great(ish) pt 14: reggae, K-pop stans, rage
Hello! This tinyletter is usually meant to be an informed alternative to real life, but I've spent the last couple of weeks online in a spiral of rage, how about you? If you're reading this, you probably are as plugged in as I am, but just in case: this resource includes links for how you can help support Black Lives Matter in the US, Canada and Australia; ways to help in the UK are here; and here is a resource by the newly founded Vienna chapter of Black Lives Matter for the Austrians reading.
Today: a documentary about Trojan Records, how museums utilise identity politics, a novel by an outstanding Equatorial Guinean writer, and cyber-activism by k-pop stans, Also: some thoughts about hockey fandom. I recommend listening to this 2017 Tiny Desk Concert by The Roots while you read this.
Article: Curator Says Museum's White Supremacy Silenced Her by Erin White, published in Afropunk in November 2019; Painting Over the Dirty Truth by Rhonda Lieberman, published in The New Republic in September 2019
This week a tweet by Cháedra LaBouvier went viral. LaBouvier pointed out how hypocritical the Guggenheim Museum was for observing Blackout Tuesday: she had been the first Black curator in the Guggenheim's history, an experience that she describes as "the most racist professional experience" of her life. Her tweets reminded me of an article by Rhonda Lieberman I read last autumn that I remembered having some mixed feelings about. Lieberman discusses the vicious cycle of reputation laundering in museums: the rich fund museums to distract from how they got their money, and museums utilise superficial diversity measures to make themselves appear more woke than they really are. Lieberman argues that identity politic is essentially used to whitewash reputations and that diversity is utilised as a tool instead of rethinking capitalist, exploitative frameworks from the ground up.
What Lieberman doesn't do enough, in my opinion, is acknowledge the importance of institutions (and even brands) in bringing attention to causes and platforming people who would otherwise go unheard, or not reach the same audience, not to mention the importance of institutions in creating role models. I guess two things can be true at once: an institution can be funded by bad money; and that money can be used to create genuine positive impact for the audience and artists. What to do with that? I don't really know (well I do know, it's tax rich people and use those taxes to fund institutions), but rereading the article was a reminder that a lot of (white) left-wing anti-capitalist critics bring tons of their own privilege to the table, and it's worth examining.
Film: Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records (2018), directed by Nicolas Jack Davies
This documentary combines archive footage, interviews and drama to tell the story of a pioneering record label that helped establish reggae in the 60s and 70s. It chronicles Jamaican immigration to England in the 60s, the importance of music to create community in a racist, unfriendly country with shit weather, and the huge impact Jamaican youth culture and music had on British youth culture and music. I watched Rudeboy last week and absolutely loved it; every person in it is incredibly cool, the songs are obviously amazing, and it is illuminating as a portrait of its time. I really recommend it.
Note: This film was free to stream for 7 days on Youtube as part of the We Are One global film festival, but I missed that window! We Are One has a great programme, so check it out for alternatives.
Book: The Gurugu Pledge by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel, translated by Jethro Soutar (2017)
I read a lot, but few books actually stick with me, and there are even fewer writers who I'd want to read every single novel of. I'm not obsessed with style per se and don't often come across writers whose voice I love. One author that I am obsessed with, however, is Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel who has two brilliant novels translated into English. (He's also an activist against the Equatorial Guinean government who now lives in exile in Spain.) The Gurugu Pledge is set on Mount Gurugu, overlooking the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the North African coast. A group of people from various parts of Africa are camped out on the mountain, trying to gain entry to the enclave – and with it, access to European asylum. Ávila Laurel blends their voices, their stories and the stories they tell each other so well that reading it felt like listening to real conversations, only better. Yes, this novel is a reminder of the EU's racist border policies, and yes, it is, as the publisher puts it, "bringing a distinctly African perspective to a major issue of our time" (sigh), but more importantly this is a great, sad, funny, clever novel by an author who needs to be read (and translated) more.
Other: K-pop stans and fandom
You know what's good about 2020? Fans and the impact digital activism can have. Over the last couple of weeks, K-pop stans flooded social media to support Black Lives Matter, filling white supremacist, pro-Trump and police hashtags with memes and fancams and rendering them impossible to use for racists to coordinate. (For my mum and dad who are reading this: K-pop is Korean pop and stans are very dedicated fans.) What I know about K-pop comes mostly from watching the Explained episode on Netflix about it, loving this song, and being a person on the internet in 2020, but I know a thing or two about fandom and you simply love to see fans use their power for good. For the last two weeks, the hockey fandom that makes up 90% of my private twitter feed has been a wealth of information, videos of police brutality, outstanding thinkpieces about being a Black hockey player, and usually apolitical rich white hockey players learning about (and speaking up about) white privilege and "the undying hatred of racist America" in real time. It made me think a lot about platforms, influence, how people learn things in different ways and from different sources, and how every fandom I've been in has taught me fundamental lessons about social justice. Thank you, internet & the intelligent people on it.
That's it for now. Take care. Donate. Be well.