Why a Goths Of Color Page?

When I first wrote this, I wasn't entirely disillusioned by the whole subculture. After publishing articles for various magazines, I realized that the US culture had changed for me so much that I no longer felt comfortable in it (people I had called my friends were angry at me for writing about being a Goth of Color, and others wanted to know why I thought "niggers have a place in it anyway"!!!). If it had been one or two people, I wouldn't have minded, but unfortunately this was a WHOLE lot more than a few idiots.

After thinking about it, I decided that I would leave the page and the site up for others to read and think about, and perhaps to educate themselves over. However, I do not use the "Goth" label anymore - I'm actually surprised how many folks have left the label behind. It doesn't mean I've stopped being who I am, because that is impossible, but it DOES mean that I am no longer going to try and convince people in the scene that glaring at a black person when you have Egyptian symbols drawn all over your face is just straight hypocricy. If they can't see it...they never will.

One little twit told me, "Maybe you don't belong in this scene anyway." If the prevailing attitude of Goth is as I have seen it projected (pale, skinny, and lazy), then yes...you are right. But it hasn't, and it shouldn't...and I'm too old to change.

I remain, ALWAYS,

LuCyFurr

For anyone who has ever searched the net, scouring for Goth pages, I am sure you have probably been struck by the complete lack of "difference". They all look alike! Same outfits, same backgrounds, same waify, high-nosed little snots with bad poetry. Where are the "real people?" Sure, there is a BBG page (Where have you been all my life? Kisskiss About time!!!!), but very few, if any, Goth of Color pages. I think I have seen one, and it’s down. The only other site I came across was listed upon the "Worst Goth Page" because the man was Native American and (gasp) dared to wear his heritage (He had feathers in his hair and a warrior breastplate).

I’m going to say it…I really am. Racism has no place in the Goth culture. Period. Elitism of any kind belongs with jocks, with drunken jet-setters. If that is your attitude, then kindly join them. Goth people have their own troubles without the in-fighting and ridicule. I do not wear a size five, but I look damn good in my black corset, thank you very much! I don’t fit in the clothes because A) I have the un-starved African American features (which means I have a bootie) and B) I am six feet tall (What the HELL do I need platform shoes for????)

I may not be dark, but I am not 100% Caucasian, and that does NOT mean that I am going to "Dress the way I am supposed to"…by which I assume to mean I should be wearing baggy pants, braids, listen to rap and use the word "nigga". I refuse to use a word with 200 years of pain behind it. It is the sound of children separated from mothers, the crack of a lash across skin the color of rich wood. It is ignorance condensed into two horrible syllables that I have hated all my life. Only fools would not be offended by it, only bigger fools would use it amongst themselves. I deplore it, I abhor it, and I have banished it forever from my vocabulary. If you want to prove to me what a true fool you are, use that word in my presence; no matter what color you are, you will still be a fool. I will not flame at you, but I WILL laugh at you.

A funny story from my life in an all white town. One day, some heroes decided to spray that word all over the mailbox of my home. My great-grandmother helped found the NAACP in the Midwest, and was an ancestor of a man you will never read about in the history books (George Mason…look him up, he was a revolutionary). My father was a angry man, who was one of the Washington Seven (again, look this up), turned down from joining Malcom X’s group of haters because the founder of "By All Means Necessary" himself said my father "loved blood too much". Now, I had two choices; handle it my father’s way, which meant bloodshed, or handle it my great-grandmother’s way, which was subtle but always cut deeper than any knife.

I chose grandma’s way, and it proved to be smarter. I knew the boys who had done this thing were in my class, so I stood up in class one day and told everyone of this thing. There was some snickering of course. Then, I turned around, looked right at the boys without naming them, and said "I just wanted everyone in this class to know that you SPELLED IT WRONG". And I sat down.

The class went utterly silent, and then everyone but those fool boys burst out laughing. The teacher laughed so hard she almost fell out of her chair. Those boys turned redder and redder as the laughter grew, and the next day, that mailbox was anonymously painted new again. Laughter always makes a fool of the fool.

Oh…and my great-grandmother was a white woman.

I am making a stand right now with this site, and making it something for ALL of those who wear black, and for some of us who ARE!

Back in the day, Goth was about being different. It did not have a "code of dress" or little subcategories. It was strength in numbers, and merely helped to identify us. But that is ALL it was. It didn’t become some strict code until recently (and that goes for all the branches of perky goth, angsty goth, uber goth, industrial goth, S&M goth as well). But, if that is the way people want it to be…so be it. Here comes the new chapter….Ethnic Goth of Color.

I wear a little bit of my culture whenever I go out…whether it be an African sort of head-wrap, a Celtic ring, a Norse rune on my necklace, a feather woven into my hair, whatever. Do I get stares? Of course, because people seem to think that I am "being something I am not" by wearing other than obviously African or Goth clothing. Sometimes the stares are more than usual…being interracial is "exotic" now; sometimes covetous, sometimes hostile. Still freaky, but it’s "kinda sexy" now. That irritates me. First, I was a freak, now I’m a piece of ass? Puh-LEASE. It’s the usual crap, which people need to start realizing and get with the program. Tiger Woods is interracial, sure, but do you ever see him with his Thai mother?

It took me years…YEARS – to finally be okay with the fact that I was never going to have straight blond hair or a thin nose or a small behind. Even Cher thought at one time that she was hideous because she had a different complexion and dark hair. Every time I think I have crossed over the hump, something kicks me again in the chest and knocks me down. One of my big pet peeves are people I meet (and for those of you who are of color, you're about to start laughing) who feel like they have to prove how unracist they are by getting into a big "civil rights" discussion, like they have to PROVE to me they aren't racist. Why does this bug me? Because WITHOUT FAIL the very same person will say something completely ignorant within a very short time period, like "Do you use a pick for your hair?" "But I thought black people didn't like goth stuff" Or the all-time stupid comment "Ya know, if you just ignored the whole thing, it would go away." This nonsense completely negates their previous statement of not "being ignorant", by which I think they mean not racist, since most people believe that ignorance is what makes racism. On a certain level, yes, but ignorance is STILL ignorance (i.e. not knowing what in the world you are talking about). We are all guilty of it, even my friends do it now and then, and I do the same thing. However, just because we are all guilty of something doesn't mean that we can't CHANGE it. To just say "that is the way it is" is pathetic complacency. It negates the whole reason we are Goth at all.

There are always reminders that I am too white to count and too black to matter, that if "I can’t fit into Goth clothing, I don’t deserve to wear it" as one snooty little waif-goth salesgirl once told me in a store. I don’t need critiques from a group of people who have become the family I haven’t had. Goth Culture has no reason to be racist, elitist or anything else completely obnoxious. Otherwise we become a mirror of that which we most despise.

Interracial is here to stay, Goths of Color are just as goth as you without being pale, larger Goths are just as much part of the culture, and there needs to be more of an outlet WITHOUT becoming another extreme elitist group.

So, Keep on Keepin' On.

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