2004-04-03 - 12:59 a.m.
Sometimes I wish I carried around a tape player that I could hit “play” on and it would argue my points for me, thus reducing my participation in (or witnessing of) the same old political conversations I have had a million times that never seem to go anywhere. I am all for dialog and deconstruction, all the time. I try to be open to learning, to seeing new perspectives, to understanding where people are coming from. I truly believe this is one of the few ways we can build healthy interpersonal relationships and hopefully healthy communities as a result (though this might just be a hope that is too far flung). However, when people don’t want to listen to what you are saying, when they feel threatened and close down and over-justify their actions with half-baked political reasoning, that is when I want to say “enough,” when I start to feel that certain conversations (and relationships) may just not be worth my time.
Call me a snob, fine, but let me elaborate with an example:
The other week I attended a basement show of Skeleton Coast, one of my favorite bands, in Portland, Oregon. The opening bands were from California and one of them, the Gross Gang, played totally boring, ironic, punk/rockandroll/noise/whatever. Okay, so who cares. Well, the singer, sporting an ironic mustache, was all up in the women who were watching the bands space and faces. When one woman asked him to stop, he persisted. I was sitting in the back and didn’t quite comprehend what was going on until most of the people I knew at the show walked out. We talked about what to do, about how it is so frustrating to go to these spaces that are supposed to be respectful, and constantly come across people (dudes, mostly) who insist that we are being “too serious” when we try to assert our right to be in that space. They seem to feel we are dampening the party of rock and roll and tippin’ 40’s when we speak up and call people out for their disrespect of us. So later, the singer dude approached the woman who had asked him to stop and later left and was all, “you need to understand it’s an act, it’s just for fun, etc. etc. etc....” She tried to explain to him what it meant to be a woman in this society where are bodies are constantly on display, objectified, opened for men’s access, all the time, you know, feminism 101 stuff. The dude just did not want to hear it, it just turned into the same whiny, defensive, “I’m a white male, but I’m not an oppressor, you’re just too uptight” conversation we’ve all witnessed (or been a part of) too many times. It seems even worse with the people who claim to have some kind of consciousness, because they tend to get super defensive when questioned on their behavior.
Fortunately, Skeleton Coast totally rocked out and a lot of us ladies were right up front, screaming along and reminding me why I love DIY shows- not so much separation between band and audience, a celebration of the art your friends create, of our possibilities of a community.
However, the evenings earlier incident continued to rankle me. It’s not like I even expect rock shows to be free of gross dude-like behavior (or racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, etc.) just because they are “punk” or whatever. However, there’s a clear difference (in my mind) between a bigger rock show (not that this justifies any fucked up behavior, it absolutely does not), and a small show where you’re friends are playing. I am just constantly surprised (perhaps naively) that people I associate pretty closely with just simply do not (or refuse to) recognize the ways they are oppressive to other people in their close circles.
The same applies to my liberal arts college. So many times straight-upperclass-white boys speak up and say that they feel “oppressed” and “in the minority” in this space, and that no one takes them seriously. They want to forget all the cultural power they have, and they want to cling onto that cultural power most strongly when it is called into question. And please, speaking as a upper middle class white girl, I totally believe that solidarity is possible, that white boys (or anyone) can be strong fuckin’ allies and advocates and activists for social justice, for feminism, for ending racism, this is beside the point. Again, it’s not like I expect any institution to be free from racism, classism, sexism and heterosexism, it’s more that I always hope that it is a space where we can call these things into question more than we could in mainstream society.
