How are black people treated in the metal scene?

[Vilden]

I can only respect a disabled black trans person who is a member of Absurd.

Heh, when I was younger and went to metal clubs and shit there was this disabled black guy in a wheelchair who was a regular, long hair, band shirts and all the gear. Fuck conformists, do(om) what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law etc.

 

[CiG]

Seeing black people or women into metal/in metal bands never surprised me. They're just people.

 

[Funerary_Doom]

Being an asshole myself, I cant help but be amused. Honestly, the only negative remarks I've ever gotten were from other black people.



I agree. Much better than seeing a stereotypical black woman... Regardless, a black person in the metal scene takes a lot of indivuality, whether male or female. Dont put someone on a pedestal just because they have a vagina... You know the saying, nice guys finish last.

Happy head bangin'

\m/

I don't get questions like this and think it's pretty weird and attention seeking. There's a lot of people into everything and none of it is truly surprising. If there are people in China who can sing and talk about opera really extensively (or some other genre that's not their culture or one they grew up with) than there could be black people into metal especially in this time where there's Internet.

 

[CiG]

White people tend to get the same thing in the hip hop community, actually.

 

[Satanstoenail]

I'm gonna go start a vegan vapers into metal thread brb

 

[Draehl]

Honest answer?

Call me a judgmental suburbanite, but so long as they don't have that urban attitude I really don't care about skin color- while unfortunately it's more common with black folks that really goes for people of any color. Maybe that's just Atlanta urban culture talking. /shrug

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

Heh, when I was younger and went to metal clubs and shit there was this disabled black guy in a wheelchair who was a regular, long hair, band shirts and all the gear. Fuck conformists, do(om) what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law etc.

I'm more surprised by the fact that there was a black guy in Sweden than anything else.

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

White supremacist or National Socialist metal is definitely in the minority as far as the music, musicians, and fans go. And when it does I happen, I ignore it and think "fuck off" to myself, or I just enjoy the music itself and don't condone the music's ideological underpinnings. For Lord's sake, I'm a Jew, yet I'm a huge fan of stuff like Graveland and early Burzum, I think there's something to be said for that. While it is less common, I don't find black metalheads offputting at all. Perhaps because growing up, many of my greatest musical heroes were black, so I never saw it that way, and honestly, still don't. I just think, oh neat, a fellow metal fan, I wonder what his tastes are, etc. Never been an issue in my mental hemisphere, so I suppose I can't really say much more than that.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

I don't know what's more hilarious, slayed necros' comment or everyone having a serious conversation about how black people don't bother them lol.

But you know, I agree, the movies aren't true at all. I've even met a few Afro Americans with houses. And hell, I think that's just super, metal head or not.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

Lol @ negro

Also I think this was a typo of necro but it's hilarious.

 

[CiG]

I'm too cynical about metalheads' taste in music to even begin to break them down by identity politics.

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

Also I think this was a typo of necro but it's hilarious.

Nah, Vilden is just an illiterate jackoff.

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

I'm too cynical about metalheads' taste in music to even begin to break them down by identity politics.

Tell me about it. I ran into a Behemoth fanboy at a King Diamond concert a few years back, and it was the most irksome horseshit ever. The last thing I wanted to do was discuss politics with this mental dreg.

 

[tagradh]

Surely it depends where you are.

No one in London is going to give a fuck but if you go to Eastern Europe or some places in the American South you're probably going to get more cunts.

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

There was also this hipster emo-metal obsessed broad who thought she was just oh, so, profoundly edgy because she could declare to the rest of us the existence of her libido upon overhearing the word "dick" by regaling us with her proclamations of "I LIKE DICK!". I yelled, "Fucking fantastic, go join the special olympics, surely they could use someone as marvelously unique as you." There's a reason people don't

 

[Carpe Mortem]

In all seriousness, in response to Sylice, and on a sociological note, stereotypical white people tend to see black people in particular as all into rap, all Tyler Perry fans, etc etc whatever whatever. And the only black person they'll notice as different is one who is visually counter culture. It is a shame that the only way for a person of color to stand out as an individual in the grand melting pot of public life is to have that thing about them that says hey, I'm not a stereotype.

And I personally find the stripping of individuality like that to be the worst aspect of racism. You shouldn't have to prove you're an individual, it should just be assumed. By going to shows and being one with the crowd, I think you'll find you actually feel more welcome, and more like yourself, than in the grocery store of white people assuming they know what kind of person you are.

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

I can't even begin to grasp that kind of thought, because it's just not something I've ever operated by. Not approaching every person as an individual human being is a foreign concept to me, and quite a decent number of people in general from what I can tell. I grew up spinning Little Richard, Billy Eckstine, Howlin' Wolf, James Brown, and Chuck Berry records ad nauseam, seeing someone who's a different skin color and barely if at all registering it is just my and most other people I've met's default.

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

But the few times I have met white supremacists or supremacists of any skin tone? I've immediately found myself deeply uncomfortable if not outright angrily indignant. Just the idea that someone could delude themselves so thoroughly, and then project that onto others for no apparent reason. You didn't achieve a damn thing by being born with that color, the hell are you so high and mighty over? Why don't you achieve something beyond your own unjustified hauteur, and stop relying on the achievements of people with the same skin tone who probably would hate your retarded guts anyhow to warrant your pride.

 

[CiG]

And I personally find the stripping of individuality like that to be the worst aspect of racism. You shouldn't have to prove you're an individual, it should just be assumed.

But to that point, if everyone is assumed to be an individual, how do you assert your individuality? Individualism in my view thrives in the face of generalisations, assumptions and stereotypes rather than a lack thereof.

Especially considering that most stereotypes contain a grain of truth, I have been into hip hop since I was a little kid, because I am a "racial minority" and the vast majority of my minority family below a certain age almost exclusively listen to rap music.

Technically everybody is an individual, but not everybody is interesting, there's nothing boring or sheepish about a black person that thoroughly enjoys hip hop, but there is something interesting about a black person who likely grew up within hip hop culture that puts on leather and spikes and roars black metal hymns into a microphone.

The same can be said for a white person that grew up in a household of dad rock and Bach that then goes on to dedicate much of their capacity for musical interest to learning about all the foundational emcees that created a black culture, ie hip hop.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

I absolutely see what you're saying and understand if my point was misunderstood. Perhaps it's because we're having a conversation within the context of music and I was actually commentating within the entire scope of individuality.

If a black dude say goes to the store wearing a tech n9NE shirt he's just assumed to be a stereotype. Dude must play basketball, smoke weed and rap, right? Who's to say that guy doesn't go home and look at bugs under a microscope for fun? Meanwhile a black dude at a store in a Metallica shirt sets the stage in others minds of oh, he's unique, I bet he does unique things.

That's the kind of stripping of individuality I'm talking about. Music isn't the only indication of personality, but in the context of OP question, he'd find himself very welcome because of it.