YOU'RE WRONG 

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

You know how after you get fucked up the chocolate tube you have to immediately take a shit? Somehow those cum lubricated turdsfeel better and more satisfying than the natural-once-a-day-nature-calls shits. The bigger the cock, the harder the fuck, the more powerful is the shit that follows.

About thirty years ago, a bevy of superbad Negro rhythm and blues boys, each with a dozen inches of throbbing love muscle, gang banged a lilly white country and western crew, knocking their cowboy hats out of the county. The turd that popped out after that fuckfest was Rock'n'Roll.

Yep, buckaroos, Rock'n'roll is the product of a sodomite orgy between white and black American culture. It's the turd stuck to the shoe bottoms of us all. No matter how much SKREWDRIVER denies its blackness or PUBLIC ENEMY denies it's whiteness-- it is as integrated as a computer circuit.

Now, store these images in your mind's desk drawer. I'll ask you to retrieve them latter. Right now I want to come to the topic of this column: racism.

Last month I wrote about the stupidity of anti-Klan demonstrations, but there's more to say.

In this awful movie on public liberal TV, a group of heavy featured white Brit-brutes attacked a turbaned Paki family for moving into their neighborhood. The terrified helpless Pakis, called on a callous police force to protect them. Better to have protect me from this movie!

I've often wondered if you have to take stupid pills to be a liberal-- but maybe it just comes naturally. So to the bubble-brained comsimp MRR readers, I'll explain things piece by piece in nice easy-to-understand chunks. No, I'm not in favor of racism, but you guys don't understand it. You believe the liberal myths and try to fight straw racists without understanding what's really behind the problem. So let's slay the dragon of misconception. Here are the liberal cliches about racism and the reality behind them. Keep in mind I'll be making lots of racial generalizations. Of course they don't hold true for everyone. They are tendencies, even stereotypes, but stereotypes don't drop from outer space. Something in people's experience creates those stereotypes.

Cliche number 1: RACISM IS DISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF THE COLOR OF ONE'S SKIN. This is so obviously a crock of cowboy turds, that it's barely worth mentioning. The only reason I'm including it, is because I've heard it everywhere from school teachers to anarcho-punks who sound like school teachers. It's also what I hear from foreigners in Scandinavian or other one-race countries where they "solve" all America's problems on the time their welfare checks keep them free from having to work.

I grew up in an all-white suburb of New York. When I was five or six years old, I overheard someone saying that "colored people" were going to move into the neighborhood. I had never heard of colored people before, but I imagined folks with red blue and yellow strips around their bodies-- like an old-style barber pole. Excited, I ran home to ask my parents to show me pictures of colored people. What a disappointment when I found out they had as many and as boring colors as I have.

Racism involves RACE, not color. There are albino Negroes that are whiter than most Klansmen. They're still Black. I've seen tanned Caucasian sun-worshippers that'd get lost in a coalbin. They're still White. A GROUP of characteristics makes up a race. It's physical characteristics like the thickness of lips, the width of the nose, the size of the penis. It's also cultural. Because of climate and a history of living together, various races or sub-races ("sub" not in the sense of "lower" but in the sense of race-within-a-race) have developed cultural characteristics. A common history of literacy or illiteracy, slavery or freedom, quietude or boisterousness, varying methods of problem solving, differing values. These are all part of "race."

Cliche number 2: THERE IS NO REAL BASIS FOR RACISM EXCEPT IGNORANT HATRED OF WHAT'S DIFFERENT. This is probably the biggest liberal misconception-- and the one that makes most of their efforts so ineffective. I was mugged twice this year. Last time, they took my black leather jacket-- a bigger tragedy than any money loss. Both times, a GROUP of muggers attacked me. In both cases, every attacker was black. People who live in fear of street or subway crime know that if someone attacks them, there's a good chance that the person doing the attacking will be black (or hispanic). There's no arguing with the reality of the situation. It hits you every time you walk down the street.

Last week they called me for jury duty. The state accused the woman defendant of impersonating a police officer to rob a neighbor's gold chain. The complainant ran a crackhouse, charging $3 a head to puff up in her apartment. Her son, testifying against the accused thief, said that he was a heroin dealer and he knew the defendant because he sold her drugs. Of course, we found the woman not guilty for lack of credible witnesses against her. Eleven of us immediately voted for acquittal. Two hours later, we convinced the only holdout. Before we could deliver our verdict, however, the defendant escaped police custody, and fled-- proving us all to be fools. The point: every key player in this drama was black: the escaped defendant, the crackhouse complainant, the heroin dealer. The only holdout juror, the one who knew best and was probably right about the crime-- was black. "I know these people," she had told us during deliberations, "I live with them."

TV crime shows and movies like DEATH WISH are comic in their attempts to make muggers white Hollywood-looking youths. There may be some, but any city dweller knows that, by a large majority, if someone attacks and robs them, it will NOT be a white person. This, by the way, is a reason the media has seized on SKINHEADS as a new fearful and violent force. They need a white scapegoat. Here in New York, a local TV station did a three part series on the dangers of skinheads. They need someone to point to and show that white folks are as bad as colored. In a lot of ways, Skinheads are becoming the niggers of the 80's. More about that later. Right now I just want to point out that racism has a basis in fear-- and that fear is justified.

Related to that is cliche number 3: YOU CAN SEE THAT WE LIVE IN A RACIST SOCIETY BY THE FACT THAT SUCH A HIGH PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE IN URBAN PRISONS ARE BLACK AND HISPANIC. Of course, the truth is that a higher percentage of blacks than whites commit prosecuted violent crimes in urban areas. In the NYC subways, for example, blacks vs. white crime dominates all others. Blacks get sent to jail more than whites because the crimes black commit are often immediately and obviously violent. White (also known as white-collar) crime is economic and not physical. Often it hurts just as many people just as severely as violent crime. It wipes out finances. It can even cause death through depression and poverty-- along with the inability to pay for medical care because of money lost in a white collar scam. Yet, there are time lags between the commission of white-collar crimes and their consequences. Things are more complicated and less obvious. The average Sam doesn't fear white collar crime on his way home from school.

Cliche Number 4: POVERTY CAUSES CRIME. I'm sure that's what you said as you read the last few paragraphs. Those poor muggers! They're so poor that they have to steal to get food for themselves and their families. What a crock of chitlins!! The first set of guys who mugged me wore multi-hundred dollar jogging suits and those padded sneakers with the big-meat tongues that cost more than the foot that's inside them. I'm sure that both times, the people who mugged me had more money than I did. Once, poverty may have caused crime, but crime became ingrained in the culture.

Your daddy lives from mugging. Your pals live from mugging. You live in a society where others live from mugging. Mugging is what you do. It's a quick easy way to make money. If you come from a background where there is no value placed on education, then you will live in a way that needs no education. If you come from a background where your parents or your parent's parents were economically or politically forced into ghettos, then you will adopt the values that developed in those ghettos. If you come from a culture with a history or environment of poverty, than money takes on an increased importance-- even if you are not poor yourself.

It is a culture of poverty, rather than poverty itself, that creates the climate for these crimes. Jews are cheap for the same reasons that blacks mug people. Their foreparents were poor. Lack of money increases the desire and value of money. Jews were educated and poor, so they used business (knowledgeable) means to acquire wealth. Negroes did not have a culture of education, but they were strong. That strength became their way to acquire wealth.

Cliche number 5: ONLY WHITES CAN BE RACIST. When white-folks talk about "fighting racism" they mean "white racism." Louis Farrakhan called Judaism a "gutter religion." The Black Muslims called white folks "children of the devil." Eldridge Cleaver wrote that raping white women was a revolutionary act for a black man (therefore something desirable). All races have their racists. Just as anti-black racism has validity in the experience of white folks, so anti-white racism has validity in the experience of black folks. If you see your race doing nothing but flipping burgers to serve whitey, it can make you mad. If you see your race sleeping in the streets while the white folks in shirts and ties pass you by, saying "don't bother me for that spare change," it can piss you off. If your presidential candidate gets short shafted by the party, and they pick some second rate guy with bushy eyebrows instead of a man who shook the country, it could make you a racist. Sure, black-- as well as white-- racism has its roots in the experience of the racists. But it's important to keep in mind that it exists.

Cliche number 6 is implied but never directly said in many of the lefty newspapers and demonstrations: TELLING PEOPLE NOT TO BE RACIST WILL CHANGE THEM. This cliche is inferred by the false belief that there is nothing behind racism except propaganda. When the light of the truth revealed, the masses fly to it like a moth to a hot lightbulb. Turkey crap! Because people's experience is such a big part of racism, you can talk at them as much as you want, but unless you SHOW them, they will not be convinced.

The B-side of cliche number 6 is cliche number 7: PREVENTING PEOPLE FROM EXPRESSING RACISM WILL PREVENT RACISM. Groups, like the RCP and Youth Against War and Fascism along with Anarcho-Fascists and others, see it as their job to prevent the expression of racism. (Aside: ever wonder why there are more black skinheads than there are black anarchists? More about that later.) Besides the morality of allowing free speech and the efficiency of a free marketplace of ideas, the suppression of racist expression is simply a bad tactic. One of the reasons is that by attacking something, you make it more attractive. People like to see themselves as part of an "out group" or a persecuted minority. The crucified skinhead a perfect example.

Traditional psychology-- as well as ulcer research-- provides another negation of this cliche. If you suppress expression of the anger and frustration, created when faced with crime, the "taking away of jobs" or other forces, then that anger and frustration will find another, more secret but no less dangerous, way of expressing itself.

Finally, if you prevent the expression of racism, then you deny yourself the means to counteract it. When you get a syphilis chancre you can put make-up on it so that no one will know it's there. I've hear peroxide will make it disappear. In any case, the oozing red sore goes away by itself. You can deny it's expression, but the disease doesn't go away. In a few years you turn looney, your vertebrae freeze and you die. But, if you allow the chancre to form, you can analyze it, tell what kind of disease it is, and then go about finding a cure for it. Simply shutting racists up (if you could do it) would not stop racism.

It's the liberal lugheads and crasspunk clods who use the next cliche. They decry blanket statements like "all blacks are criminals," yet are guilty of equally moronic statements like cliche number 8: ALL SKINHEADS ARE RACISTS. I've already written about S.H.A.R.P. (SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice). Recently they postered a leaflet affiliating themselves with something called the Anti-Fascist Skinhead League and the Anti-Fascist Front. (I ripped one off a wall and maybe Tim will run a copy of the tattered poster with this column.) In many ways, skinheads who are the most powerful weapon against racism.

When rebellious, but patriotic white kids hear lefty flag-burners telling them not to be racists, racism becomes patriotic. When patriotic, right-wing skinheads say, "Hey racism is NOT patriotic. It's not American." Then these kids sit up and take notice. When patriotic right-wing blacks become skinheads themselves, then "racist skinhead" becomes an oxymoron.

"Now there's still hope. You got to change. You must stop living those racist ways." MDC? Nope. Those lyrics are from WARZONE's new album. Singer Rabies wrote those words. That's the same Raybies who, not too many years ago, had a band,SKINHEAD YOUTH, with songs like "White is Right." Admitting to a change like that sends a powerful message. It says "I believed that crap about having to be a racist if I loved my country. I was wrong. I'm still a skinhead. I'm still a patriot, but I'm not a racist." The folks who follow and respect the band have to think. When the band goes further and invites a black musician-- BAD BRAINS' Dr. Know-- to produce their record, their message is unmistakable. (I'm proud to say that Dr. Know produced my band ARTLESS's first LP. I'm not sure if he's proud to say it.)

Now the final cliche, number 9: THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPONS AGAINST RACISM ARE THE PEN AND THE FIST. Written words are only read by those who choose to read them. The rare times they can have an effect is when people read them in a conflicting context. Then at least, one can be rabbinical to the uncircumsized. For example, if a right-winger were to find a column by Bakunin in the Ku Klux Times, it might reach someone who has never thought those thoughts before. That, of course, is why I write for Maximum Rock'n'Roll. Unfortunately, there're not many opportunities to reach the unreachable. Mostly people read either to confirm their own beliefs or to entertain themselves.

Physical fighting will at best prevent a few words from being said, more likely it will result in more fighting from the other side. That's dangerous stuff considering some of those guys have guns.

I realize that you've been waiting with your breaths baited for the solution. I don't have it. But. . . I think I know where to find it. I gave you a clue at the beginning of this column. Rock'n'roll-- the unnatural union of black and white-- is an answer itself or at least the potential for an answer. Rock critics like Gerard Cosloy and Chuck Eddy say that music never changes anything. It's just entertainment-- a way to have fun. Sorry buckaroos. You're wrong. The existence of rock'n'roll itself has changed things. Nobody would've listened to Little Richard if it weren't for Elvis Presley. Michael Jackson would not have been a megastar if it weren't for The Beatles. Rock'n'roll culture helped break down racial barriers more than any civil rights bill or front seat bus riding.

Another part of the answer is to start small-- in your own life. Try to live by the truth as you experience it instead of the cliches invented for you by other people. Throw out the kind of unequivocal judgement that you accuse racists of having. If you realize that muggers are individuals-- not a race, you can also realizes that skinheads are individuals-- not a monolithic group with a single mentality. Another part of the solution lies in allowing racism-- and all "unpleasant" ideas-- the same opportunity for expression as more "pleasant" thoughts. Racism, itself an example of intolerance, would have a fuck of a time in an atmosphere of true tolerance. Once one group justifies intolerance, then any group can use it to its own advantage.

Finally, fighting racism means realizing that, although the races are different, there are points of contact. For blacks and skinheads to join is a natural. Both groups are outcasts. Both value friendship and comraderie more than schooling or ideology. In any society that is as patchwork as ours, there are scores of contact points between different people. Music, sports, Colt 45 Malt Liquor-- there are plenty of common grounds to play in.

ENDNOTES:

Oh yeah, I just want to thank all the folks in South Florida for making my Thanksgiving trip better than a Century Village adventure. Leslie at Open Books and Records and the crew at Yesterday and Today were great. They even bought some records from me. I went to a blistering fun show with INSTED (that's how it was spelled on the poster) from California, BAD REP, and THE BELIEVERS from Florida. Special thanks to THE BELIEVERS who put my pal Mark and me on the guest list. I saw my buddy Roger, AGNOSTIC FRONT singer, at the show. He was also in Florida visiting relatives-- a wedding, I think. Why else does anyone go to Florida?

Anyway, it was a skinhead show-- without violence. I didn't see any colored folks in the audience, but noone spouted racist slobberings from the stage either. (There're lots of skins in Florida. I think it's because it's so sunny and the kids need more tannable surface.) I didn't talk with the BAD REP guys, but the friendly BELIEVERS tried to help get Mark laid by this cute 16 year old girl. The buckaroos from INSTED were congenial enough just to hang out after the show and talk with locals. Not a trace of snobism on those guys. Even though they were straight-edge, they still managed to smile a couple of times.