Accountability in Music • Page 193

No I'm asking why that user is putting in so much effort

 

Ahhh I gotcha now, I'm at work and my brain is fried right now haha. Yeah I don't get it.

The way I see the whole thing is: Kid wore the shirt to get a reaction, he got a reaction, is now upset about the reaction. Makes no sense to me.

 

He's deliberately propagating the false assertion that he's the one Garrett was talking about so that he can use the ensuing alt-right anger to get social media heat. He's already trying to organize people to wear Trump merch at the 2/2 AA show in Salt Lake City.

It's so transparent, and even after Garrett explicitly told him he's not the one he was talking about, the kid is still going.

Have to say, he fits right in with that crowd.

 

there's some dude in joel's mentions about getting his trump crew to the next FL show. these bad faith 'own the libs' bro types are the fucking worst.

 

Imagine wasting your time and money just to own the libs

 

Buying bootleg Trump merch from a 16yo in Utah to own the libs

 

Anthony, if you are referring to my question, I'm not trying to exonerate him, I don't mean to belittle your question but if you're seriously asking that, I answered your question it in the question I wrote above:

• "@Degan_Palmer was obviously being disruptive, it seems clear to infer he had planned to troll the show, I'm just wondering what record(s) there are of who said what to him before @JoelDTD's remarks, and where the story is coming from.

I said I think he was obviously being disruptive and trying to troll the show, so I don't think I could be trying to exonerate the "16-year old MAGA chud."

I thought it was @Degan_Palmer who @SilentGarrett was talking about because that's exactly what the Alt Press story said in the article I linked to above:

• Amity Affliction vocalist slams Trump supporter from stage over T-shirt
• "After Birch’s stage speech, Silent Planet shared their experience with the Trump supporter. According to a tweet, the same fan yelled at them over their “heal us” shirts."

It seems clear that Alt Press is saying @Degan_Palmer was that "same fan" and I had put that quote and reference link in the post you were replying to.

Im interested in all of this because there's been an international uproar about this through the music press and in social media and more people are talking about reporting from secondary and tertiary and further removed sources than about any sort of primary source, and posting comments about what someone said about someone else than about exactly who said what to whom and when at the show itself. That's all I was trying to do, to better understand that. That's why I tried to carefully write my post with clear references to who I was referring to, what they said and where they said it, and it wasn't to defend @Degan_Palmer You did answer my question, though, thanks! I'm sorry if what I wrote was misunderstood.

 

Well Degan Palmer isn't even the person anyone was talking about. Just a self-centered alt-right drone trying (and succeeding) to convince people to defend him for something that was never about him. And "international uproar" seems kind of hyperbolic to me, two bands made statements of opposition to the alt-right and Trumpism, which is of course a good thing. Plus, whether that kid was the one who said something or wasn't, who cares. He's a moron.

Also I really wouldn't believe everything you read in AltPress, of all places.

 

Yeah I misread the first tweet you posted and thought that was a fan who was wearing some merch or something but it seems that that guy is in one of the other bands playing that night.

 

This user’s posts always read like a conspiracy theory bot that has to meet an unfairly high word count.

 

Short answer: while I had about a million problems with Chance's statement, there was nothing dishonest about Chance owning the apathy that came specifically because Kelly's victims were black women. Yes, it's true that power dynamics, money, and opportunity - all the usual suspects - played into it. But the general apathy that the public already feels about victims of sexual violence and abuse is amplified because his victims are/were predominantly black women and black girls, who are hypersexualized and treated as disposable both within and outside of their own communities. You mention that you're a white woman; this is one area where I recommend taking more time to listen to black women instead of projecting your own experiences. It might provide clarity, although I can guarantee it will also create discomfort for you.

Sexual violence is an issue for all women and femme nb folks (and yes, many men). Victims are treated unfairly across the board, and none of these themes are unique to any race. But we are talking about a specific and extreme instance of an epidemic in this country, and that's the way black women and girls are treated. Make no mistake: R Kelly was able to do what he did at the rate he did IN THE OPEN for so long and with so much help because of who he did it to. There are other vulnerable communities, of course. But black women and black girls are treated as expendable and are abused at higher rates than non-black women. There are countless statistics you can find on this, and it doesn't take away from what non-black women go through AT ALL to acknowledge that fact. If you feel that it does, I'm sorry. But I'm a survivor and non-black woc who can acknowledge it, because this is a human struggle. You can't solve a problem by pretending it doesn't exist, and that means fighting for justice for those who experience it the least. It's not a competition. It's just the truth.

If you're interested, here's a good place to start:

‘Surviving R. Kelly’ and the Inherent Violence of Being a Black Woman

 

I'm obviously interested, I read articles like this often, especially in professional journals, NPR's Code Switch, The Root, and elsewhere. Here's an easy read from The Root today that makes many of my points about the industry and the people involved who helped R. Kelly do what he's done: https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.co...rviving-r-kelly-now-that-ive-had-a-1831551200 The article includes discussion of how race was a factor more thoroughly than anything I could easily write, but it doesn't elevate race over the role that his business and personal relationships played in helping him.

I understand that many black people feel alienated from any system of government and law, many don't want to report crimes or ask for help from any government funded agency. That's profoundly wrong and rooted in racism against people of color, especially black people. But I also know through studies in social science, not so much through the media but through professional journals that there's a lot of white people who are victims of sexual abuse or who know first hand of it occuring, or who are substance abusers or know of someone who is, or have suicidal ideation or know of someone who does, people who act out violently or who are victims of violence who offer the same rationalizations for not seeking any help at all. Many poor white people don't trust the police or government or publically funded legal, medical, or social service agencies, many think they are designed to serve political interests and inner-city minority racial communities and think they'd be judged harsher or unfairly because they are white. The fact that they are white and not black and don't suffer the worse experiences that black people do doesn't make many of them feel any better about getting help for themselves or others. I think you can see how that's not a rational point of view either.

It's one thing to say "I didn't want to report to the police R. Kelly's sexual abuse of underage girls (or of adult women) because the girls or women were black" -- I can see how (though irrational) a black person could feel so alienated from the legal system that they might feel that way. It's worse though to say one did nothing at all and continue to work with R. Kelly or actively defend him despite knowing of his abusive behavior. The former is choosing to not report what they know to legal authorities or support prosecution, the latter is actively enabling and (for the people we're talking about) profiting from their relationship with R. Kelly.

Anna, you wrote: "Yes, it's true that power dynamics, money, and opportunity - all the usual suspects - played into it."

But there's something profoundly different in the music scene and in the entertainment industry in general, different than almost any other industry. Do you see that?

It's so much more than individual dudebros choosing to exploit fangirls, it includes the complicity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/complicity) of their peers, the businesses they work for, and the industry those business are a part of. Complicity isn't necessairly illegal, in fact it often isn't, or is easy to argue as such, as that link explaining the term says.

To put that a different way, here's two articles I'm sure you have read documenting overtly criminal behavior, alleged in the case of Dahvie Vanity (a stage name I know but that's what most people know him by) and an open court case with Austin Jones, basically sex crimes involving two well known figures in the alternative music scene:

Scene Singer Dahvie Vanity Is A Rapist Who Preys On Minors, A Dozen Women Say | HuffPost

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/arianelange/teens-austin-jones-2015

There are a lot of worthwhile comparisons one could make here with the two stories, but here's my main point -- there is no other industry I know of where a guy like Dahvie Vanity or Austin Jones would have the kind of protected, transient exposure to such a large number of vulnerable adolescent girls with the support of others in their work. I also don't know of another industry where an employee's worth actually can increase because they've gotten in trouble with the law.

I can't imagine, for example, that there are proportionally as many doctors like Larry Nassar or coaches like Jerry Sandusky as "artists" and performers like Dahvie or Austin. If the same musicians and entertainers/performers were teachers or employees with some professional credentials they would likely have been reported and caught a long time ago, even if their professional peers didn't do all they could to hold them responsible. If the same guys were shift managers at a fast food restaurant or a store they might have an opportunity to groom or solicit a few underage employees or customers but their working peers and supervisors would be much more likely than Dahvie or Austin's peers in the music industry were to report and fire them, even if they weren't reported to the police.

I'd have to really stretch to imagine industries where girls are as vulnerable and the offenders as supported by the industry as Dahvie Vanity and Austin Jones were (and at a much larger scale R. Kelly).

Migrant farmworkers, maybe?

That was my main point, and worth doing more with because it's likely going to be most relavant to effecting change -- not so much something as general as "power dynamics, money, and opportunity" --- I wrote "contracts and civil settlements and nondisclosure agreements" --- something a lot more specific and appropriate for R. Kelly, and if the legal cases had proceeded further with Dahvie Vanity or if Austin Jones had had more resources at his disposal to defend him I think you'd have seen similar methods used with help from their peers.

It is the structural issues -- the organizational system and issues especially associated with the industry -- in the music and entertainment industry that makes this worse, and in R. Kelly's case it's as much or more that than race, or gender, or class, or any other politicized term. And those structural, organization issues just aren't being addressed in the entertainment or music industry.

And if anyone wants to tell me that we're somehow more "woke" now than we were three years ago with Austin Jones or ten years ago with Dahvie I'd have to disagree, though I'd only be able to give right now Wiliam Control, I suppose, as an example of a recent case that should show little has changed, probably because the biggest change in the music scene since Front Porch Step's story broke about three years ago is to get these stories out of social media as fast as possible and work out some deal -- a civil settlement at most and more often not just an apology -- which may better explain what's happening if you think that hearing of fewer cases over the last few years like these means things are getting better.

There are worthy attempts being made, from Mute R Kelly to TimesUp! and lots more women, POC, transgendered people, etc are coming into power as they should, but I don't see any evidence the industy is changing in response. Groups like that are at best helping victim/survivors get a better deal in civil settlements but the industry isn't changing organizational policies much if at all in response. I think it's clear though that groups like that as well as the industry they're trying to change is getting better at selling business as usual while acknoledging as ambiguously as possible that somewhere, someone did wrong.

This isn't some insight I came up with, by the way.

Critiques like this have been made of movie and TV industry responses to groups like TimesUp!, that the industry is using women and POC who are put into positions of influence and in the media as spokespeople to market an intersectional image of sexual harassment awareness while the industry itself makes few if any structural changes to the contracts and employment terms most people are working under. I think you can see why the music industry doesn't want to make those changes either.

Just like with the protections that come with improved sexual harassment policies in the professions, larger corporations, and especially in publically funded education under Title IX -- that all costs money and increases a business liability to civil suits, though they have improved the lives of women, POC, and others in the process. Those are protections that the music and entertainment industry doesn't have for most of the people working in it (and especially for their fans) and won't have without a lot more of a fight than we've seen so far.

 

How Do We Live With Music Made by Problematic Artists? | Pitchfork

 

This is definitely a good explanation of it (and, genuinely, thank you for sharing because I don’t want this next part to sound like it’s at you), but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth that it’s from pitchfork considering their weird role in the pinegrove comeback

 

Eh, I get that but the site isn't a monolith. I'm just not really sure what the entire article is trying to say. It makes some solid points but overall I don't think the closing paragraph hits the mark on a solid point.

 

Pitchfork articles like this about listening to problematic artists tend to make me feel like I would if I drank a couple bottles of Kombucha while listening to those artists. I still would think the act of listening to artists I already decided were problematic would remain something problematic in itself and I still wouldn't really like drinking Kombucha.

 

Yeah, there’s no real “point” to that article at all. It’s just a bunch of scattershot thoughts clumsily grouped together to flex the author’s supposed wokeness. And I’m definitely not buying the moralizing coming from Pitchfork after that Pinegrove article and the R. Kelly booking.

 

I don't know how to have a conversation about this with someone who believes it's irrational for black people to feel alienated from the legal system.

I'm going to say this, and I'm going to cease engaging with you on this topic: it isn't irrational, and I'm just not sure why you seem to be trying to establish a hierarchy of sexual predators in music. R Kelly has been victimizing dozens of primarily black women and girls for decades, and he was doing it out loud and in public and very little was done about it, and that has everything to do with who his victims are. That was the point. I'm not interested in obfuscation or arguing about who is the most vulnerable, especially with a self-proclaimed white woman who believes that first statement I revisited above is true. I'm not sure why you keep asking me if I understand things about the music and entertainment industry - I'm a Latinx woman of color who works in both, and I happen to be blessed with a very sharp mind. I understand perfectly, and my heart breaks for every single victim of every single predator and abuser and yes, I am filled with constant rage and frustration that so many work so hard to hide these crimes and that nothing is done about it. That's why I do the work that I do. And I repeat: it takes nothing from any of the other countless predators plaguing the industry's victims to acknowledge that people are less likely to care when the victims are black women or girls. If you disagree, that's your right, but I've said my piece and people learn when they're ready.

Have a lovely day!

 

pinning pitchforks shortcomings on jayson greene seems pretty unfair. pretty sure he’s just a freelancer who writes for multiple outlets

 

What a weird post. It is good and correct and smart for anyone who is not both rich and white to mistrust police. I would also like someone to try to explain to me in what way "structural issues" are discrete and separate from issues of "race, gender, and class." I hate when someone tricks me into reading an extremely long post that turns out to just be completely incoherent

 

I think it's understandable for black people to feel alienated from the legal system, but it's irrational, to say the least, for supposedly sane, competent adults to follow up on that feeling of alienation with not intervening or trying to help at all, or to worsen the situation and acting as accessories or profiting from the relationship, as so many did with R. Kelly.

I work in a social service profession. I've personally worked with private agencies, nonprofits, churches, etc that work in black communities and serve as interfaces to government services and the legal system. Chicago has some of the best in the world in that regard. I suppose some people who disassociated themselves from R Kelly and his circle turned to some of them for help, and some are involved trying to help right now. I was actually already watching again some of the documentary to look for examples of them.

But any agency that one turns to for help with minors being sexually abused are going to have to report immediately in turn to the police because they are (or I'd hope you'd agree should be) mandatory reporters. The legal system come into the scene inevitably when one asks for help in cases like this.

There's other words to use besides irrational -- if I said "immoral" that would sound worse -- but I think it's irrational to do nothing (or worse, profit from the situation), and only rational to do something to try to help.

 

Get familiar with the usernames that typically post long, worthless things so you can just scroll by.

 

It's a work in progress, but I'm learning.

 

i saw "Migrant farmworkers, maybe?" and knew i'd be stuck in a loop reading that one

 

I just glance past CVS receipt posts