White musicians and "artistic" use of the N-word: A Discussion and Social History

"will be kind of sad on an abstract level if punks v. jocks has died out in our nation's high schools. teenage america needs its pointless divides"

I never experienced this divide. At all.

"it feels like to be a proper jock you have to run in a raucous, disgusting bro-pack"

Shut the fuck up.

I'm yet to hear anyone comment on '(You're A) Nigger Homosexual' by The Frogs

wrestlers have the weirdest fucking subculture ever.

yeah, this.

our wrestling coach was an a-1 right wing limbaugh worshiping prick. there was a story at the time in the news about a girl getting on the wrestling team in some other iowa town. the guy made it known all the time he'd quit if that ever happened here cos it's unnatural.

but the star state-level wrestler at the time was this guy who was the most sexually crazed maniac and creepy bully you'd can imagine -- really weird shit like assaulting lower-weight and younger wrestlers in the locker room, giving them hickeys and other over-the-line sexualized hazing that'd be just as embarrassing to the guy doing it if he wasn't this hulking weirdo. like, one man hazing!! and mr. right wing coach man just laughed it off as a wrestler doing his thing

we're a little off topic however

"the whole thing is retarded to me, and i guess is dying out according to today's young people"
the idea of an athletic clique that goes around getting special privileges for being buffoons is dying, or the righteous ridicule of such a clique?

because the former dying out means WE'VE WON.

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, June 22, 2010 2:25 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Man, you are just bringing the idiocy here.

I was that rare thing, a stoner/jock crossover (swimming) - hey man, it was the 70s...

no, no if we put on our zizek masks, you can see that jockocracy is at the very heart of n-word problematics.

back to white musicians and artistic use of the N-word for a sec - let's blame it all on this knucklehead

http://blackberryjam.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/lester.jpg

I was that rare thing, a stoner/jock crossover (swimming) - hey man, it was the 70s...

― lifetime supply of boat shoes (m coleman), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 2:32 PM (43 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Everybody I ran with was that hybrid. Not so rare.

"Man, you are just bringing the idiocy here."
It's not being facetious to say that jock mentality is one of the major sources of white privilege, and wiping it out is a step forward.

jock mentality is one of the major sources of white privilege

I think you would have to lay a lot of groundwork for you could reasonably make this assertion

xxxp: who's that?

To be fair to Bangs, he did write a tremendously articulate and self-lacerating repudiation of that whole schtick in White Noise Supremacists.

nah the jock stoner is classic, randall "pink" floyd

I was that rare thing, a stoner/jock crossover (swimming) - hey man, it was the 70s...

― lifetime supply of boat shoes (m coleman), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 2:32 PM (43 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

so rare they made a movie about it:

http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2010/02/25/dazed.jpeg

xpost!

To be fair to Bangs, he did write a tremendously articulate and self-lacerating repudiation of that whole schtick in White Noise Supremacists.

that article is hypocritical and self-serving IMO but to be fair to Lester his takedown of Dylan's "Hurricane" is definitive repudiation of condescending white liberal racism though its use of the "n" word is sorta self-defeating

I am going to sound like Ian M here, but in my area "jock" was used as a John Hughes social type more than an issue of sports -- most athletes weren't considered jocks, plenty of guys were jocks but didn't do sports, etc. I guess you could also be a burnout without doing any drugs, or be a preppy even though we went to public school. Unlike Ian M, I will concede that this was a very sloppy use of words, and if anyone had ever brought to my attention hundreds of years of justice issues on behalf of athletes or prep-school students, I would be less cavalier about that sloppiness.

xpost -- I like later Lester Bangs way more than earlier, and I respect people who can own their own shit, and I appreciate that "White Noise Supremacists" article where Bangs takes himself to task, both for something he'd written and for something he'd done privately and wasn't going to get called on. Admitting your own failures and caring about what they meant can be a good look, and he uses it to make that a much stronger article than it otherwise would be.

xxpost -- part of what I like is that it's not just straight self-lacerating and repudiation -- I mean, you get the sense that he's looking at himself honestly and caring about it, not just trying to get away from mistakes

xxxpost -- (can you expand on why you think it's hypocritical / self-serving?)

I'm yet to hear anyone comment on '(You're A) Nigger Homosexual' by The Frogs

― PaulTMA, Tuesday, June 22, 2010 2:29 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

because the thread is about artistic use not boring, ironic racism/IRL trolling from bands like Anal Cunt that don't exactly need an explanation to anyone who's not 11

I've posted this before - it's a long story - but Dazed & Confused parallels specific events in my life to an eerie degree. summer of 76!

"jock mentality is one of the major sources of white privilege
I think you would have to lay a lot of groundwork for you could reasonably make this assertion"

How much groundwork would you need? A group is granted status and privilege above others for dubious reasons at a crucial stage of development of their worldview, and once they get out they continue to hold these expectations.

"I am going to sound like Ian M here, but in my area 'jock' was used as a John Hughes social type more than an issue of sports"

^^^ exactly.

i am going to guess he thinks the bangs piece is hypocritical and self-serving because he's calling out other people for pulling the same shit he's pulled while also claiming he's now above that, thank you very much. but that sort overlooks the real anguish running through the piece over the damage/pain he's caused by unthinkingly showing his ass in public for so many years.

xp let's start by defining jocks, and let's not do it in this thread

So have we determined there's 6 reasons why a white person says the N-word on a record

1. Because they are playing a character (Newman/Biafra/Dicks)
2. Because they are making people "think" about "words," oooh (CocoRosie, Perry Farrell)
3. As an irresponsible metaphor (John Lennon, Patti Smith, Elvis Costello)
4. IRL trolling (Frogs/Anal Cunt)
5. Being racist/just ignorant (Axl Rose, David Allen Coe)
6. Letting one slip on accident (RA The Rugged Man)

I think any "shock value" use is either 2 or 4.

A group is granted status and privilege above others for dubious reasons at a crucial stage of development of their worldview, and once they get out they continue to hold these expectations.

I don't know that this supports the statement "jock mentality is one of the major sources of white privilege" - that group of people (the white middle class) would have privilege pertaining whether they were jocks or not. and do.

the frogs were the biggest assholes i ever opened for

So who has N Word Privileges?

Current rules appear to be as follows in the country of its most predominant usage, the United States of America:

* Those a part of the ethnic group to whom the term originally applies usually get a free pass.
* Those a part of an ethnic group who have also historically experienced racial discrimination sometimes get an honorary pass, but pains must be taken to not appear as part of the out-group when using it.
* Those a part of an ethnic group who have not historically experienced racial discrimination or have been folded into the group who have not historically experienced racial discrimination can exercise N Word Privileges only if their honorary in-group status is unquestionable to every single person within earshot. (And sometimes not even then.)

Another aspect of this trope is that if a person outside the group says an ethnic slur, that person is aware that it is wrong, or will soon accept that it is wrong, then later apologize for it. (This applies to clinical discussions of offensive terms.) Otherwise, it's just plain old prejudice. Thus when Draco Malfoy and Voldemort say "Mudblood" it doesn't count as this, because they never accept that it's wrong. (This applies bigots in Real Life, as well.)

Because whites as an ethnic group have not experienced racial discrimination (at least in history recent enough to be considered relevant) as almost every other ethnicity in the U.S., it is worth noting that most white people don't have N Word Privileges at all, even so far as calling other whites "whitey" or "gringo," etc. However, N Word Privileges do not just encompass ethnic slurs but religious ones as well, and these religious slurs are perhaps the only time whites are counted as part of an "in-group" with N Word Privileges.

Many people (of all ethnicities) find this trope problematic. Those belonging to the in-group wonder if they can really "reclaim" a word with such a loaded history, or the point in doing it at all. Those belonging in the out-group feel bereft at not having every single possible word in the English language at their disposal (not that they'd ever use it, mind, but Its The Principle Of The Thing), or perhaps just feel that a Double Standard is inherently wrong no matter what it's in reference to (that if a word is supposed to be improper to say for one group of people, it should be improper to say for everybody).

The title of this trope comes from Chris Rock's explanation of why white people can't say the N word. "Well, the thing is, you used to use it all the time. Got a little uppity with it, you might say. So your N-word privileges have been revoked."

The same phenomenon can be applied to non-ethnic terms as well, usually terms for various disabilities (crip, gimp, spaz, etc.) or for sexual orientation/identity minorities (fag, queer, tranny, etc.). The general idea is to resist the euphemism treadmill—thus implying that no euphemisms are needed because the concepts that would usually be referred to by "polite" words are not inherently shameful and do not need to be hidden.

Source: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NWordPrivileges

jock jamz mentality

Just checked out the lyrics for "Kicked in the Teeth". Bon is off the hook, i hear the lyric wrong.

"Two faced woman with the two faced lies
I hope your two faced living made you satisfied"

The way he says "living" is what tripped me up.

the frogs were the biggest assholes i ever opened for

― m@tt h (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 2:52 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

Theyve done a very poor job at this year's World Cup, you have to admit.

I would break these out separately as I think the Lennon/Ono usage is on a different plane:

- As an irresponsible metaphor (Patti Smith, Elvis Costello)
- As an "responsible" metaphor, to whatever degree the word can be responsible used (John Lennon/Yoko Ono)

I hated jocks in high school and always will

I hated jocks until the Raiders beat the Redskins in the Super Bowl, then we were all bros cryin on each other's shoulders

Nabisco I'm definitely being unfair to Lester - who did repudiate his own bad behavior - I've always felt he should've stopped at the self-lacerating part of that essay and refrained from calling out the racism on the punk scene. not that those people weren't idiots & bigots too - moreso than Bangs. But acknowledging his own moral failures didn't give Bangs the authority to judge others. We're all prejudiced in ways we don't realize; the best we can hope for is to NOT pass it on to our children or the next generation. I don't know, that article always felt sanctimonious and self-righteous to me - a lecture on racism from a guy wearing a "last of the white ..." t-shirt. It's a baby-boomer conflict; the 60s hippies always talked down to their younger brothers and sisters, people my age in the 70s. Punk was about casting off their influence until it got co-opted.

"Two faced woman with the two faced lies
I hope your two faced living made you satisfied"

The way he says "living" is what tripped me up.

o_O at your mishearing, holy hell

also granted I wasn't there but being talked down to by the previous generation is part of what is generally known as "being alive"; you even see it now in interactions on this board

shut up, dan.

oh wait, you were here first.

quiet old man

It's bad, I know. I thought he said "two faced little n****** satisfied". Bon was a guy who liked to wear the Confederate flag on occasion, maybe as a kid that's why I though he said that.

I hated jocks in high school and always will

― in my day we had to walk 10 miles in the snow for VU bootleg (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 2:56 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Intelligent comment.

zuh

Yeah, I mean, there are elements of the Bangs piece that strike me as both good writing and the guy owning up to some things being more important than him. Probably the best being the conversation with Ivan Julian that goes "You probably don't remember, but--" / "Oh yeah, I remember."

More importantly, I think it's really OTM and prescient that he connects the racism with this effort to be misanthropic and powerless and little cretins about it, which I think still animates the same thing in all kinds of punk and metal. I don't think he's particularly sanctimonious about it; it seems like he's putting work into understanding or finding sympathies for it, actually.

(this is a separate story but I am like 75% certain I had several drinks at a bar with Ivan Julian on Christmas once)

Lennon/Ono are really winning here as the most valid/responsible/meaningful usage, aren't they. It's the only one I can think of where the intent to shock or discomfort people is actually being used to make you uncomfortable about something of equal weight. Though it's still tricky and it really does not have time on its side.

- As an irresponsible metaphor (Patti Smith, Elvis Costello)
- As an "responsible" metaphor, to whatever degree the word can be responsible used (John Lennon/Yoko Ono)

― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 2:56 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it's all a matter of opinion. there's def some ppl that would argue that ANY use of the n-word by a white person is irresponsible no matter how strong the message. I

Lennon/Ono are clear winners here for me, as is EIII (didn't comment before but your story was rad)

its not a contest, guys

lol at the Frogs response, oh dear

I assumed it was obvious that the word "winner" was being used as shorthand for people who were able to successfully navigate the landmines around using hateful verbiage in their art to put forward a coherent point but apparently I was wrong.

'that group of people (the white middle class) would have privilege pertaining whether they were jocks or not. and do."
That's what's so insidious about it -- the jockocracy reinforces that type of privilege as a norm. It makes everyone the poorer for it.

I guess you could argue that having to confront that ugliness might bring you to question your own assumptions, as Axl's nonstop boorishness did for me, but by and large I think it's a net positive to just do away with it as much as possible, especially in a venue that is supposed to be instilling in you values on how to behave in the real world.

xpost

the W-word

This issue has been bounced back and forth since at least Huck Finn.

i don't think enough is being made of non-black instances in hip-hop except for that classsssic dr. dre story about the beastie boys upthread.

much more interesting that axl rose imo.