#blacklivesmatter racism is a human problem

Interesting twitter thread quoting the biography of Donald Lee Cox on the challenges that (he felt) ultimately caused the failure of the Black Panther Party.

I think the massive lack of education regarding race and other ethnicity leading to ignorance and a v sheltered/racist view of darker skinned people weather from africa or south Asia. Its changing but very slowly with china links with African countries and more Africans working and living in china esp in south china. But only a few years a go at a televised state gala one performance included full blackface.
Even here in HK people from south asia/india/africa will be looked down by some older generations simply because of skin color enhanced by English colonial past no doubt.

Sophie Duker on the outrage in response to her "Kill Whitey" joke.

From that article, Aamer Rahmer explaining why Reverse Racism isn't a thing

https://youtu.be/dw_mRaIHb-M

Aamer Rahmer explaining why Reverse Racism isn't a thing

That's rather good :) Thanks for posting it

But isn't he indirectly saying that the prejudices that racist say about other groups are kind of true but some should just keep it down because they have already won?
After how many years of occupation can the Palestinians start making antisemitic jokes?

I think he’s saying that racism is a construct that is hundreds of years in the making and you can’t be racist if that isn’t the case, you can be derogatory or insulting but not racist.

Ok, got it.

I like the humour but not sure I’d agree.

why?

I have an eclectic sense of humour, I suppose.

banned and nuked the troll.

Hooray! The most tedious fucker I've encountered in a long time. Glad this thread is worth reading again.

I'm quite enjoying Lenny Henry's Race Through Comedy

What a remarkable young lady of her time.
Okay I confess, I did just watch the film ‘Belle‘ on Film Four..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido_Elizabeth_Belle

This is worth a read.
There's some bits I think "I'm not sure that comparison works there" but the main point is the whitewash of dance music.
https://mixmag.net/feature/how-the-dance-music-industry-failed-black-artists

Which if you'd have been unfortunate enough to be at the afters with me some point from 1998 - 2002 I might have banged on about. With all the other white people I was off my face with.

But this speaks to the point that cultural appropriation happens, and that you think you're an ok person but you've contributed because you're part of it and once commercialisation steps in then. Well. all bets are off.
It's horrible, you start off interested in a bit of music and it's very easy to fetishize the cultural bits around it.
I think the bit I find difficult is that in Manchester the jockey slut/bugged out group of people put on some really good things which recognised the importance of Detroit and black musicians.

What I remember is that while I may have seen lots of black djs playing black music, the events I went to were pretty white (almost exclusively really).

Bit rambly. Sorry.

Sorry, I am a bit angry now. That article is such garbage.

• the ‘Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit’ compilation with Derrick May on Virgin’s sub-label 10 Records in 1988. This release introduced the term techno to European listeners*

• This is a frequent way in which white people disenfranchise and harm Black communities. Cybotron, Juan Atkins’ electronic funk band with Rick Davis, a reclusive Vietnam veteran crafted the sound and concept of techno in the early 80s*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT4qqZHN8no

but the British, Afrika Bambaataa-inspired electronic act Leftfield would be featured in 1993. Leftfield’s album ‘Leftism’ pulled directly from Black music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rlUQsC8ECk

LOL, yeah those words, together with David Hasselhoff.

• In West Berlin in 1987, United States president Ronald Reagon declared in an infamous speech addressing the Soviet Union: “tear down this wall!" Those words led to the liberation of the Eastern bloc*
  
  

just like Berlin then

• a process of integration into a global free market economy and governing body allowing for a club culture to develop and thrive; meanwhile, urban areas in the United States with large Black populations like Detroit were left in financial ruin.*
  
  

and as a bonus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_DebdQ2DLM

This is a better version of the same article without the personal vendetta:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/may/25/from-germany-to-detroit-and-back-how-kraftwerk-forged-an-industrial-exchange
Hütter described the link between Detroit and Germany as a spiritual connection. He was impressed “that this music from two industrial centres of the world, with different cultures and different history, suddenly there’s an inspiration and a flow going back and forth”. Kindred spirits from different backgrounds bringing people together and trying to envision a brighter future. From Kraftwerk’s Kling Klang studio to WGPR-FM, Belleville and The Music Institute, back to Berlin and UFO, Planet, Tresor, to UR headquarters, Drexciya and Motor Club, to Bar 25, Hoppetosse and Berghain, the exchange continues.

Well, Somebody don't techno bullshit

I'll be honest, while some of the content is interesting I feel like that needs to be rewritten or heavily edited by someone else. It reads like someone's had one too many coffees.

My probably very blinkered view is that regardless of Detroit roots of dance music I see a large part of the serious development and springboarding into the mainstream of that whole category of music in its widest sense as being a UK thing (not to take away from places like Berlin and Ibiza).

I wasn't massively into house when I was young* and the techno I listened to was predominantly on the South East Coast ie very white areas.

Mainly I listened to d'n b, jungle and old school. My memory of audience demographics for those genres were that they were dictated by the area. Bristol = majority black, London = evenish mix, South Coast = majority white. My memory might not be accurate, but only Nottingham springs to mind as being more white than it "should have been" based on population % - but that I'd presume is the Uni contingent and still by no means predominantly white.

Maybe that's because those sub-genres have a more obvious and direct connection to their origins?

*to be brutally honest I still view it more as easy listening or driving music that I associate with a modern version of the Fast Show Jazz, nice man.

I'm quite enjoying Lenny Henry's Race Through Comedy

Back in 1991, Channel 4 had a season of films/programmes that had once been banned, mixed with documentaries on censorship. One of the documentaries was by a bunch of right-wing journalists and commentators making the claim that the British media censors right-wing speech. I watched it, to keep an open mind.

About half way in, after a lot of moaning from people like Melanie Phillips about how everybody in the media hated them and how the media was blatantly left-wing biased, the theme switched to how it supposedly manages (deliberately) to be subtly anti-right. At which point, the Murdoch hack who was the main presenter said that the BBC and Channel 4 managed this trick using "cunning political operators like Lenny Henry".

???

"Cunning political operator". Lenny Henry. One of the safest, most mainstream acts from the alternative comedy scene. The thing that threatened the presenter was that Lenny was black and (had been) hugely popular. Clearly part of a Marxist plot, him going on Tiswas and being all multicultural in front of the kids.

Yes, the article does need a but of tidying up (I'd say especially at the front end). And I think there's definitely a US slant and it does make you (if you're from the UK, which most people on here will be) say things like "but, that's not what I remember, I sort of remember this and I know that". But, and I think this is kind of relevant, is the whole music being "discovered", explored, repackaged, and sold back to a different audience without paying reference or making the originators any financial gain. The same can be said of Trax records (I think) and how the masters for lots of the original house tracks are owned by someone completely different.

It's definitely got a US slant. It might not pay full reference to the wizard mixtapes or the importance of belgian new beat to the development of R&S (sigh) or how the raves of 89-91 in Blackburn were more important to the people in the UK than gatecrasher (for example). But it tells me that working at mixmag in the last 5 years must have been shit with all the tech bro analysts telling you what the music is about and for.

Also see Byron Hunt and hypermasculinity in hip hop.

Is this on the bbc?
I watched his documentary/autobiography thing and he's incredible. The personal mental gymnastics he must have been performing.

Dave, last night was the third instalment. The first focussed on sitcoms and last night was sketches.
It reminded me of so many good shows; 3 Non Blondes being one I completely forgot about.

Thanks. Will look for it.

His 1994 documentary on blackface minstrels
is a good watch.

He really did get a lot of grief in the early 00s didn't he?