"When it came down to it, it was just a lot of white dudes and they weren't for me but I had to be for them." - Amy Lamb
The punk scene is not for everyone.
Punk is promoted, in a sense, as a scene that is all-inclusive. The losers, nerds, artists, freaks, geeks, and weirdos are all welcome. This is a space that is expectantly for those of us who feel that we have no space; a space for those who are denied an outlet for expressing who they truly are.
That is, unless you are not a white, cis, straight man.
I, for as long as I can remember, have been "alternative." I never quite fit in to the normal, preppy, mainstream culture. I did try for quite a while, but I never did fit in. I always fantasized about participating in a punk scene and I always saw it as my refuge. The rebellion and the physical expression of who you are, not only in the tattoos, but also in the release of the mosh pits, the violence, the anger, the freedom appealed to me. Coming from a small town and engorged with social anxiety made traveling to the closest punk scene unheard of for me.
In college, I first started hanging out with the "punk kids" during my sophomore year. At first I thought that I was simply being too shy, so to compensate for being an Outsider, I began drinking. I kept up with the guys. I smoked cigarettes. I went to the shows and moshed and sang and danced and partied with the rest of them.
But no matter what I did, however I participated, I never became one of them.
I came to find that there was an under current with the men and women separately, but equally toxic, in this environment.
With the women, it was straight competition for the attention and subsequent affection of the men. Back then, I was much more of a militant feminist than I am now, and while I'm still fairly progressive especially in that sense, then I had this ideal of sisterhood and disbelieved strongly the stereotypes in the media that women are backstabbing or out to get one another for the attention of men. That these women in this scene acted thus was difficult for me to swallow.
With the men, there was a feeling of me only being worth anyone's time if they wanted to have sex with me. Outside of this, I was essentially non-existent. My worth here, like many other times in my life was relegated to my body as a sexual object, but here it was more blatant than anywhere else.
This counter-cultural expression of self that is so elevated by these people was only an excuse to be an asshole. The negative aspects of our society that I thought the punk scene was fighting against were in fact heightened. The only benefit I can see to this is that this scene did not hide the disgusting and abhorrent aspects of our society but rather embraced them. In this way only, these people are not hypocrites and I suppose this is their guiding light. But in every other way this is despicable. Instead of being counter-cultural, punk is the mainstream highly contrasted; one looking at punk simply sees the same picture of the mainstream but where all the ugly parts stand out.
The misogynist whiteness was hidden behind a desire to be both shocking and politically correct at the same time. Men of color were teased for being men of color; the "Token Black Guy" was cool, but he was Black and all digs at him where expected to be believed to be from a place of love. This love did not exist for the women in the community, for even in the extremes of the women who were able to become Insiders, the digs and the teasing was more blatantly from a place of malice. Those at the butt of the joke had no outlet but to laugh or to be seen as a bitch, or worse, not chill.
This scene was not for me as I am not a man. Even worse, I'm not straight. I thought about with whom and when I wanted to have sex, and frequently it was not with these people. I didn't always get crazy when I got drunk. Worst of all, perhaps, is that I cared about things. I was passionate about those things that I cared about and this is incredibly uncool of me.
It is never cool to be a passionate person with self respect if you are a woman in most social situations, but especially within punk. A woman is meant to be the prize of the man - look, talk, act the way the man wants you to look, talk, act. I never did this. I have always been my own person.
I am not the first to say this. The Bitch Media podcast, Popaganda, recently had an episode entitled, "Insider/Outsider" in which the poet Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib discusses being an outsider in the punk scene because he is a person of color. He discusses how people react negatively to his description of punk as violent rather than a kind of sanctuary. Amy Lamb, also a person of color and a women, interviews him and agrees; "I think you brought up a really great point about who gets the privilege or the ability to romanticize punk rock without problems." That is, White Men.
I no longer exist within a punk scene, or any kind of scene for that matter. I grew up and no longer want to waste my time trying to perform in a way that will make the prominent members of a social scene like me. I still enjoy going to shows, but less now. Honestly, the last show I went to was, of course, packed with white guys who thought the space belonged to them despite it being a rap show. I don't care to put myself in situations where hordes of white guys are going to take up more space than they need, disrespecting others' space, because they feel entitled to it.
I'm glad I'm not alone in this, but I think it's time that the white guys in this community stop pretending it's a sanctuary for anyone but them. They keep people as Outsiders. Maybe they're proud, though, that they have made it that punk is not for everyone.
"I don't know if there's time to care about being an outsider when the entire structure of what I'm operating in was built to keep me outside in the first place." - Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib
