“[the band Death] created their own mythology and their own rules, rebelling against what the world (and the neighborhood) told them was acceptable for a band of Black men to be…the only problem then was that the world, for a time, decided not to play along.” – Reaghan Buchanan, ‘The Secret History of Black Punk’
There’s a line in the Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff episodes on Russian Nihilists (part one | part two) that’s stuck with me. The quote will get mangled if I attempt it, but host Margaret Killjoy mentions how the nihilists didn’t quite believe in nothing, Lebowski. More like, they knew that this system, this way of living, was unjust, untenable, unsustainable, any other term you can think of for “shit is bad and we simply don’t want to live like this anymore.” If that means gender-bending fashion and reading a lot and hey, maybe trying to blow up the Czar from time to time? So be it.
Now, the Russian Nihilists had no idea what they wanted to replace monarchy with, but why is it the responsibility of the oppressed to answer every fuckin question, huh? Why do the people with bills to pay—bills they can’t pay because of an “affordability crisis,” or whatever cutesy term the powers that be are using to describe outlandish inequality—why do the poor have to have all the answers?
Another group of people I think about a lot is the Quakers, or the Society of Friends, as they might prefer to be called. They were against slavery before anyone else—except, y’know, the people who were enslaved. Never forget the tale of Benjamin Lay, the Quaker Comet. The Friends were on the right side of history about a bunch of things before a lot of people. Maybe I should do some research on them, too.
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Another group of people I think about a lot is Indigenous people in North and South America. Whenever I get upset about the direction things are going? I remember that they’ve probably been upset about the direction things are going for roughly 524 years.
None of these groups of people are full of perfect people. There’s no group of hyper-moral Correct Dudes who are always Fighting The Empire The Right Way. Still, there is always an Empire to fight. Jesus had Rome. Gandhi and Bobby Sands had Britain. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman and Tecumseh and Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and Fred Hampton and Cesar Chavez and Assata Shakur and Harvey Milk and Jello Biafra and Karla Mad Dog and Fat Mike and had/have the United States.
Make no mistake: the United States is the evil empire. We are the bully of the world, cheerful exporters of relentless capitalism, oppression, war, environmental death, pollution, and discord.
Except, who’s “we?”
Do you feel like you are a part of your country right now? Do you agree that we should have unilateral power to kidnap heads of state in the middle of the night while bombing capital cities? Do you agree we should do those things and then be like “yeah we want your resources and we’re gonna take them?” Do you agree with sending the genocidal Bibi Netanyahu regime billion dollar blank checks and bombs so that they can destroy Palestinian lives, hospitals, and seed stores? Do you agree that anyone who objects to that should have their lives ruined, whether from job loss or a withheld diploma or whatever shunning? Do you agree that ICE should wander the streets, rounding up anyone who looks halfway Latine, ripping them from their families and lives in the name of building a white ethno-state? Do you think ICE should be able to kill parents after school drop-off with no consequence, because they’ve done so at least twice now? Do you agree that the public should be kept in the dark about the billionaire pedophile cabal that multiple members of government gleefully participated in? Do you believe we should proliferate AI at all costs, even when it boils oceans and convinces teenagers to kill themselves and costs real people real jobs and measurably makes its users stupider? Do you believe cars should be so big that the driver can’t see a child over their front bumper? Do you believe public schools should be starved for funding? Do you believe grocery stores should be allowed to price items differently based on your purchase history? Do you believe that prices should go up but wages should stay stagnant? Do you believe air traffic controllers should have to work for free because Ronald Reagan took an axe to their collective bargaining power and 40 years later that profession is little more than a group of government pawns? Do you believe that the Supreme Court should have the ability to unilaterally take away rights that your forebears died for, or that the Supreme Court should be able to declare the president above the law? Do you feel like you are a part of your country right now?
Do you feel like you are actually a part of your country?
Do you feel like you have all the answers, or that you should be the one to come up with the answers?
Ever since I knew what punk was, I’ve felt like a part of it. Sure, the 14- to 23-year-old version of me bought into the Christian Persecution Complex, and thought that it was punk rock to be into Jesus. Well, I still think it’s punk to be into Jesus, but not Christianity.
Lots of people think being punk means being deliberately bad at your instruments and playing at 200 bpm all the time.
Lots of people think being punk is a phase to be grown out of.
Lots of people think being punk means dressing a certain way.
Next week, I’ll talk a little more about what punk means to me. A short answer—beyond liking fast music—is that I like the “we take care of each other and accept all misfits” aspect of it. While the scene has never been a perfect place, and has definitely been a predominately white space, punk is a thing that should be welcoming to people of all races and orientations and predilections. Jesus hung out with criminals and sex workers and fishers who couldn’t catch shit. Punk has always felt like an extension of that attitude. But again, that’s next week’s column.
Not that I feel compelled to end on an uplifting note, but I am writing this over holiday break, so. It feels worthwhile to point out that you can be in a state of permanent rebellion and still be fucking thrilled with life. Actually, I love my life. I love family and friends and city. Rebellions need fun, rebellions need to keep an eye on what’s good in life. That’s where I differ from the Russian Nihilists, maybe. What the world gets made into next (whenever “next” is) matters. We’re gonna try to keep a focus on how things should be when we complain, too, right? After all, to paraphrase Kendrick, you think my life is punk? That’s ho shit, I got a son to raise. And I want the world to look a certain way when he grows up, even if I know it likely won’t.
Anyway, Noam Chomsky is an Empire-loving sellout who never had any principles to begin with, and you should get rid of his books if you haven’t already.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris