normalizing rape and racism with jokes

Hey everyone

So 2016 has obviously sucked. Badly. And there's a few things I want to say that have been on my mind since the election and afterwards.

Some of you know I was a big Beastie Boys fan back in the day, and I was incredibly saddened by the death of Adam Yauch. So you can imagine how upsetting it was to hear that Donald Trump supporters had vandalized his memorial with "Go Trump" and swastikas. Adam Yauch was Jewish, and a very spiritual man who cared about social justice.

And tonight Neo Nazis are doing the Nazi salute and yelling "Heil Trump" at their official gatherings.

We now have as a president elect, a man who was bragging about grabbing women by the pussy, and walked in on teenage girls in their dressing room. At his last rally, he had Ted Nugent up there with him, a man who wrote a song about raping a 13 year old girl. And Trump himself was accused of raping a 13 year old girl, but the girl got too many death threats and dropped her charges.

How did we get here? It's not like America suddenly turned into a bunch of racists, nazis and people thinking rape is okay. Those people were always there. Many people are saying "but now they have a voice".

But this all brings me back to the exact reason that this and other blogs were started, over 9 years ago, and that was because one band who always said "We hate racists and sexists and bigots", completely changed their tune and started behaving racist, sexist, and bigoted because they hooked up with Mindless Self Indulgence. I talked about this once before, it is called "Hipster racism" and "hipster sexism". When you are pretending that you're above racism and sexism and bigotry, but you are still writing songs called "F*ggot" under the guise of irony.

The people who put Trump into office always had a voice, and part of that voice, and part of the reason people are waving off these horrendous things, is because they are NORMALIZED in our society. They are thought of as funny for some people.

And why is that? "Ironic hipster racism" and rape jokes are a big part of the problem. White people who think it's "not fair" that white people aren't allowed to use the N word. White people who are "ironically" doing nazi salutes because it makes them seem "edgy." (Again MSI but those videos have been taken down.)

And obviously, adult men making songs about "Five Year Old Panty Shot" and lyrics like "cause my momma said to rape the very best one".

Obviously they are not the only band doing things like this, or profiting off using slurs in a "funny way" and making jokes about child rape. But they ARE the band that got this blog started so it all comes back to square one.

Well thanks, everyone who thought those "jokes" were funny. Because now they are real, and this is actually happening in America. We should not be surprised.

Usually I end by saying that I hope everyone is having a good year or will have a good year. But nothing good came out of this year at all so all I will say is that I sincerely hope we all survive, and that we will all maybe learn something from this.

It's been too long...

Hi everyone.

Damn... 2016 has been nasty. David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Lemmy Kilmister, Phife Dawg, Garry Shandling, Frank Sinatra Jr, Glenn Frey, Keith Emerson...

Alan Rickman hit me the hardest. But there have been many celebrity deaths this year and it seems like more than normal for only 3 (almost 4) months in.

Aside from that I hope everyone is doing really well. And I hope this year gets better.

2016 needs to stop acting this way!