kind of talk myself. But in reality, you really do just have to work with what you have as far a community goes. If you're punk, you just are, and if you're not, you're not. I don't think you can really recruit people into this shit unless they were headed in this direction already. We can make all kinds of guesses & judgments about why that is, but it just seems to be a fact of life. If you're black and you're attracted to punk rock, you're not gonna be like, "Oh, I would be punk but there's waaay too many white people." You just gonna roll with it, for better or for worse, at lease for a while.

My whole thing with No More Fiction Shows was to create this utopian punk scene in New Orleans where you look around and you see all different types of people. Not just all queer people of color or whatever, but all kinds of different backgrounds and experiences. It's something I do for purely selfish reasons. I'm a black queer woman in a band. I really don't wanna have to look out at my audience and see a bunch of straight, white men. So booking shows for bands with women & queers in them really does help bring more women & queers to shows. It's just that the crowd remains overwhelmingly white which isn't ideal, but I understand that that's just the nature of the beast. (The beast is white!)

The one thing I will say truly makes a difference are the bands themselves. There's this picture someone took of my old band, New Bloods, playing a show at this bike shop in San Francisco and like everyone in the audience is brown & queer (or at least everyone you can see in the picture). Granted, they were all me & Adee's friends (haha) but still that was a magic moment for me. And it made me realize, if you want to see yourself represented, you have to represent yourself. White ladies love to watch other white ladies play music. Same goes for everyone else. Black people, Asian people, fat people, people in wheelchairs, gay people (especially gay people.) As long as the majority of bands and zine writers and other culture-creators are white, the scene's gonna be real white. But just like how riot girl was kind of a niche in punk rock and not at all representative of the majority of punk rock at the time, I feel like we're making our own niche now. Brown kids, queer kids, white kids who are sick of the same old scene.

Sometimes I feel like I'm being a little bit disingenuous when I write "No More Fiction: shows for ladies & queers," because those shows truly are for everyone, not just ladies & queers, and I'm not really interested in an all-anything scene anymore. But I've found that there is a certain power in putting those words on a flyer. The whole vibe of the show ends up different. The kinds of dudes that show up tend not to be douchebags. It puts a little bit of meaning into the fun. It's not empty, like just going to a bar or something. I think that people who are truly down, don't see it as exclusive to say "a zine for black punks" or "shows for girls & queers." Most people get it and I feel like most people benefit from it.

(I don't mind admitting that this is yet another column encouraging brown kids, queer kids, disabled kids, ladies, everyone on the margins, to step up and participate.)

No More Fiction Shows: shows for ladies and queers ONLY!
nomorefiction@gmail.com

punk rock utopian fantasy

2010-02-22T09:50:00.000-08:00

MRR #320 JANUARY 2010

Part of the reason I set up punk shows is that I somehow still feel compelled to work toward this vision I have of punk rock being this thing that attracts & benefits all kinds of people. It's like I have my own utopian fantasy of what I think punk rock should be and some small part of me feels like it's possible, so I can't let it go no matter how many times I get let down. Fantasies of utopia are what get you hooked on punk in the first place right? When you're a teenager, the unfairness of everyday life begins to feel unbearable, and then along comes punk rock, offering you a different way to relate--a different way to have community and live your every day life that feels more fair, honest and free. At moments, it really does feel perfect even though nothing ever really is. When I was around 19 and 20 years old, I believed whole-heartedly in the ability of the punk scene to actually be anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, feminist, anarchist--all of these things existing perfectly inside a bubble.

Numerous people by now have made the point that punk rock isn't as separate from the "regular world" as we'd like to think it is. Many people have also pointed out that no matter how punk we believe ourselves to be, there's still a little piece of The Man inside us all that recreates the injustice we wish didn't exist in the world. After a while, it's easy to feel disillusioned when you start to see all of the flaws in your community and in yourself. Maybe the feminist anti-rape collective you've been a part of tries to confront a known sexual assaulter, fails to make real justice happen, subsequently disintegrates and it leaves you feeling angry and lost. You're queer or a person of color and the isolation you're experiencing in your local super-white, super-straight punk scene is bringing you to the depths of despair. Your band breaks up, or you have a falling out with another punk you really loved. Oh, heartbreak.

I remember reading this Nomy Lamm article sometime before I moved to the Northwest. I think she was living in Olympia at the time. I don't remember the name of the article or what book it was in, but her words probably influenced my next major punk rock utopian fantasy the most. She wrote from the perspective of a fat, queer, Jewish, punk rock feminist with a peg leg. Obviously, her point of view is unique and quite bad ass. Her writing was politically fierce--a lot about self-acceptance, learning to love your body, rejecting the standards of normalcy that make you feel inferior--all of it made me feel like out there in The Great Northwest were a group of truly open-minded, punk rock, riot girl dykes who would readily accept me. Don't we all wish we could find a space where things like race & gender cease to matter (in a negative way)? I just wanted to feel free.

I needed to hear Nomy Lamm's words and to believe that their perfect manifestation existed somewhere in the world. It seems so naive now and kind of silly in a way, but at this point, I can see it both ways, I guess. Nomy was writing from her heart, from an internal universe that we create to exist inside of, to protect ourselves and heal ourselves. That place is real, and writing about it helps it come to exist in a material sense. When I was living in Portland, I met straight girls, queer girls, fat girls, trans girls, and even a couple brown girls who made zines, were in bands, and put on important events around town. There were queer punk basement shows and events like Fat Girl Speaks. It was a utopia of sorts, but then on the other hand, it was disappointing to see the queer punk scene sort of de-evolve into empty gay dance nights and cookie cutter fashion topped off with side swept bangs (this was around 2004). And besides, I hadn't dated anyone in years and I didn't have any other black friends. It felt like time to move on and so I did.

I think it's mostly because I'm black that I never thought of punk rock as forever home. When things start to go bad inside that world, my first impulse is to withdraw or try to leave it behind. At some point, every black punk kid I know has had to wonder, "Do all these white kids really have my back?" But then you draw yourself out of that cynical place and you realize that a select few of them do, and then you make more brown friends and finally things start to feel more balanced. Then after you complete that process, you can say, "Well I've created this dope community for myself, maybe I can do it for others." And that's where the fantasies come in. "Maybe the punk scene could be more like _____. Maybe young queer punk kids or young brown punk kids can have more support now." No matter if many of my utopian punk rock fantasies have been a let down, they still inspire me somehow. It's not so much about making the fantasy real, but using it as fuel to move forward, and being grown-up enough to look back and see all the good shit, not just the disasters.

No More Fiction DIY punk shows for ladies & queers in New Orleans
nomorefiction@gmail.com

show reviews

2010-02-22T09:43:00.001-08:00

august 29th 2009
gun outfit/necro hippies/ixnay

the only thing i love better than a basement show is one in the living room because there's always a lamp or some christmas lights shining around the band that somehow make the music sound better. i missed ixnay cuz i was late which is a damn shame because they are the only all-girl band in new orleans' punk scene.

necro hippies have been getting a really good crowd lately which totally worked in gun outfit's favor cuz the room was pretty packed. Candice, the guitarist in Necro Hippies set up the whole show. I have so much respect for that girl! I'm pretty sure she sets up all of Necro Hippie's shows and she helps out so much with No More Fiction shows which put on queer/girl shows in New Orleans. She's a flyer-making machine! Candice reminds me of the ladies of the old school like Alice Bag or Toni Young, this young black lady who was part of the dc hardcore scene in the 80s and played bass in bands like Red C and Peer Pressure. She's like this lady, totally holding it down with all these guys, writing songs, playing guitar, setting up shows, coordinating shit, getting shit done. Candice just started doing shows under the name Look Ma, No Bra! and she's putting on really good shows for bands who come through New Orleans.

Oh, that just reminded me--to all the New Orleans punks: get used to paying a couple bucks for shows PLEASE! Punks all over the country: if you go to a show and you see a band from out of town, you should be prepared to put down just a couple bucks at least! If it's local bands, that's one thing, but if you can pay for beer, you can give the band $1 if that's all you have. Ok, I'm done.

I had no idea what Gun Outfit sounded like before I saw them and I knew little about them except that they are from Olympia, Washington. i liked them and thought it was funny that a lot of the folks that were dancing to necro hippies were sitting down for gun outfit. you can't mosh to gun outfit, it's true. I have to be honest and say that I like gun outfit because they sound old, like they're from 15 years ago. It's just that I've been feeling so nostalgic and missing pieces of the past and then gun outfit plays and it's just exactly what I wanted to hear that night. And to top it off, the crowd was pretty cool. Maybe it's because candice writes "macho punks fuck off" on all her flyers. It keeps the fools at bay.

september 4 2009
mutating meltdown/necro hippies/kicktease

the show was originally supposed to be at Nowe Miasto, this warehouse in mid-city, but Mutating Meltdown were driving all the way from Asheville and running late so we thought we'd have to cancel it, but then the saturn bar came through for us at the last minute. this was No More Fiction's 3rd show ever and we were really looking forward to it. we did a lot of work trying to get the flyers to spots that don't normally get flyered for punk shows, like the LGTB center. needless to say we were bummed during that couple of hours before a new spot was found. but everything always works out in the end, right? i hadn't been to a show at saturn bar yet, so i was kind of glad to have the chance to check it out.

kicktease started things off that night. they're an all-girl rock n roll trio from baton rouge. when you watch them, you can feel that they're a new band even though they're pretty tight. this black girl who reminded me of tina turner was the singer. i told her so after the show and she took it kinda weird and then i thought about it later and figured maybe she thought i meant "what's love got to do with it" tina instead of "river deep mountain high" tina which is actually what i meant. but whatever. she was a really good front person. she's got an amazing voice, and the guitarist is super solid. she was this talk, thin, dark-skinned black girl with a long-ass weave and glasses. the way she was playing made it all seem pretty effortless. i mean, even though it's the year 2009, it just ain't somethin you see every day and you could tell a lot of people were impressed. my friend said he thought they sounded "produced" even though they were live. i think it's cuz they really are more of a rock n roll band than a punk band because i believe they were playing through necro hippies equipment anyway. overally, i'm really curious to see how they change as they keep playing.

necro hippies brought their posse, as usual, and mutating meltdown showed up tour-weary but delivered musically. watching them, i got re-inspired. mutating meltdown is the kind of band that i was searching high & low for when i was about 18 years old. it's the kind of stuff i get excited about more than any other kind of punk. weird girl bands like scissor girls, quixotic, essential logic, erase errata, subtonix. i always related to those kinds of bands so much in terms of their music, image and general aesthetic. so obviously, i was really into mutating meltdown and it felt good to cross paths with the two ladies in the band who i first met when they were playing in finally punk, another one to add to the list above. Mutating Meltdown's 7" is out on a label called M'Lady Records, started by a guy who I started my first band ever with in DC. His name is Brett Lyman and he puts out good stuff so check it out.

nola riot

2010-02-22T09:39:00.000-08:00

You know how it is when you’ve been doing the same thing for so long and it becomes so normal that you forget why it was so important that you started doing it in the first place? Well, moving to New Orleans at the age of 30 has reminded me why I got obsessed with girl bands and punk rock over a decade ago.

I spent the last seven years of my life on the west coast, mostly in Portland, Oregon. I moved there when I was 23 and I was instantly so inspired by how active women were in the punk scene there, how many girls were in bands and how many women I was meeting who were influenced by riot girl. Even though I was the only black girl around, which would later prove to be a challenge, Portland felt like a dream to me at the time. There were local bands that were not only all-girl, but all-dyke playing basement and living room shows on a weekly basis. It felt totally normal to be at shows where the bands and audiences were majority ladies & queers. For girls who played music, it was a very safe and supportive environment.

Moving to New Orleans, I knew exactly what I was getting into. There used to be a queer/lady punk scene here but it dissolved a couple of years ago. Lots of people have moved away since Hurricane Katrina and things are slowly getting started up again. Me and some new friends I’ve met since I moved here started putting on shows for queer/lady bands on tour and things are going really well here.

The biggest problem, though, is local bands! An all-girl band comes to town and there aren‘t very many choices of women-fronted bands to put them with. As far as I know so far, there’s Crackbox, a crust punk band with a woman lead singer and there’s Ixnay an all-girl folky/poppy trio. The local scene here is a major challenge, so one of the things I’ve been trying to do is encourage the ladies who live here to start bands. The process of doing that is what helped me remember why I started actively seeking out girl bands when I was around 16 and 17 years old. It helps me remember how finding that music changed my life.

Since moving here, I’ve played music here with other women who are incredible musicians--much, much, much better than I am (which isn’t hard to be) but they have surprisingly little confidence in their own skills and ability. Some of these ladies even have songs that they’ve been writing on their own forever, but won’t bring them out into the public because they believe their songs “aren’t good enough.” There’s nothing wrong with making art for yourself if that’s what you want. But it really does kill me to hear talented people be so down on their own talent, especially because there have already been so many strong women who came before us who have proved that we are good enough.

The first time you try to play along to a Bikini Kill song and you realize it’s just two chords--that’s a moment of an enlightenment. You realize that music isn’t powerful because it’s technical. I can’t even describe where music’s power comes from, but believe me, it has nothing to do with being the best drummer or the best guitarist. It’s all about delivery.

I recently started playing drums for this band called Deny It with this girl Candice who’s in a band called Necro Hippies, and this other girl named Takiya who lives in Florida. I’m not a drummer by any means but I’ve come to realize that singing and playing drums are the most fun things you can do in a band, so I do it anyway. A few weeks ago, we played this show with two all-boy emocore bands from Florida (no comment) and a local woman-fronted ska band. We had to borrow drums from one of the Florida bands and when I sat down at that expensive drumset, I had a moment of feeling like, “Damn, I’m a shitty drummer and these boys are gonna be lookin at me thinking I’m a shitty drummer.” But another part of me knows so much better than that.

Ladies like Erin Smith of Bratmobile and Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney totally demystified the guitar for me. If it wasn’t for them, till this day I might still believe that I can’t play the guitar. Their single-note riffs were fucking fierce and then like a decade later, every indie rock boy band’s music is filled with jumpy single-note riffs trying to be just like them. I listen to UK riot girl band Skinned Teen and it’s sloppy and minimal but so good. It’s all of the energy behind it that makes it work. You can tell they believe in their songs when you hear them.

The long list of women I’ve been lucky enough to play music with are a definitely inspiration. My ex-bandmate Adee never had a drum lesson in her life and created her own beautiful style of playing. Whenever I pick up drum sticks, I definitely think of her and also my friend Ana Rodriguez who plays drums for Portland band Magic Johnson. Bands like the Raincoats and LiliPut/Kleenex teach girls that it’s okay to experiment and trust your own strange sound. You don’t have to sound like everyone else. You don’t have to be loud; you can sound delicate and be punk. And more recently, we’ve got bands like Finally Punk, Vivian Girls, Mika Miko, Explode Into Colors, New Bloods and others keeping the spirit alive.

I really could go on, but the point is, as people on the margins of punk rock, our lessons have been written for us, many times over. It’s time to look back on that short history and draw strength and courage from it. I have so much faith and optimism for the queer and lady punks of New Orleans to rise to the challenge and create a scene that is welcoming to all people regardless of gender, sexuality, race, or ability.

It’s the year 2009! We gotta get over this “we’re not good enough” crap and start really living, expressing ourselves without fear, feeling the euphoria of getting really sweaty playing music for a small room full of appreciative people. This isn’t just about music or punk rock. It’s about liberation, our self-esteems, and the confidence you gain by making shit happen. Now go start a band!

No More Fiction
Punk shows for the ladies & the queers in New Orleans
www.myspace.com/nomorefictionshows
nomorefiction@gmail.com,

fleabag show

2010-02-22T09:32:00.000-08:00

Before I moved to New Orleans a month ago, I had this idea of putting on queer/lady DIY punk shows because I knew that kind of scene was lacking here. During my last couple of years living in Portland, somehow everyone I was close to was either from the New Orleans or had lived there at some point--everyone from bandmates to housemates, even the lady I was babysitting for. It was through those people that I first learned about GirlGang Productions in New Orleans.

GirlGang was a group of three queer women who put on queer shows around town. They started in 2002 after a similar group called She Loves Me/She Loves Me Not went defunct. GirlGang petered out in 2006 after Katrina, but not solely because of the hurricane. The queer DIY scene in New Orleans was always tiny and whenever queer bands came to town, there was just one band to play with, and that band was Tragic Girls End Up Like This. My ex-bandmate Cassia Gammill played keyboards in that band along with Sarah Brooks (aka Sarah Action, ex-Ovary Action), Erin Dwyer (ex-Ovary Action), Elaine Little and Emily Elhaj. Tragic Girls opened for pretty much every queer band that came through Nola and kept the scene alive for women & queers in New Orleans, pretty much until the hurricane hit.

I decided to call the new effort to recreate a queer girl punk scene in New Orleans No More Fiction. I just looked at a list of Essential Logic song titles and picked one. (Runners up: "Music is a Better Noise" and "Born In Flames".) Before I really got started, I felt like it was important for me to get in touch with Mags, one of GirlGang's organizers who still lives in town. I called her up and we talked for a bit about the past and future of a queer girl punk scene in New Orleans. Basically, she told me, she's 40-something years old and in grad school and feels out of the loop when it comes to knowing which bands to invite to town. And if queer bands were brought to New Orleans, who would open for them now that Tragic Girls no longer exists? Mags agreed that there definitely would be enthusiasm and support for a new queer DIY scene in New Orleans. She's really well connected after having been here for so long, and offered her support with spreading the word about shows once No More Fiction got started.

Armed with Mags' blessing, I felt like I could finally start making shit happen. I already had a band in mind that I wanted to set up a show for. Marilyn, the singer/guitar player of Fleabag, this amazing pop-punk band from Oakland, got in touch with me and mentioned that they would be coming through New Orleans on tour in a couple of weeks. Not only is Marilyn's band great, but she's also another queer woman of color in punk. What a perfect band for No More Fiction's first show! I knew I had to get something together for them, but I had to do it fast!

Step 1: Search for a venue.

I exhausted the venue list on www.noladiy.org with no success at all. A couple of weeks notice just isn't enough for most places, and there are very, very few non-bar spaces that have shows here. Nowe Miasto, a punk warehouse in Mid-City, was an obvious choice but they only really do one show a month so I didn't want to overburden them. Dozens of phone calls later, I felt like I had no other choice so I rode my bike over to Nowe, walked through their unlocked front door and up the stairs to the kitchen.

"Hey, who lives here?" I said to the half dozen people crowded in that ridiculously hot kitchen. "I do... What are you looking for?" replied this tall girl with a rattail who was standing at the sink. Her name is Candice and she plays guitar in a New Orleans punk band called Necro Hippies. I told her about No More Fiction, Fleabag and my immediate need for a show space. She was like, "Hey, let me call my friend Hilary. She just moved into this house and they wanna have shows there. I know they'd want to have a show like this at their house." She called Hilary left a message and then said, "Hang on, I'm gonna go get Takiya." She walked out of the kitchen which, by then, was empty except for me. Takiya? Candice reemerged with this tall, young black girl with baby dreads who was visiting New Orleans from Miami. (You say her name: ta-KEY-ya.) Pretty much immediately she was like, "Hey you play music? What do you play? You wanna play right now?" And right then, Deny It was born.

Step 2: Find an opening band.

Or if there isn't a fitting opening band, make one from scratch. Candice and Takiya showed me the songs they'd been making up together with Candice on guitar and Takiya playing saxophone. I asked to sit in and play drums and they both seemed pretty patient and happy with my simple, no-lessons style beats. We decided we would open for Fleabag, Candice & Takiya decided the band should be called Deny It, and we scheduled practice again for the next day.

Step 3: Make a shitty flyer and hand it out.

Hilary and her housemate Becca decided to call their house Witch Cunt. I ran into Hilary one night at a show and she talked to me about how psyched she was to have queer girl shows at her house. We both bubbled about how exciting it was that all these new things were coming together at once. Finally we've got a space for the show, an opening band and a flyer. On to...

Step 4: Carry extremely heavy things over to Witch Cunt, set it all up, play a show, sweat a lot and feel real happy.

I didn't move to New Orleans to do punk stuff, really. In fact, before I moved here, I was wondering if I'd have time to play a lot of music and continue making my zine with everything else I thought I'd have going on. I figured that between work and school, it would be a real challenge to fit other things in. I came to New Orleans to be a teacher because even before Hurricane Katrina, the public schools here have been terribly under-resourced and otherwise neglected. I want to be here for this beautiful city, and do my tiny part in helping to build it back up. For sure, there are more important things for New Orleans than making sure more punk shows happen. And if you want to make it a racial issue, is my priority the predominantly white punk scene in New Orleans or the predominantly Black communities that have inhabited New Orleans? To be completely fair, an awesome mix of people came to the Fleabag show, including a bunch of queers and people of color (most of us Black), and ultimately I don't feel like I have to choose one community or the other, anyway. I guess, I'm always trying to keep my eye on the big picture, and punk rock just isn't the big picture to me. It's a tiny, removed piece of society that I get a lot out of being a part of, but it isn't the big picture.

Unfortunately the rest of the world isn't as laid back as punk is because I am as passionate about the work I can do in public schools as I am about overtly feminist queer/lady-style punk rock. But Witch Cunt didn't make me fill out an application and pay a fee to have a show there. We just asked and it happened. So wish me luck filling out applications, paying a bunch of fees and taking a bunch of silly exams on my journey to becoming a public school teacher. I think it'll be worth it in the end.

If you want more information on Girl Gang, including an archive of the shows they put on during their existence, got here: www.girlgangproductions.com.

For more information on No More Fiction go here: www.myspace.com/nomorefictionshows and you can e-mail us here: nomorefiction@gmail.com. If you're a band that fits into No More Fiction's mission and you're going on tour, come play New Orleans. We'll put you on!

interview with nia king

2010-02-22T09:20:00.000-08:00

APPEARED IN MRR #314 JULY 2009

What follows is a conversation between myself and zine maker Nia Diaspora. She is probably best known for her zine, “Angry Black-White Girl.” She also wrote a zine called “The First 7 Inch Was the Better: How I Became an Ex-Punk” a short quarter-sized zine about her experiences as a queer punk of color isolated in punk scenes and her decision to move on. Nia brought together dozens of mixed race writers for the zine anthologies “MXD: True Stories by Mixed Race Writers“ and “Borderlands: Tales from Disputed Territories between Races and Cultures." She lives in Oakland, CA but was chillin' with some old friends at Lo Mas Alla house in Denver when we had this conversation.

Osa: First of all, I just wanna tell you that you're a really smart writer and that your ideas about race feel really well-thought-out and sincere.

Nia: Wow, thank you. “Shotgun Seamstress” was totally a lifesaver for me too. Now that I’m not involved with punk anymore I still value that kind of writing. It validates what I feel or felt at the time, and reminds me I’m not crazy.

Osa: I'm glad that someone out there gets it and could relate. I really want to talk to you about your uninvolvement with punk because you still write zines which I think is a way of participating in punk. What do you think?

Nia: [laughs] I don’t really think of zines as being inherently married to punk subculture. I mean, punk is probably how I got into writing them, but I don’t write for a punk audience. I guess I am trying to use the medium to subvert it.

Osa: Come on! You're at a punk house right now hanging out with a girl that we both just randomly happen to know through punk... Just admit it you're still kinda punk!

Nia: [laughs] BUSTED! Well, I don’t feel punk. I feel really alienated in punk spaces. Lo Mas Alla, where Luisa and some of my other friends live, feels kind of different. Most of the people who live there may still have love for punk culture, but they also view punk with a critical lens. At some point, most of them have told me they are growing out of punk. I could try and defend it further but it feels silly. I am staying with punks at a punk house. Fact. Am I a punk? No.

Osa: Yeah, well the point I’m trying to make is half-silly and half-serious. I do feel strongly about the fact that people of color end up relinquishing so much to white people just because white people take up all that space. I mean, how many times have you talked to another black girl who's like, "I'm not a feminist because I feel like feminism is for white women"? And I’m thinking that feminism is an important tool, just like punk is for me, and I’m definitely not going to let white people define what it means to be punk or feminist. I’m going to use those words, those tools, in ways that benefit me.

Nia: I feel that, but defending punk and feminism can be a lot of work, and a lot of the criticism I’ve heard of both is valid. I guess trying to hold space for POCs in punk is exhausting, not because they're not already there taking up (some) space, but because being the only POC in a room is fucking exhausting in my experience. I wanted to retreat to spaces where I didn’t feel like I had to fight for visibility or have to call people on their shit all the time, and for me punk was not that. Not that I was the lone voice of reason or the lone POC, but often enough, it felt like it. I have nothing but respect for women of color who hold it down in punk rock and call shit out, and make records and write zines, but it's not for me anymore. Or at least I’m a lot pickier about the ways I engage with it and the situations I put myself in. You feel me?

Osa: Yeah I do. I think that's why it's so important to have this conversation because I can see how we're coming at it from such different perspectives even though both are valid. I totally relate to feeling drained to the bone by being in predominantly white "progressive" spaces. And it wasn't just punk. Going to college for women's studies with all those well-meeting white liberal feminists almost gave me an aneurysm. At the same time, for me, it’s not about defending punk or feminism. I just am those things in my daily life. I feel like I did give up fighting for visibility and correcting ignorance and oppressive dynamics in punk scenes. But that just meant that I spent more time hanging out with the brown kids and cultivating those relationships.

Nia: Word. It seems like some punk scenes have more brown kids that others.

Osa: Totally. Or if they’re not there, you seek them out just like I sought you out. I feel like somehow I was lucky enough to meet other black punk kids who made me feel like I could have it all and not give up anything, and that had little to do with confronting white people.

Nia: That's awesome, but for me punk felt like an obstacle between me and forging community with people like me, that is queer folks of color. Not that it was required, but it just didn’t make sense. Having become politicized largely in punk communities was something that marked me as different from a lot of activist folks of color I wanted to build with, that marked me as "white", and as coming from a type of activism that didn't have an analysis around power and privilege when it comes to race, gender, class and queer and trans issues, which my experiences in punk communities affirmed. Or at least if it had that analysis, it wasn't practiced. I also realized how dogmatic I had become as an anarcho-punk, and how rooted some of the ideas that pervaded the scenes I was part of about what made a good activist were in privilege; white privilege, class privilege, privileges associated with not having to provide for a family. I go more in depth on that in "The First 7-Inch."

Osa: So what was your transition out of punk like? Did you have to move or say goodbye to old friends? Was it drastic or gradual?

Nia: I guess the drastic part of it was going through a shitty break-up and breaking ties with the anarcho-punk activist circles I had been part of in Boston. My involvement and my disillusionment with punk began long before that, but the break-up inspired me to leave Boston, which opened up a lot of doors for me to create the kind of community I wanted. I went traveling and sort of unwittingly ended up on the punk-house circuit, not really knowing how to break away from it (or who else but punks were going to take a stranger into their homes.) Almost all the people that lived in these houses that hosted me were white, and involved in the kinds of activist communities I was already starting to feel alienated by. It wasn't until I got toDenver, where I actually did stay at a punk house, but with punks (and non-punks) of color who seemed to be part of a much less segregated

scene. In Denver, for the first time I didn't feel like I had to prove I was a POC. I said I was mixed and nobody took my light skin as an invitation to question my authenticity. I felt like there I could be friends with punks, but not be married to the scene and the bullshit that came with it, and my association with punks wouldn't make my identification as a queer person of color suspect. But again, those weren't the kind of spaces I wanted to be in or felt particularly comfortable in, despite that I met punks I felt like I could trust on queer issues and issues of race (mostly, but not exclusively, queer punks and punks of color.)

Osa: What does your new community look like and elements of punk did you bring with you?

Nia: The communities I've built for myself since leaving punk consist mostly of queer folks of color and a handful or down white queers. Most of them are activists and creative types, using art and music to challenge injustice. I guess the one "element of punk" that comes to mind is that I am still trying to subvert the media through my zines and through blogging, which have been really effective tools for community building with other women of color and mixed folks. Also, in the scene I was part of punk, anarchism and activism were closely linked. I was attracted to anarchism because to me, the abolition of hierarchy meant the abolition of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. So you could say that that fact that working towards the liberation of all my people constitutes an "element of punk," but I think that's giving punk too much credit. But hey, maybe all that empty rhetoric about "smashing patriarchy" at least put me on the right track, fanned the flames of my militancy and made activism look sexy. I'm also still vegan and still drug-free, although I don't call myself straightedge so much anymore. I might not have gone vegan if not for punk and Food Not Bombs though. Who knows?

Osa: Well, going back to your zine and you writing, I felt like your experiences as a mixed race person are just another example of how our society expects very specific things of blackness. Like that very common response you would get, "Well you don't even LOOK black!"

Nia: I wouldn't argue with that.

Osa: Well the fact of the matter is you're half-black, in your zine you say you identify as black, and in a different historical context, you wouldn't have been able to drink from the same water fountain as the person making that comment. What do you think about that?

Nia: I wouldn't argue with that either. I mean its not always white people saying that shit. But I’m not sure that's really the point.

Osa: Yeah it doesn't matter who's saying it. It’s just about the fact that it's all a construction. What it means to be "really black." Black people internalize it, other people of color buy into it… For instance, the belief that being weird, eccentric, queer, punk, feminist can make you "less black."

Nia: Yeah, "real blackness" is an elusive fucker as far as I can tell. That's very true. On the other hand, it's hard to feel "less Black"when you’ve never been allowed to be Black. My inclusion in communities of color has always felt somewhat conditional, as if Iwere just "passing" as a POC and my membership could be revoked at any time. So for me, the lightness of my skin was a much bigger obstaclethan my queerness or feminism. Maybe if people were more willing to see me as Black I would be getting some of that other shit instead.

Osa: So we’re definitely coming from different perspectives on this, but I feel like in the end, we're both trying to expand all of these categories. I try and do it through talking about culture, music and art, trying to expand our own ideas on how black people can expressive ourselves. You do it through personal writing about your racial identity.

Nia: Sure. I think that zines are a powerful tool in creating visibility for people of color, in punk and out. I guess you could say I am trying to expand people's definitions and conceptions of blackness but ultimately I don’t see my writing as a demand for inclusion in black or POC spaces, punk spaces or anywhere else. I like to think that my writing aggressively calls out and confronts racism, but when you boil it down, it's really, "This is my experience. You should know that it exists. And I invite you to check your assumptions. Peace."

Osa: Yeah. I actually got interviewed by this zinester in the UK. She asked me a question about visibility and I told her I’m not interested in it.

Nia: What did you mean?

Osa: Well, I guess it just depends on what you mean by the word. To me, it means making your struggles, experiences & contributions visible to the dominant group, being white folks. But I try so hard in my zine to speak to other black people and people of color exclusively. Staying in punk requires that I quit wasting my energy talking to white people and that I nurture myself and other brown folks around me. So even though I know I have a white audience, they are just lucky enough to be eavesdropping in on a convo that I’m really having with other POCs.

Nia: That's true. I guess when I hear "visibility," I think, "acknowledgment that you exist.”

Osa: But it's only white people who need that reminder, you know?

Nia: Maybe. There are also isolated POCs who need to know they are not alone.

Osa: Exactly. And this is for them. Any advice to brown kids who may be isolated in punk right now?

Nia: You deserve spaces where you can bring your whole self to the table, where you don't have to leave your culture, your brownness,mixedness, or your queerness at the door. If punk spaces are the kind of spaces where you can be your whole self and be embraced, good for you. If you don't find those spaces particularly accepting but demand inclusion, work to create safe space and hold punk accountable to it's allegedly anti-oppressive ideals, that's badass and I personally am grateful that you exist and are doing the work you do. And if punk isn't that space for you, is never going to be that space for you or you just run out of energy trying to make it that, keep looking. There are spaces you can be your whole self, and you deserve to not have to check parts of yourself at the door in order to experience community and acceptance. It's not an impossible dream and it shouldn't be a privilege. Don't settle. If you keep looking I think you'll find that it's worth the wait.

To find Nia's zines visit: www.strangerdangerdistro.com and to read her blog go here: ab-wg.blogspot.com/. Look for her newest zine "Ungrateful Black-White Girl" also at Stranger Danger.

a race riot did happen

2010-02-22T09:17:00.000-08:00

APPEARED IN MRR #313 JUNE 2009

I didn't get called in to work today which means that instead of spending my day substitute teaching in a classroom full of buckwild 3rd graders, I get to sit in bed, read zines and drink tea. Right now, I don't have any new zines that I haven't already read so I decided to go back in time. I'll periodically re-read zines like Evolution of a Race Riot (I & II), How to Stage a Coup, Slander, Quantify, and Mala just to remind myself what punk kids of color were talking about ten years ago. Ten years ago! Even longer ago, in some cases. I can't believe it's been that long.

Anyway, there very well may have been zines by people of color (POCs) before Race Riot, etc. came out, in fact I'm positive that there were. But the zines I just mentioned above were the first ones I found. I like to re-read them because I see the zine I write as part of that short lineage. I'm curious about how the experiences of race & racism in the punk scene has changed since then and how it's stayed the same. I'm always wondering what new perspective I can add to that discussion as a black queer woman in the late 2000s.

The ladies who wrote those earlier zines (mostly women, some guys, a couple of genderqueer folks) were mostly Asian, Latino and mixed race (mostly half-white and half-Asian or Latino.) I think there are only two or three contributions by black punks in both issues of Race Riot, which has always been disappointing for me, but which also kind of makes sense because many of those writings came out of the West Coast where there are tons of Asian and Latino folks and very few black folks.

Race Riot was an anthology put together by Mimi Nguyen and How To Stage a Coup was another anthology put together by Helen Luu. Both came out in the late 90s. These two women, and the legions of punks of color that submitted to their anthologies, had been part of predominantly white punk scenes, including riot girl. They were totally pissed about their experience, and understandably so. These anthologies are straight-up rant fests calling white punks out on their ignorance and hypocrisy.

I think what made racism in predominantly white punk or activist scenes more disappointing and hurtful than the racism one might encounter anywhere else is the fact that these people who are making your life miserable claim to be anti-oppressive, feminist, anti-racist. Naively, some of us expected more from our white peers and got let down harder.

Subsequently, many of these POC punks left the scene. They were bitter and fed up with their experiences. Now this is where my mind starts manufacturing millions of questions. 1. Where exactly did these "ex-punks" end up that was an anti-racist utopia? Where do you go if you're a person of color where you don't have to experience racism? 2. How did these people suddenly turn un-punk? I mean, they're all making a totally diy zine together. That's punk, right? Some of those people continued making zines and participating in punk after that, although maybe to a lesser degree. If you found a home in punk because yr a super weird queer kid, if punk is something useful to you, if it's the way you make art and the way you were politicized, how do you just leave? Where do you go?

What all of these early POC punk zines did for me was put me in touch with other brown punk kids. I remember meeting this queer Asian girl, Celeste at a BBQ/B-day party because I saw a copy of Race Riot sticking out of her bag. Later, we started a Queer People of Color (QPOC) group together made up of about six brown queer kids. It was awesome! We made delicious vegetarian food to share with each other, we shared our family histories and we made real friend-connections with each other. It wasn't an "activist" group per se. It was just us carving out our own space and it really did help.

Other people, like my friend and ex-bandmate Adee, were inspired by the existence of other brown punks in faraway places, and started her own zine called Finger on the Trigger. She wrote from her perspective as a poor, black diy punk, hailing from the dirty south, who loved reading, traveling, sewing and cooking. Her zines were so cute! Through making them, she got in touch with black punks all over the country. The next generation of brown punks took the emphasis off of criticizing whitey and put it on loving ourselves. We started bands with each other, wrote each other letters, wrote more zines about our experiences. Plus, white people really benefited from those earlier POC punk zines, too--at least those white people who were truly interested in educating themselves about racism. They realized they were being stupid and pissing us off and they toned it down some.

It's kind of funny to me that our brown punk rock foremothers left the game while the next generation of brown punks stuck around and really benefited from the work that they did. Actually, it bums me out. When me, Adee and our friend Cassia started our band, New Bloods, we received support from former-riot girls that never stopped caring about women and queers being represented in punk rock. Tobi Vail still works at Kill Rock Stars, plays in bands and actively supports new girl bands. Layla Gibbon, the coordinator of this here zine yr reading, is still active in punk and does her part to support zines and bands that are feminist, and that involve women. But where is Helen Luu now? What's Bianca Ortiz (author of Mala zine) up to these days? What about Iraya from that old queer-pop band Sta-Prest, who also was involved with riot girl and made POC punk zines? I actually sent Mimi Nguyen a copy of one of my zines and she got back to me saying that she really liked it. I know that she wrote a column for Punk Planet for a while after her "exit" from punk rock. I believe she's either a PhD candidate or a college professor now.

Anyway, the only thing I can assume is that it really was that bad for the POC punks who came before me. As far as my experience goes, I can definitely say that the pros of being a black punk outweighed the cons. But ten or fifteen years ago, that wasn't the case, and it may not be the case for many punks of color today depending on a number of factors, including what part of the country they're in. The people who paved the way for us did so and then moved on because they couldn't stand it anymore. So, as much I appreciate all the support that people like Tobi and Layla to give newer, younger generations of feminist punks, it would've blown my mind to see Mimi, Bianca or Iraya at one of our shows. It would've meant so much. It's immensely disappointing that punk rock, a movement that claims to be so forward thinking and progressive has been (and to some extent, continues to be) alienating to people who do not represent a punk rock norm (which, by the way, isn't supposed to exist!).

I wonder what the expectations were of those punks of color who left punk rock. What did they envision for punk kids of color in years to come? Even though the fact that they left the scene is pretty much a sure sign of their pessimistic cynicism, I'd still like to believe that their intention was to leave the scene better than they found it. What was the point of putting out zines like Race Riot & How to Stage a Coup, if not to try to spawn some kind of change in the punk scene? Well here we are! The change (I hope) they wished to see in the world! People of color punks, empowered by the words and deeds of those who came before us, building community with each other, and ready to fuck shit up.

With all of the new books and DVDs coming out documenting riot girl, it's completely unacceptable that those riot girls' brown punk sisters are left out of that history. As much as people try to document punk history, punk rock can still be so ahistorical. People leave the scene and move on, records and zines go out of print, white punks continue to ignore the contributions of punks of color... and it's like all of it never happened. Well, a race riot did happen and I'm living proof. I know I wouldn't be here if other punk rock feminists and POCs hadn't carved out by force a nice comfy space for me to exist.

I guess all of this is just a long-winded way of saying, "Thank you."

my new friend

2010-02-22T09:11:00.000-08:00

APPEARED IN MRR #312 MAY 2009

February 14th 2009 was all about my girlfriend not being able to get the weekend off from work to come visit me so I ended up at an anti-Valentine's Day dance party at the Girl Cave with my homegirls instead. The dance party was a benefit for Girls Rock! DC and when we got there, it was pretty packed and some raw-ass reggaeton was moving bodies on the dance floor. I showed up with my friend Bea who was in town from Oakland and her old friend from college, Griffin. A tiny group of black queers rolling only three deep but feeling a million strong.

I was hyped up that night and ready to have a blast no matter what. But as soon as we walked in there, Bea started grumbling about how white the party was. It reminded her of her days at Oberlin College in Ohio. Now, Bea's not a punk but she's no mainstreamer either. She's all decked out in a million bright colors acting all crazy. She's one of the most critical minds I know. She's a dancer. She wants to make music but she's got some kind of block that I hope she gets over someday. She is so much fun and we are in absolute friend-love with each other. People like her make the world a livable place for people like me.

So Bea is trippin about being surrounded by whitey and I understand why, to some extent. DC is a majority black city. Why do all these little worlds and scenes have to be so segregated? On the other hand, I've made my peace with all of this racial business to a large extent. I am a woman, I play music and I support other women and girls who play music. I know that a Girls Rock! DC benefit house party is exactly where I belong even if I do wish, at the same time, that there were more brown faces right there with me in that sweaty living room.

The night wore on, we danced & danced and I started working the crowd, walking up to the few random black people at the party and introducing myself. I met a girl with dreads named Ebony who's a dj and who looked really gay although I could be wrong; a cute shy boy named John with some dope glasses on that had white & black checkerboard pattern on the sides; and another a true gem of a girl named Zachari. Zachari ended up dancing with me, Bea & Griffin for the rest of the night. She was so cool! She knew how to vogue! That was only my second time seeing someone vogue in real life. (And if you think I'm talking about Madonna's total rip-off dance moves from the 90s, yr a damn fool.)

After the party, we went to Ben's Chili Bowl, the oldest Black business in DC, and ate some chili cheese fries. Total gut bomb. I shoved fries covered in nacho cheese sauce into my mouth while I listened to Zachari talk about her favorite books by Octavia Butler and her upcoming trip to Brazil. Who was this cool girl and how did we find her? We all exchanged numbers and promised to get in touch soon.

On the rare occasions that I meet other black folks who I have a lot in common with because we're queer, feminist, punk, artists/musicians, or all of the above, I get so excited! It's definitely not something I can take for granted. In the past, I've put way too many expectations on the beginnings of these friendships, but I've learned not to do that anymore. I know that nothing's perfect and I've learned over time to just wait and see how things turn out. Life isn't that formulaic. You can never say "Well this person has a, b and c characteristics and I have them too and so we're going to be great friends."

At the same time, maybe you understand what it's like to embody certain identities that seem incongruent, identities that very few other people embody. In most people's minds, being black and being punk don't really match up. Adding queerness to the mix can make life even more challenging, if not also more fabulous. Socially, you're in a tough spot. Ultimately, my interests, particularly my love of punk rock and feminism, lead me to the scenes and social circles I am in today. Unfortunately, pursuing my interests means that I have to deal with being isolated on the basis of race.

In the end, I've chosen to follow my passions and I know I owe a lot to punk rock. It's the only arena in which people actually appreciate the kind of art and music I know how to make. At the same time, being isolated in a white scene, being The Only One so often, is a huge sacrifice on my part, and on the part of every brown kid who is isolated in small punk scenes in the towns they live in. Being constantly outnumbered, especially in communities where white people freely discuss their own oppressions based on class, gender, size or sexuality, is in itself oppressive.

For me, being a Black Punk is about constantly trying to achieve balance, socially and otherwise. Because punk is a white scene by default, I have to constantly be mindful of including brown people in my life since it's not something that I can count on to happen naturally. Over the years, through moving around, going on tour, and writing letters & zines, I've slowly built a small body of punks of color around me. When I say "around me," I don't necessarily mean that in the physical sense. All of them live spread out over these 50 states (a couple are in Canada & Europe, even!) but it's a community to me, nevertheless.

As amazing and fulfilling as my experience has been, the unfairness of it all still gets to me. My friend Jacob, from Michigan called me up last night. He's seven years younger than me and asks me for advice a lot. He's just starting off with his art and his music and he's looking for a good place to move where his interests would be nurtured. He's torn. Jacob is a beautiful black, talented punk rock feminist fag who would love to take advantage of the cheap rent and young art kid communities in a place like Portland except he's so afraid of being racially isolated there. He's been in similar situations before, and has no desire to go back. He's thinking about New York, on the other hand, because it is more racially diverse, but the cost of living there will break your back. Also, I'm not sure if the same DIY, riot girl-inspired scene exists in NYC the way it does in Portland. If Jacob were a white kid, I'd say "Move to Portland! It'll be perfect for you." But it won't be perfect for Jacob. It sucks that he has this one extra thing to consider. It's unfortunate that at times, it feels like we have to decide which of our identities to prioritize.

In the last few years, I've become stubbornly opposed to making such a decision. I'm not choosing which side of myself to prioritize and I'm not about to give anything up. I am black, I am queer, I am a feminist, I am a diy punk, I am a musician, and I am all of those things all of the time. Furthermore, I will look underneath every rock, searching for people who are like me who make me feel normal, at peace, and at home.

After my recent move from Portland to DC, a friend, a fellow black queer punk wrote me, "With you and a couple other folks gone, Portland has started to feel super white again and I feel like I stand out now more than ever..." When yr a black punk in an overwhelmingly white scene, that's how much just one or two people can change your entire reality. The upside to that, is when you find those one or two people, your connections run deep and you treasure them. You treat them like gold.