Vivienne Westwood and the messy, racist tensions in Punk

Was Punk Aware of Racism?

Westwood, who has just passed away, pioneered a counter-culture fashion and culture in the 1970s overwhelmingly centred on a young white English mainly working class community in the 1970s whose appetite and push for for rebellion was predicated on three things: 1, their alienation of a capitalist-colonial Britain in clear economic decline after the post-war boom, and an country and culture that was still very grey and traditional in that typically weird, awkward english manner; 2, the global space for rebellion opened-up primarily by the Vietnamese resistance and victories culminating in 1975, and 3, Black-rebellion especially but not solely in the USA which was also in considerable part radicalised by the Vietnamese communists. 

Westwood teamed-up with the opportunist businessman Malcolm Mclaren and opened up her clothes shop initially called SEX and then by the end of the 1970s was called World's End. Westwood wanted to further radicalise and contribute to this youth rebellion in culture through her art and fashion design, and she did so quite effectively. These attempts were encapsulated by her 'destroy' t-shirt which had a massive Nazi swastika on it with the word destroy and also a fainter upside down Christ on a cross and also a picture of Queen Elizabeth II. Clearly Westwood's design was arguing to destroy these things, as she explained her motivation more recently: "We hated the older generation and it wasn't young people, but old people we felt were responsible for the mismanagement and cruelty in the world still going on... To us, it was a way of saying to the older generation, 'We don't accept your values or your taboos.'" 

The problem with the t-shirt is that in the Punk scene and other related and overlapping cultural groups of Rock culture the symbol of Hitlerite Nazism were already evident: Peter Fonda in the 1966 film The Wild Angels wears an Nazi 'iron cross' around his neck; the Hell's Angel racist gang proudly display all kinds of nazi symbols. The Rolling Stones on 5th July 1969 at their Hyde Park concert had got the far-right Hell's Angels gang to be their 'security'. Into the 1970s, Punk culture in England proudly displayed symbols of Nazism. Did they do this to shock the conservative oldies that they blamed for their alienation? Yes. But let's look into this social context a little more, as London in the 1970s was not a city only of grey/white people. 

London had the largest concentrations of Black and Brown working class people in the country, areas like Southall, Peckham, Brixton, Whitechapel, Tottenham, Ladbroke Grove/Notting Hill and other large swathes of the city had high and visible concentrations of Black and Asian communities. 1950s, '60s, '70s London going into the 1980s and even into the 1990s was a difficult place for our communities to live because of overt, vicious and intense racism on all levels. Racist street attacks and racist murders were frequent, open racist abuse by teachers, police and other people 'in authority' was just routine. Overt racism was the norm all the time on TV, too. 

Black and Brown people were largely excluded from access to cultural and musical activities that were open and welcoming to white people so we largely constructed our own in Reggae sound-system culture and dances, 'blues parties' which was when Black people organised their own dances often in residential homes; Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis etc organised their own 'welfare centres' where they also had their own concerts. Through all this we syncretised increasingly with each other and also more slowly with Rock and Punk etc. 

We were attacked a lot by racist white people from all the 'new' sub cultures of Teddy boys, Skinheads and Punks. These white sub-cultures however arguably only came about because they saw Black and Asian youth pioneer their own resistance including culturally which made a massive spectacle in the otherwise largely culturally-dead and boring white England. Our food was pungent, our dress and music was loud and proud and from time to time we would rise-up and smash-up our oppressors in the police and white civilian racists. WE opened up this space for rebellion globally and locally, and white people followed behind but failed to address the central issues of racism that existed for everyone to see everyday. 

In this context the emerging Punk movement just failed to give any understanding or respect to these social contexts and the experiences of their non-white neighbours. In their project to reject their parent's generation by use of the swastika, it should be reflected empathetically as to how Black and Brown communities may have felt about this. If we take the least-problematic cultural product of Westwood's 'destroy' t-shirt, from a few metres onwards the t-shirt looks like a massive emblazoned Nazi symbol. Our parents and grandparents and young people who have some understanding of the violent white supremacist racism that it represents were not made to feel more at ease by it, they would have felt at unease by it. And that's just unacceptable. The reality is that many other white punks would use racist iconography all over themselves. More recently a few months ago British rapper (a light-skinned Black brother) Slow-Thai, with the most anti-fascist of intentions, wore Westwood's 'destroy' t-shirt at a concert a few months back, but all anyone could see from the crowd was a big Nazi swastika leading Slow-Thai to apologise and reiterate it was meant to be an anti-fascist message. 

An on-going controversy which is instructive to these issues is the Oi/Punk concert on 3rd July 1981 in Southall. Southall through the 1960s like other parts of London became increasingly a town of racialised immigrants. The new mainly Indian Punjabi arrivals faced racism on all levels including by 1976 the racist murder of teenager Gurdip Chaggar. Then the Labour Government backed a meeting of the far-right National Front at Southall Town Hall and they instructed the police to conduct a vicious para-military operation on those resisting the racists by beating us and arresting hundreds and killing a local teacher Blair Peach. Indian children in the 1970s in Southall also faced a horrific 'bussing' abuse, whereby the authorities would bus children out of the area as white racists thought the sight of our children was sullying what their slowly disappearing middle class white Southall. After all this a bunch of Punk bands decided to have a concert at a pub at the Hayes-end of Southall high street in July 1981. Local Asian youth and their friends launch an attack on the pub where the white skinheads were having their event and burn the place down. July 1981 in Southall became a leading moment of Black resistance in Britain along with uprisings in Handsworth, Toxteth, St Pauls, Brixton, and other places.

To this day we have punks defending the concert and basically blaming the local Asian community and totally ignoring and erasing all the contexts of what was taking place for decades in that community.  This white racist arrogance and conceit reflects a large part (not the entire part!) of these white-dominated cultural scenes. Yes, there were a few Black and Asian skinheads in the venue as they were in that scene, but it was a scene that was totally and proactively ignorant of racism. It's like the odd Asian or Black person who joined Tommy Robinson's / Stephen Yaxley-Lennon's English Defence League, yes there are a few non-white people in that milieu, but that social group is a racist white space and gives no respect to actual racist experiences and societal realities. 

Even what might appear to be a less racist space like the 1990s British Indie scene or the usa-based Grunge scene tended to be a white culturally defined space although by this point many Black and Brown people are delivering the scene as in the case of Cornershop, Asian Dub Foundation, Fun>da>mental, State of Bengal (albeit the last three are fusions of Hip-Hop/Rap, Reggae and Rock and Punk with sounds from the Indian subcontinent), and also in the case of Grunge and related Punk / Hard Rock: The pioneers of Bad Brains (from 1974!), Kim Thayyil of Soundgarden, Fishbone, 24-7 Spyz, Chuck Mosely of Faith No More, Ray Ahn and Keish DaSilva of the Hard-Ons, and of course the trailblazing pioneer Zack De La Rocha of Rage Against the Machine amongst many others. 

The Clash did perhaps more than most in the Punk scene to explicitly address anti-racist challenges head-on, especially with songs like Guns of Brixton and White Riot. And then Grove-based dread, activist and cultural figure Don Letts forms Big Audio Dynamite with Mick Jones who was previously in The Clash. The Clash on their 1983 album cover feature an iconic scene of the Notting Hill Uprising with Don Letts walking across a line of police. Interesting to note that Letts encouraged Bob Marley to look into the London Punk scene which inspires Bob Marley to make his song Punky Reggae Party with the lyrics including the following:"It's a punky reggae party

And it's tonight

It's a Punky Reggae Party

And it's alright

What did you say?

Protected by society

Treated with impunity

Protected by my dignity

I search for reality

...

"New wave, new craze

New wave, new phrase

I'm saying

The Wailers will be there

The Damned, The Jam, The Clash

Maytails will be there

Dr. Feelgood too

Ooh

No boring old farts, no boring old farts, no boring old farts

Will be there, singin'

...

"A bubble, a bubble

Looking for no trouble

But if you trouble, trouble

We'll give it to you double

Let me tell you

It takes a joyful sound

To make the world go round..."

However, because the white-dominated (racist on an either conceited-level with Oi/Punk/ Skinheads or 'lazy-racist' in the case of Indie and Grunge) cultures were largely excluding Black and Brown youth, these youth just got-on and made their own cultural musical movements that came to dominate the country and then the world in the form of Jungle Drum n Bass, and other genres. In hindsight and with the all-important principle that these spaces *should* have been always open to ALL youth of all backgrounds, and as such things only become a bit more healthy in these dynamics if Black and Brown youth take the lead. Black and Brown youth historically have always welcomed the participation of their white counterparts in their cultural spaces, but this has not been a reciprocal relationship.

The roots of Punk and Rock are also in Black music in Jazz, Rhythm and Blues, Gospel and Folk. MC5 were one of the first hard rock primitive Punk bands who were closely associated with the Black Panther Party. Which makes all this racist conceit and ignorance all the more wrong and unethical. The instances of racism in alternative Rock genres through the 1980s and 1990s are frequent and sometimes shocking as in the example of Axl Rose's / Guns n Roses 1988 song One in A Million in which Roses mouths-off against 'faggots, immigrants, n****s' and Muslims. See here: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/08/guns-n-roses-remove-song-homophobic-racist-language-one-million-reissue-album

In conclusion it's clear in the case of Westwood's attempts at radicalising the Punk scene through her 'destroy' t-shirt was definitely well-intentioned but in the absence of a concerted attempt at understanding and then navigating the leading-role of racism then mistakes will be made by even radical-minded people who try and attempt to contribute something to the struggle. Westwood herself went on a journey of becoming a celebrated figure of the establishment and collected her 'Order of the British Empire' from the Queen back in 1992. It's no surprise that she then said: "What I learnt from punk rock was that you don't change the establishment by attacking it." Clearly she thinks having become an establishment figure she can effect some 'change'. Whatever. Selling-out to the cause is nothing new, John Lydon from The Sex Pistols has turned, like many of his generation of the Punk scene, into a cliched gammon Brit nationalist. Mensi from the Angelic Upstarts, who even fronted a documentary for Anti-Fascist Action in the early 1990s, ends up an open sleazy racist in Thailand before his passing last year. None of this is to take away or distort Westwood's good intentions in the 1970s and her contributions to fashion and culture. That aside but connected: the bottom-line is that a community of people is either interested in understanding their place in society to fight oppressions from the system including racism, or they are not. It's just as simple as that. To be able to understand and traverse these complexities means pro-actively and appropriately keeping your doors wide open to anti-racist thinking, action and pro-active inclusivity to Black and Brown youth, and taking a lead from racialised communities amongst whom you will find those with understanding and experiences of the on-going fight against rising racism and fascism. 

Kanye West and Modern Fascism

Kanye West as a Strategic Facilitator to White Supremacy and Fascism

There's nothing especially new to Kanye West's open association and collaboration with modern fascism in the form of the Donald Trump-led movement. Long-gone is the old Kanye West who was at one point against the genesis of the growing fascist threat in the midst of the brutal 'war on terror' / 'shock and awe' years. In Sept 2nd 2005 Kanye West nervously but correctly denounced George Bush that 'George Bush doesn't care about black people' in the context of the structural and institutional racism to the Katrina disaster and relief measures. 

Kanye West is a very talented musician having helped to make further beautiful Hip-Hop music. He considers himself a genius, while we can all have our opinions to the extent of his creativity the point to be made here is that Kanye West clearly thinks of himself as genius who has failed to get the recognition he deserves and this dynamic has played upon his mental health in a negative and descending trajectory to say the least. His relationship with Kim Kardashian and its fall-out involving their children has added to his mental health challenges all in the context of his riches and the industry of narcissism and ego which is the upper echelons of the colonial entertainment industry. However, is his mental health really that bad to justify all of this utterly detestable postures? 

Frankly the combination of failed relationships (possibly involving children), frustration with one's career paths, feelings that one isn't respected by society coupled with the growing fascist global community since the 1990s is an extremely common one. Whole swathes global populations since children and young pepole in this last few decades have been infiltrated with far-right views through on-line gaming, the endless YouTube far-right conspiracy videos and its connected leading advocates like David Icke, Prison Planet/Alex Jones and others. 

Kanye West's descent into open fascist advocacy is common place amongst our peers. We have lacked effective anti-racist anti-fascist leaders and advocates for several years now which has created a growing fascist community which has great momentum and a very powerful world network and joint enterprise including Donald Trump, Brexiteers (especially the ERG group), leaders in Europe like Orban, Putin and others. 

Reflecting back to his comments on Bush and Katrina, Kanye said in April 2020 that: "'This white person didn’t do something for us'. That is stemmed in victim mentality ... Every day I have to look in the mirror like I’m Robert De Niro and tell myself, ‘You are not a slave.’". While Kanye is correct narrowly that no-one is a slave in the humanity-affirming sense or that no one can be solely defined as a slave, the comment is actually meant to deny historic white supremacy (including enslavement by colonisers) and its contemporary forms. 

Kanye doesn't, like many other oppressed people, want to be treated outside the framework of whiteness, but oppressed people don't have the power to just wish-away an objectively existing historic and current colonial system which still centrally uses white supremacy to facilitate its power and growing wealth from the labour and land of the world's oppressed and nature.

It seems instead of committing oneself in a collective struggle to counter act colonialism and white supremacy, Kanye has chosen to fold into modern fascism and seeks to benefit from it. Where else does Kanye have to go? Where is the modern movements and struggles anti-colonial black power struggles that Kanye can join that isn't attached to the other indirect wing of modern fascism - liberal imperialism? There isn't a place for him to go in this regards, it has to be constructed and someone like Kanye like everyone else in the establishment isn't going to be the one to lead it. This is a major crisis of our times. 

In his frustrations and narcissism Kanye has denied white supremacy and instead done the classic far-right trick to then scapegoat another group of people generally kept outside the framework of whiteness by colonialism: Jewish people. 

The establishment of the colonial settler state of Israel which has and continues to oppress and annex Palestinians and their land does not change the relationship of Jews to whiteness, what changes with the state of Israel in 1948 is a *Zionist* movement which has some influence amongst some Jews but like supremacism one has to totally resist right-wing/far-right naturalising or essentialising of an entire people who aren't in the realm of whiteness. Jews are an easy target for this for a number of reasons not least that due to their own oppression (something that is reflected in parts of the African heritage Black community) they are disproportionately represented in certain areas of society including the entertainment industry. 

The anti-Jewish comments and postures of Kanye and his denial of anti-Black racism are often in the framework of far-right / Neo-Nazi politics two sides of the same fascist coin: “When you hear about slavery for 400 years that sounds like a choice.”

Kanye's well publicised and televised meeting with Donald Trump in the White House was another depressing occasion when Kanye says of the event: "There was something about when I put this hat on [MAGA hat] it made me feel like Superman. "You [Donald Trump] made a Superman - that's my favourite superhero - you made a Superman cape for me."

Kanye in the depths of his own confusions and ego sees an empowerment in attaching himself to Donald Trump and his political project, the dynamics of subservience to the 'white man' is rather loud and clear here. A denial of Black peoples experience of current and historic racism, an attachment to the most infamous figure and leader of global rising fascism and the attacks on an 'other' in the form of Jews and according to Kanye the 'false BLM narratives'. The BLM movement has a heavy dose of colonial liberalism to in in-part in terms of its funding and the way it places itself in the politics in world, there *is* a legitimate critique to be made of it from a more radical perspective that comes out of the traditions of the 'Black radical tradition' / 'Black marxism' / 'third world socialism / black socialism' etc. The attack on BLM and 'woke' politics however is hegemonised (totally controlled more or less) currently by the growing fascist community and as such is no critique at all as it's a totally bad faith approach with an agenda of manipulation and deceit at the service of the most vicious capitalist global ruling classes. 

Reflecting Kanye's own cowardice to take responsibility for his own mistakes and to decide to look in the counter-opposite direction to the long standing black liberation movement and its liberation ideologies and the general ease by which people are slipping into the white supremacist fascist project the recent Kanye interview reflects something else about our times: too many are making excuses for people they know and their own descent into fascist madness. We have all experienced sitting together socially with friends and some mad fascist nonsense comes out of the mouths of one of our friends, perhaps against African people, or against Asian people, or against Jewish people or perhaps against more than one oppressed group of people. In these contexts often people allow the madness to pass without opposition or critical engagement. The same thing is happening here whereby people are making all kinds of twisted and nonsensical excuses for Kanye's sell out. If the root base of your stuff is bat-shit crazy fascism then everything else that might have a drop of truth in it is just materiel for the bat-shit crazy fascism. 

Cowardice and sellout at the feet of growing fascism is the buzz of our era. It's where people seem to want to be as they think everything else is just a bit of an effort not worth making for whatever cheap and expedient excuses they give themselves. A few of us will not submit, and like the sellouts we too can clearly see what's going on it's just that we aren't going to sellout to the mass collapse into global fascism and racism. Some of us know our traditions that lead to liberation, and we know what leads to our further oppression.

MXM Public event: STRIKE! Challenges of Trade Unionism in Brexit Britain

STRIKE! Challenges of Trade Unionism in Brexit Britain

Eventbrite event page

Facebook event page

*Fri 28th Oct 2022

630-830pm (Starting sharp at 630pm)

London Irish Centre, 

50-52 Camden Square, 

London NW1 9XB

£5 suggested entry

This event brings some of the most experienced speakers directly involved at the forefront of the class struggle exploring challenges of defending working class people under increasing attacks by the Tory state in the contexts of a growing far-right state, racism in the colonial capitalist global crises in general.

Speakers: 

Steve Hedley (former Assistant Gen Sec RMT Union)

Suresh Grover (The Monitoring Group, former Stephen Lawrence family campaign coordinator)

Glenroy Watson (Chair of RMT's 2023 Black & Ethnic Conference)

Arnie Hill (London Black Revs)

Chair: Malcolm X Movement

*This event will be audio-visually recorded for upload onto social media, please let the chair know if you do not wish to be recorded  

*We apologise that there are steps leading into the room

200 Black Power Youth in Ldn Celebrate Tupac 20 Years On

London’s Black Youth Unite With Tupac Shakur’s Black Panther Family!


Nearly 200 overwhelmingly African and Asian working class youth, including two parties of people flying in especially for the event from mainland Europe, packed into the room in East London at RichMix for the Tupac 20 Years On event organised by the Malcolm X Movement, I am Hip-Hop and Intifada Street. The idea was initiated by Malcolm X Movement with I am Hip-Hop and Intifada Street becoming enthusiastic partners.

The event was historic. 20 years on from the martyrdom of Tupac Amaru Shakur the only commemoration event in the world saw political and cultural activists and artists gather together at an event that showcased people's love and creativity inspired by Tupac’s work and legacy.

The atmosphere was very positive, politically and powerfully Black Power radical and socialist and a strong sense of unity around our martyrs of the Black Panthers including Tupac. Tupac was the chairman of the New Afrikan Black Panthers in his late teens and spent the first moments of his existence in his mother’s womb while she - Afeni Shakur - was falsely imprisoned on charges related to her leadership of the New York Black Panthers, charges that collapsed. One of the other defendants (there were 21 in total, hence their name ‘New York 21’) was New York’s youngest Panther - Jamal Joseph - who later in life became one of Tupac’s two Godfathers and a close comrade and brother to Afeni Shakur.

We were honored to have have Jamal Joseph participate at our event via live internet video link. The event would not could not have been complete without a keynote address and QnA with Jamal Joseph himself. To have a veteran Black Panther and Black Liberation Army combatant, former political prisoner, now university professor and Oscar nominated elder comrade reasoning with us and teaching us was just very special. Jamal Joseph was joined on the panel by Ayishat Akanbi and Apex Zero.

Ayishat is a brilliant young fashion designer and also has a very grounded but firm sense of justice and Black Liberation to impart. Apex Zero’s rhymes and political insight is powerful and confident. The panellists and the QnA made for a very informative and inspiring learning process as we heard first hand the stories of the Panthers and Tupac from Jamal Joseph and the reflections and discussions from Ayishat and Apex and many brothers and sisters attending.

With an art exhibition by Intifada Street adorning the side of the stage, DJ Doni Brasco pumping the Tupac beats from the DJ table, the performances were enjoyable, fun and often showing great social and political insight and with, with Malcolm X Movement coordinator Margaret Atugonza making her debut not only as a young emerging political leader but also as a brilliant soul and jazz singer with her moving rendition of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car. The open mic / Cypher session saw many young African and Asian young people share their skills and beautiful confidence with everyone in the room, and the room showed their appreciation!

The event was hosted brilliantly by I am Hip-Hop’s magazine editor Maya Rattrey, and all the Malcolm X Movement coordinators - Ahmed Kaballo who hosted the panel discussion with great panache, Dr Moustafa Traore, Margaret Atugonza, Sukant Chandan and Richard Sudan - and excellent performances from Big Cakes, Amy True, Ibrahim Sincere and JusWrite.

Many new contacts and alliances were made from the event, and it was a modest but inspiring and successful contribution to building an African and Asian and Black Power oriented socialist movement.

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Raw live stream footage here, here and here.