Accountability in Music • Page 543

reposting this here for posterity

Skiba associating and platforming a white supremacist causes harm to BIPOC members of the punk scene.

Skiba reading Might is Right , a book that his racist friend Douglas Pearce from the band Death in June who he's featured on an Alkaline Trio record, unequivocally declares the white race being superior to all other races on the basis of an appeal to nature/biology that supposes that white men enjoy nature's favor which btw has NO BASIS IN MODERN SCIENCE AND IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF RACISM. Let's read some quotes from this book shall we?:

"What power on earth can permanently keep the Negro on a parity with the Anglo-Saxon?"

"Are all men really brethren?—Negro and Indian, Blackfellow, Kalmuck, and Coolie—the well-bom, and the base-bred,...What proof is there that the brotherhood-of-man hypothesis is in accordance with nature?"

"What white father for example, would encourage the marriage of a hulking thick-skulled Negro with his beautiful and accomplished daughter?

"Take the Negro for example. His narrow cranial development, his prognathous jaw, his projecting lips, his wide nasal aperture, his simian disposition, his want of forethought, originality, and mental capacity: are all peculiarities strictly inferior."

"American sheriffs and detectives hunt down tramps and criminals vdth specially trained bloodhounds, just as Russians hunt wolves, and sheepfarmers hunt coyotes and dingos. It is nowise unusual for Negros to be first captured, then chained to a stake, flayed alive, soaked in kerosene, and burnt to death amid exultant shrieks of corybantic delight."

"Our race cannot hope to maintain its predominance if it goes on diluting its blood with Chinamen, Negros, Japanese, or debased Europeans."

Now, when Skiba appeals to "Nature" in the same breath he's decrying racism, while he's adopting the symbology of nature fascists that read this book widely - at the same time he's celebrating cops as grim reapers, this is not something we can separate. It calls significant suspicion on his claim that he's not racist when he continues to associate with people who believe this.

 

Don’t worry most people still won’t care unfortunately.

 

fucking ew tho

 

Never forget when he said he was unaware about the BLM protests days after they had been in full swing last year because he said he's in his own bubble, truly the worst

 

Fuck him

 

Who says "I didn't know LA was rioting as I rode my bike around whistling" lol, like obviously LA is massively vast but why would you phrase it like that

 

Post it in the Blonk thread and see how many people ignore it lmao

 

Re: Phoebe I think it’s nice for an artist to offer a service that they receive 0% of the monetary benefit from, especially while someone else in need does. No one is dumb for criticizing it, but for me the positives of helping another person outweigh the negatives of clout chasing here. The aggro tweets that firmly frame it as some sort of travesty are a bummer.

It would be cool to see more artists with the means to give up income learn from this but continue to incentivize donating to good causes in similar ways.

 

I did see a handful of tweets with the general point of “why are you asking your fans to donate, you’re rich”, which is probably a fair criticism for actual millionaires, but for Phoebe seems a little misguided. Doubt she’s really raking in that Dead Oceans money.

anyway it sucks that people need to be incentivized to help out people in need but y’know.

 

I’m sure Phoebe is better off financially than she was, but given the fact that she hasn’t been able to tour off her recent success I doubt she’s rolling in the dough. It’s also operating under the assumption she hasn’t given money.

 

Google (which is never usually accurate) estimates her net worth at $5 million. Which seems very very incorrect.

 

I think people are massively overestimating how much money someone like Phoebe actually makes lmao. She’s probably living very comfortably but rich? Idk.

I understand the complaints about the donation/lyrics thing. They’re valid and white people are historically pretty awful about using Black tragedy as a way to gain clout or make money. I don’t think that’s what is happening here. I think it’s a pretty genuine gesture and a net positive for everyone. Still, the people concerned deserve to be heard and respected.

 

In one sense sure but in the other, do the people complaining also have a problem with charity auctions and the like? Not trying to completely negate their concerns but this seems like such a non issue to me

 

I mean she did just buy a house in Los Angeles and a Tesla so she’s definitely doing very well for herself lol. Not sure what that has anything to do with this though

 

It was brought up because it sounds like someone made the assumption that she is a rich person asking fans to donate instead of just donating on her own, which would be a bad look to support the argument that she’s acting in her own self interest

 

I hate the term clout chasing.

 

Who says Phoebe hasnt made a donation? I’m not calling out anyone specifically here but, the automatic assumption that shes incentivizing people donating rather than donating herself sure is a leap.

 

Yeah I don’t even really think it’s the best term to be using here but idk how else to concisely identify what people are accusing her of haha

edit: changed “clout chasing” to “acting in her own self interest”

 

This is worse than the guitar smashing discourse

 

thanks for posting this. I wasn't sure what the fuck was going on in the Alk3 thread. What a fucking shit show.

 

matt skiba to borrow your own words, when did you become a cop shut the fuck up

that guy can fuck off forever

 

wrote a longish post about the phoebe thing last night and deleted it but i'm totally fine with what she did but also 100% understand people seeing a white woman doing that and it rubbing them the wrong way. people are complicated. i'm sure the woman whose partner was just murdered and has a young child to support appreciates the money regardless of where it comes from/why it came tho

 

I think Phoebe has walked up to the line of thoughtless/self-centered behavior on a number of occasions. Between traveling to the UK during the pandemic, propping up pinegrove, not showing up early in the Secretly unionization efforts, and now this, i don’t think anyone owes her the benefit of the doubt. Not exactly making a value judgement on this specific incident or anything, just noting a pattern.

That said, she did get a bunch of money to this family that they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise and that’s obviously a good thing.

 

So it’s still fuck Tiny Engines hours isn’t it?