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Reputations and Realities: Racism in Durham

Reputations and Realities: Racism in Durham

Izzy Gibson

 

In 2020, Black Lives Mattered.

Last year, our news platforms, social media accounts, and educational institutions were sparked by the tenacious fires of social change. A long-overdue campaign for racial justice had begun. It seems, however, that we have collectively decided to plant this campaign on the backbenches. We posted our black squares, we raised our cardboard signs, and agreed that the job was done.

One year attending Durham University would prove otherwise.

I was, and to a certain extent always will be, sheltered from the realities of racism in the UK. Of course, I continue to educate myself as best I can. To question the pre-existing institutional, governmental, and social dogmas concerning race must be a conscious activity that we all partake in. If one simply accepts the progress already made, then how can we possibly learn what more there is to do?

In early 2021, I decided to post a survey, asking current Durham students about their experience of discrimination whilst at university. Whilst my survey addresses more general concerns regarding all forms of discrimination, sexual, homophobic, classist and so on, it is necessary to address each social issue on its own. Racism, it appears, runs persistently and inherently through Durham’s cobbled streets.

I am particularly interested in Durham’s reputation – how my university is perceived from the outside and whether these perceptions persist within. Students’ anecdotal accounts of their perspectives before beginning their course revealed two primary beliefs:
Durham has an overwhelmingly positive academic reputation
Durham is a white, traditionalist, and toxic environment

As one participant put it, Durham is a “great uni for academics but awful for diversity and full of privilege”.

90% of survey participants agreed that Durham’s reputation for distrimination is worse than other UK universities. No student claimed that the university’s reputation is better. The issue begins here.

Whether through friends, family, teachers, news, or social media, students were aware of Durham’s lack of diversity and likelihood for discrimination before even moving onto campus. It is widely believed that the university has “a very toxic culture regarding race and sexism” with “a reputation as a private boys club, with a lot of sexism and racism”. One participant simply wrote: “classist, sexist, racist.”

It appears to me that BAME students are thus forced to wiegh the university’s undoubtably negative reputation for discrimination against their academic opportunities. That is, BAME students are deterred from joining Durham through fear of their own safety. They are compelled to accept a place on purely academic grounds, risking their own wellbeing for a fulfilling education.

Student’s affirmed this situation, stating: “I had heard it was a very white university and had concerns about diversity and if I would be accepted into social groups”. Another student poignantly suggested that “People had expressed their concerns with me attending Durham university to the point they had tried to stop me. I have lived in a deprived area, with high gang culture and very diverse. Coming from a poor family background and being a black woman, there were so many things that I could experience (racism, sexism and just being from “poverty”). I felt I was going to be alone. And I prepared to face my time in Durham alone.”

Such fear of racial abuse echoes throughout the survey. Another black student wrote that “Many of my friends back home were warning me about coming to Durham, being that it has mostly white students. They thought I was going to experience racism on a daily basis and that nothing would be done about it.” The phrase, “concerned for my own safety” was all too apparent.

To force a student to choose between personal safety and academic opportunity is abhorrent.

White students were aware of these issues and were “very apprehensive about being in a toxic environment”. One expressed that “I didn’t have concerns for my own safety because I have priveleges from my sex and race.” another states that “I had no concerns of my safety as I know I am a white privileged male.” BAME students meanwhile feared for their own wellbeing.

White privilege is thus certainly evident throughout the university; it is the difference between perceiving a “toxic environment” and becoming a victim of that environment itself.

On discerning Durham’s negative racial reputation, one must ask themselves a more sinister question: Does this university’s external reputation accurately encompass the reality of student experience there? Are the rumoured threats to BAME students real? Could it all just be “talk”?

On further investigation I am afraid to report that, put simply, Durham is just as racist as rumoured.

Only 30% of Durham students aren’t white. This means that 70% of students will not experience this racism first hand. Despite this, 57% of students surveyed had either personally been subject to acts of racism during their year at uni or had heard of such events occurring to friends and fellow students. ⅓ of students suggested that racism is the most pressing issue in Durham at present.

What does this mean? Racist culture persists throughout the university – there are few BAME students present to experience it, but this does not negate the sheer quantity of abuse reported. As one student put it, “A lack of diversity inevitably leads to bigotry people feeling comfortable in perpetuating racism. It’s not a ‘rumour’. It’s a fact.”

Students reported constant “Racist jokes”. Two students surveyed were called the N-word during their first week at Durham. Another stated that “a friend was told to go back to being a slave”. Even more sinister, a student admitted that “my teacher used the n word during a lecture”.

Durham has, in some areas, attempted to combat its diversity and discrimination epidemic. The University’s newest college, “South”, is advertised to stand for “Freedom, Equality and Global Citizenship”. Their efforts have not gone unnoticed. The college is evidently the most ethnically diverse in Durham – far from an impressive feat but progress nonetheless. However, response to such attempts at diversifying the university have been very telling. Both survey participants and myself alike have heard that “students in Hatfield call South College the ethic college […] it is not exactly diverse.”

It is therefore clear that Durham has a problem not only with diversity, but with its attitudes towards diversity too. Durham’s racist culture is as much provoked by its own white students as it is by the institution itself.

With an astonishing 38.7% of Durham students having attended private school, it seems that most of the university’s population have been exposed to the intricacy of Latin conjugations more than they have to a regular and representative society.

I am aware that some may view my writing as a smear campaign of which Durham is at the receiving end. This is not my intention. Durham university fosters creativity, opportunity, education, and free-thought. The university is enriching, stimulating, and (in my experience) incredibly fun. My aim instead is to present this anecdotal evidence before those who need to see it. There is no winner when an excellent student is deterred from enrolling in an excellent university due to racism. Students, staff, and alumni alike should take action to ensure that, in the future, one is not forced to choose between racial equality and education. Durham’s efforts against racism must be a priority. If not, I fear that the university’s toxic, threatening, microcosmic thought-chamber will only perpetuate further.

 

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Perspective

Can you draw the clitoris?

Can You Draw the Clitoris?

Katie White

 

What started as a light-hearted question to friends quickly became a major concern. Not
a single person I asked could get anywhere close to drawing the clitoris. Most people
couldn’t even say the word without laughing. The ones who did manage to say it
subconsciously lowered their voice to a whisper. The clitoris is a gift that evolution felt
important enough to not deny us, so what has gone wrong?

I’m not shaming anyone here; I was exactly the same and it’s no accident that we are
iclliterate. The clitoris is the only organ in the human body (male or female) that exists
purely for pleasure. By taking importance away from female pleasure, society could
flatten the role of women exclusively to rearing and raising children and make them
secondary to men.

Today the clitoris is ignored. In the past it was actively feared. A large, visible clitoris
was a sign of being a witch and was enough to merit death. People genuinely believed
that it was where the devil sucked your soul out from. Bikes were (and still are)
designed to be more upright for women from fear of provoking an orgasm; another sign
that most people don’t know the first thing about them.

Words are a signal of importance. Most people (women included) can’t say the word
clitoris without giggling; we are taught to be embarrassed of the one part of our body
that is designed for pleasure. Meanwhile we are given a buffet of words for the penis,
which has more synonyms than any other word in the English language – 174
synonyms to be precise. There are none for clitoris and the ones that exist for vagina
include the rudest word in the English language. So many are immature – pussy, mini
moo, poonani. Others are misogynistic – bang hole, cock pocket, snake den, sausage
mitten. The rest are just outright unattractive – beef curtains, fur burger, bearded clam.

This problem is far more than words and a drawing. Feminism is rooted in the belief that
men and women are equal. How do we ever expect to have gender equality if we know
nothing about this uniquely female organ? Being iclliterate is just one example of how
society has normalised misogyny, setting a dangerous context for micro-aggressions
and far worse in terms of sexual harassment. We can’t write the clit back into the script
without knowing what it looks like, or having the language to discuss it. Yes, the vast
majority of it is inside our bodies, but most people can draw the lungs.

None of us learn about it at school. Education on the female reproductive system has
ignored the clitoris. The most cliterate among us can identify it as a floating magic bean
within a sideways eye. Being cliterate is relevant for everyone – whether you have a
clitoris, engage with one or consider yourself an ally to anyone who identifies as a
woman.

Understanding the anatomy of this organ scientifically proves the importance of
foreplay. All female orgasms are caused by the clitoris – whether it’s the external ‘bean’
or the internal bulbs. But the internal part is only activated once the external part is too.
On top of this, saying the word clitoris has actually been proven to lead to better sex.
The problem here is lack of awareness, which should theoretically make it an easy one
to solve. The cliteracy crusade’s mission is to make the world cliterate. Educating the
globe is no easy task and we need as much help as we can get.

The first, and easiest thing you can do is start conversations. Ask your friends,
colleagues, grandma and supermarket checkout assistant if they can draw the clitoris. If
you’d like, use the simple diagram in this article to help you. If you don’t feel comfortable
bringing the question up, wear one of our tote bags to prompt the conversation. Each
one comes with the drawing and diagram inside. Give these to your friends and
encourage them to do the same.

Our next aim is to get the conversation going on a much wider level. We want to talk at
schools, events and workshops. This is going to take time and we are just at the start of
our exciting journey. Please stay with us, take a look at cliteracycrusade.com for more
information/to see our tote bags and give @cliteracycrusade a follow on Instagram.
Wouldn’t it be brilliant to see a spray-painted clit on the pavement in ten years’ time?

 

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Perspective

A Response to the South College Formal

A Response to South College Formal

Izzy Gibson

 

I had no idea who Rod Liddle was prior to last nights events, but perhaps I would have been given the chance to educate myself on his views beforehand if Tim Luckhurst had informed us of a guest speaker being present, as he has done on several other occasions. Those who had found out he was speaking had already planned a walk out at the beginning of his speech to save themselves from his harmful views. Upon their exit, our once very calmly spoken Principal began to scream at them, proclaiming them as “pathetic”. This is not the type of aggression you expect to be an audience of at what was meant to be a jolly Christmas formal. Myself and my peers then sat through what was a very painful, and uncomfortable speech. I don’t quite know what Liddle was trying to get across to us last night, but his speech consisted of a strong anti-left narrative, with sprinkles of sexism, homophobia, classism and transphobia: [TW – “those with an xy chromosome…are scientifically a man”, with a mention of “dangling penis[es]”. His speech was entirely inappropriate. Afterwards, the Principal thanked the speaker and addressed the remaining students with gratitude for staying. I will make it clear, myself and my friends did not stay out of respect of Liddle or interest in his comments, but for most of us, out of fear of the Principal and perhaps another outburst. Several students I spoke to last night were in distress due to Liddle’s comments, with many becoming emotional. Our students well-being should not be put on the line for our Principal who I once thought to be welcoming and progressive, to invite a “good friend” from his previous years, who has a very public controversial past. Luckhurst’s bias towards Liddle was at the detriment of our students welfare. As someone who was a pioneer for South College, and has worked closely with Tim, this has shocked and appalled me. I can securely say, that I am no longer proud of South College as an institution. Instead, I am proud of my peers and the college’s student body for standing up for what they believe in and not putting up with bigotry.

Testimony 4:

I am disgusted and also saddened by the manner in which our principal and his wife conducted themselves at the Christmas formal. The last formal of the academic term in which children were present, in which international students were experiencing their first British Christmas at a time where everyone wanted joy and some college patriotism. This was not the case. To even let Rod Liddle stand and speak with the prior knowledge that this would upset many students, yet this was considered “acceptable” under the codified law of free speech, was (1) not amusing, (2) hypocritical in its very nature. The fact our principal has defended this man in countless articles. Defending his opinions on child pornography and various transphobic ideologies is very telling of situations in which the freedom of speech has been prioritised over other codified human rights laws. Freedom of speech in itself includes the right to listen or not listen to the said speaker, the European Convention on Human Rights protects the rights of assembly and in this case disassembly. The principal has acted in a highly unprofessional highly political manner whilst preaching the right to speech has impeded upon many of his students rights. Southies have been left mentally scarred and some traumatised. This is unacceptable and must be acted upon now.

Testimony 5:

At the South College Christmas formal last night, an event at which we were expecting to experience a heart-warming Christmas dinner, our college President Timothy Luckhurst invited Rod Liddle (an openly racist, homophobic, and transphobic journalist) to give a lecture to the room on his political ideology. Before the formal, some people had seen an article from Rod about child pornography and as he began to speak decided to walk out of the room. In response to this, Tim shouted ‘Pathetic!’ at them, because of their decision not to hear from an individual they knew was about to offend them. The speech opened with a joke about prostitution, was followed by inappropriate comments about ethnic minorities, transphobia in which Liddle tried to argue that science proves trans people not to exist, a claim that is fundamentally wrong, and a comment made about single parents not being capable of raising their children. At this point, more and more people including myself began to leave the room, as the speech was so offensive and uncomfortable, even driving some students to tears. Following the speech, the JCR president of South got up and combatted some of the claims made by Rod, clarifying that these are not views of the JCR and arguing that the Christmas formal was not the correct environment for them to be expressed at, which has since been re-enforced in an email sent to college residents today. Many people had returned to the hall to support the JCR president, and then we all left again. On the way out of the room, Rod and Tim were confronted by students who were appalled by the speech and questioning why the speech had been allowed to be given. In response to this, the college President argued that ‘freedom of speech’ must prevail, however, he did not account for the fact that most of the speech was hate speech, incredibly offensive, and that people had not paid for a Christmas formal to then be lectured on political ideology of the right wing. The President’s wife was labelling student ‘assholes’ and repeated the sentiment that trans people don’t exist. Since then the college has been quite shaken and the elitist and discriminatory reputation that Durham has as a University has been re-enforced.

Statement 1:

“Rod Liddle can speak until his face turns blue, and he will because he is who he is and does what he does, but to inflict that on a group of students who did not willingly sign up for it, were not given a forum to argue back or discuss and were clearly expected to just sit there and put up with it given the ‘pathetic’ comments is ironically deeply anti-free speech and anti-free choice”

Statement 2:

“There is an appropriate and inappropriate way to present an idea. This probably sounds dramatic but say they were going to give a speech on war, they wouldn’t bring in tanks and immerse the students in a war situation, so why should they be able to present ‘tolerance’ like that?”

Conclusions and Suggestions for future action

Following the speech given by Rod Liddle at South College’s Christmas Formal, entailing transphobic remarks, we would like to hold a meeting in which all participants (from university staff, to students), may express their sentiments regarding the treatment of events prior to, during, and following the Formal (03/12/2021). Our aim is to be able to discuss this sensitive issue in a structured setting, allowing all points of view to be recognised and to suggest how we may collectively learn and move forward from this event. Each participant’s opinions may vary, but we want to highlight that our ultimate goal is shared: to interrogate the events of December 3rd and suggest a positive way to move forward from them and prevent further outrage.

The best means to address an issue of such emotion and proportion is through discourse. Through creating a structured environment in which we can all express our sentiments as a college and university community, we can make valuable progress in understanding each other and exploring possible options for future action under a united desire to remedy Friday’s events.

Events similar to the South College Christmas Formal have unfortunately become all too familiar within the Durham University community. We now have a chance to create a sustained and central discourse surrounding the University’s attitudes towards minority groups. Whether Tim Luckhurst and his counterparts will accept the opportunity to respond constructively to Friday’s incident is yet to become apparent. If Luckhurst does not acknowledge the gravity of this situation, I fear that the double standards he has imposed on the South College community will further perpetuate. In the case that the events detailed do not instigate positive discourse in the University community, one must ask themself how dire the suppression of minority groups’ may get before they are finally given the formal platform to execute their own freedom of expression?

 

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Perspective

New Year’s resolutions – futile or fundamental for self-improvement?

New Year's Resolutions: Futile or Fundamental for Self-Improvement?

Holly Downes

 

It has become that time again – the time of looking back on the rather mentally and physically challenging year of 2021. The year plagued with countless coronavirus variants, cancelled events and infinite disruptions to our daily routines. 2021 was birthed in a bitter lockdown and is dying around more restrictions.

Yet, I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Many people have found themselves this year. Have achieved things they never thought they could’ve. Have surprised themselves. However, no one is perfect – everyone has a bad habit, a personality flaw, something that causes others to internally grimace at. So as tradition follows, we grab our pen and paper, or in this digital world, our notes app, and write a long list of self-improvement goals for the twelve months of opportunity 2022 has to offer.

After indulging in too many mince pies, the whole box of Lindor’s, and enough cheese to feed a small village, the Christmas festivities are sadly temporary. We realize that this utopia cannot prolong into the new year, so we make a resolution to give up chocolate for the month. To go on a brisk walk every morning. To stop procrastinating when we have mountains of reading. The ending of Christmas celebrations comes with a dread of the new year that forces us to confront the reality of life – one which does not allow us to watch Christmas movies all day.

So, we prepare to deep clean our routines. We craft a narrative for 2022 – to stop over-consuming and buying the whole of Zara’s new-in section, to stop spending 20 hours on the PS5, to stop using Tesco Clubcard price as an excuse to buy cake. We become the admirable characters in our own stories as we create the perfect fictional tale for the new year. A year where we become the person everyone idealises – that person who wakes up before sunrise to mediate, prioritises healthy eating and never fails to miss an essay deadline.

Yet, as we all know, fiction never becomes a reality. Whilst the first week of January may be comprised of efforts to blur the boundaries between fiction and reality, trying to become the idealized version of yourself, the January blues soon roll around. You try and do that twenty-minute workout every day, resist the urge to eat the entire tube of Pringles and not grab your phone every ten seconds, but all these little resolutions slowly dissolve away. You begin to become your 2021 self – the ‘old you’ you tried to lock away in the past.

And this yearly cycle is inevitable. Making unrealistic resolutions that never make it past the second week of January, agreeing to improve yourself and remove past habits to only fall back headfirst into them. Being driven to become the perfect person only ends in disappointment when this goal is unattainable. It has become easier to break than create resolutions – no one is there to scold us for neglecting them, they are our own creations, so we are automatically granted the permission to let them slip away.

Self-improvement will always be fundamental in society. To ‘better ourselves’, to become the person everyone wants to be. We are programmed to think we are not enough, that there is always something to improve upon – to change. Whilst self-improvement is key to maturing, to realising your faults and becoming the best version of yourself, it gets dangerous when unrealistic ideals flood your mindset. To be more positive, active, and happier than last year – ideals that when temporarily broken, create inevitable feelings of failure and disappointment.

Yet, these feelings can be easily avoided by simply changing your mindset when sitting down to write your New Year’s resolutions. Do not enter 2022 with the intention of transforming into a whole new person – a new year does not equate to a new person, but an individual who is eager to learn and change for the better. An individual who perseveres and has willpower to reach their realistic personal goals.
With this mindset, New Year’s resolutions are not futile, but are an important opportunity to reflect on the past year’s faults and victories – to make use of the clean slate 2022 so generously provides.



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Perspective

Social Media: A Friend or Foe in the Increasing Digitalisation of Politics?

Social Media: Friend or Foe in the Increasing Digitalisation of Politics?

Callum Loveless

 

The advent of social media has had a consequential effect upon our generation, essentially creating a subordinate world where you can communicate to multiple people, in multiple places. It loosens the restriction of one-to-one telephone calls and dialect, to allow communication to become plural, which people can then ‘comment’ on afterwards. In a way, it allows the individual to begin the narrative, or ‘hold the floor’, in light of the linguistic term, where they otherwise wouldn’t be able to due to social anxieties or structural oppressions. It equalises the playing field to distribute who has a ‘voice’ in society. Therefore, its role in forming or solidifying an identity, or more narrowly a political identity, is paramount in the age of the internet. However, whether this comes to benefit, or detriment society is a question laid bare to answer.

Social media and the transcendence of information and ideas it harbours, across populations in different geographical locations, is what largely accounted for the ‘Arab Spring’ or ‘Arab Uprisings’ of 2011. Social media allowed individuals, particularly the younger generation who made up the majority of the population at that time, to share their simmering discontent with the corruption and poorly managed governments in many Arab countries, who fostered neo-liberal economics only to keep the majority of capital at the top and create stark inequalities within society. This discontent turned to concrete actions of protest which, through social media, influenced others to follow suit and effectively had a ‘ripple-effect’ across the Arab world. A collective dismay among how many Arab states were oppressing their people was expressed and subsequently shaped the politics in these countries. Therefore, the collective ‘Pan-Islamic’ identity was formed through social media, which brought people together to achieve the similar mission to root out oppression.

On the other end of the spectrum, yet nonetheless significant in forming an identity, Twitter has seen the creation of a sub-culture of tweets which feature nonce formations to reflect the Scottish accent, known as ‘Scottish Twitter’. This type of ‘netspeak’ is humorous in its outset due to its non-standard and unusual formation – ‘Mad how yie get 6 points and a £200fine for being on yer phone yet there’s folk oot there way eyelashes on there motor n getting away wae it’ (@McneilAlexander, 3 March 2017), but nonetheless connect a set of people who commonly find that the written standard-English doesn’t reflect how they actually speak. Social media is thus a source of individualistic expression, which can form its own informal online idiolect, to cement an identity often forgotten in the standardisation of language.

This informality has allowed politicians to utilise social media to appear reasonable and approachable to their electorate, not least by President Trump in the 2016 election and during his presidency. President Trump used the platform of Twitter to conduct diplomacy and politics; he did this to appeal to grass-root voters, albeit strategically or unconsciously, which makes the political narrative more accessible and engages more people in politics. Therefore, the use of computer mediated language on social media platforms encourages the removal of social barriers and creates an equanimity of understanding across generations and social classes, rather than making something like politics exclusively understandable to the elite minority.

However, with the expanse of analytical tools, social media firms like Facebook and Twitter have been able to track what you engage with most, what you find most interesting and what you ‘like’ as opposed to skip pass. It then curates your feed, so that you’re only shown what you enjoy and find interesting. As social media is increasingly being used as a platform for politics, this mode of curation effectively extinguishes debate and polarises communities into distinctive political identities. The spread of ‘fake news’ amongst this, has led to many people believing falsehoods by people they tend to enjoy ‘following’ or ‘liking’, which has had a detrimental effect on democracy and the principle of objective facts. So, whilst social media has been beneficial by making politics more accessible to the wider electorate, it has equally polarised communities into opposing groups which is starting to deconstruct the basis for facts and debate.

Whether this is a wider, more pressing systematic issue that overrules the multitude of benefits that come with social media, including the fact that ideas can transcend hierarchies and social barriers, is arguable. However, what is certain is that social media firms are becoming more powerful and their presence more influential, so this debate won’t be dying down soon.

 

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Perspective

Casual Instagram is an even greater performance

Casual Instagram is an Even Greater Performance

Elizabeth Nowak

 

A comment left underneath a video inspired TikTok user @cozyaliki to argue that those seemingly candid photos, posted on your favourite influencers’ pages, are an even better performance than the posed celebrity portrait. He explains the difference between a casual and a posed Instagram using the analogy of reality TV versus the typical television programme: both are staged, scripted programmes, yet reality TV aims to convince its viewers they are watching real life. Contrastingly, any other TV show is consumed by the viewer with a ‘suspension of disbelief’, a term coined by Samuel Coleridge that describes a transaction between audience and entertainer, where the audience chooses to believe an implausible story in return for being entertained. Like reality TV, a casual Instagram feed undergoes ‘scripting’ as its images are often strategically shot and are the perfect image selected from many. Intended to be consumed as a narrative of one’s life, these performances are often the very opposite of casual. The relevance in this topic is found in its participants – it is not only celebrity personalities and influencers who ask their viewers to believe in a scripted reality, the average Instagram student user does too.

The casual Instagram trend has undoubtedly taken off amongst the Durham student body, a trend that has seen a move away from solely sharing the highlights of their lives to a more casual approach, increasing exposure of their day-to-day life. A key component of the casual Instagram is the ‘photodump’, a utilisation of Instagram’s carousel post feature, posting up to 10 ‘candid’ photographs per post. The photodump can initially be seen as a means of liberation, an alleviation of posting pressure, affording the Instagram user freedom from the scrutiny and filtering of photographs to be selected for posting. Rather, the term ‘dump’ goes beyond this, with its connotations of a complete lack of thought in the pictures shared. This is not the case in practice. So very often the ‘dumps’ we see are slideshows of carefully curated images, selected for their aesthetic quality. Concern with the ordering of carousel posts can be seen in online tutorials providing instructions on how to adjust the order of images after posting. This demand for retroactive editing is evidence of the intentionality that goes into posts, intentionality that is passed off as effortlessness.

The average student is far more likely to use Instagram for personal sharing, that is if they choose to post anything. After all, Durham is better known for its other stereotypes than being the home of influencers. However, irrespective of one’s posting habits, every Instagram user consumes the content of other users and is thus susceptible to the old comparison game. Comparison to our peers is hardwired into us, a part of human nature. The late psychologist Louis Festinger, of the University of Iowa, developed the ‘Social Comparison Theory’, revealing that we compare ourselves to those around us to self-evaluate. In short, the impressions you take in of those around you are the basis of comparison which hold power to shape the way you think about yourself. And so, the casual Instagram trend not only leads us to believe in a false reality of our friends’ lives but also negatively affects the way we see ourselves.

A picture may say more than a thousand words, but it cannot tell them all. Photographs of aesthetic quality are not harmful but can become so when they are used to fuel comparison in the belief that they can accurately tell an account of any person’s life. Just as reality TV is scripted, so is the casual Instagram feed. Awareness of the even greater performance a casual Instagram post demands can help keep that habit of comparison in check. Enjoy it as entertainment rather than reality.

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Culture

Kraf Twerk

By Grace Marshall.

Imagine you are in a silver box surrounded by dancing men and women in dagger collared shirts and PVC trousers.

Imagine flashing lights, streamers and a disco ball – imagine a voice on the loudspeaker giving thanks to Uncles Ralf and Florian and then blasting Numbers. You are in Detroit in 1988.

In fact you don’t have to imagine. You can go onto YouTube (everything I write comes back to videos on YouTube), type in ‘Kraftwerk New Dance Show’ and be transported. I’ve seen Kraftwerk live, but actually that didn’t really come close to watching this 144p video. I saw them a long time ago in the middle of East Anglia with my middle-class dad and surrounded by other middle-class men who looked like my dad. Not surprisingly, ‘80s Detroit seems very different to ‘10s East Anglia. There was widespread unemployment, a crack cocaine epidemic, and a ‘Devil’s Night’ on Halloween of every year. It doesn’t seem to matter too much to the people dancing. As YouTube user Alexlesexe observes, it is rather ‘Rare footage of people having real fun!’

The link between Kraftwerk and west coast techno has been wheeled out before. The stories are fun.  There is one about Ralf and Florian going into a club in New York and being confused when ‘Metal on Metal’ started playing only to go on for ages after it should have ended. Ralf asked the DJ what was going on and found out he had two copies of the record which he was mixing together. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Kraftwerk invented techno. You can hear the beginnings of four-on-the-floor and synth tech in Timmy Thomas and Lee Perry and Funkadelic – it might be time to reassess these kinds of reductive ‘handing the baton’ narratives you sometimes hear cropping up around techno. Juan Atkins does emphasize the influence Kraftwerk had on him, but he also says that “Kraftwerk got off on the third floor” and the elevator kept going up.

Whether it would have happened without Kraftwerk or not – Detroit techno went way beyond its European influences in the ‘90s. One of the things I really like about this movement is the sense of “scenius” – an ecosystem of Roland T808 and monosyllabic samples. Juan Atkins talks about listening to a Detroit radio show called Electrifying Mojo, which aired at midnight every night, and just before it came you would hear people honking their horns and turning their bedroom lights on and off. The 90s duo Drexciya would also have been listening to Electrifying Mojo as well. They really picked up on the idea of the techno ecosystem. Between 1992 and 2002 they released five records imaging an aquatic fantasy world in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, based on the micro-apocalypse of the Zong Massacre. A slave ship on the middle passage ran low on supplies and white slavers killed over 130 enslaved African people. Drexciya reimagined the atrocity by creating a sound-world in which the slaves who were thrown overboard didn’t die but gave birth to children who could breathe underwater. It’s not really comparable to Kraftwerk at all in my opinion – there’s more to electronic music than the Autobahn.

Categories
Culture

“I Ain’t Goin’ to Play No Second Fiddle”

By Tom Sykes.

Emanating from a forgotten corner of the American South East, the blues is the foundation upon which modern popular music has been built. Rock ‘n’ roll, soul, jazz and country music all owe a significant debt to the blues men and women of the Mississippi Delta.

Alongside gospel music, blues was the most popular form of African American cultural expression in the first half of the twentieth century. However, since the genre’s heyday in the 1930s and 40s, blues has been forgotten and displaced by its more slick and economically savvy musical offspring, rock and soul. Since the 1960s, blues artists have only been brought back into the spotlight by the rock stars and soul singers who appreciated their influence. It was British bands, such as the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds, who sparked the blues revival of the 1960s, after they popularized covers of tracks by Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Robert Johnson. There is still some way to go before the blues is fully appreciated as the bedrock of popular music, but thanks to the success of the Stones and others, there is a growing recognition of the profound influence of this remarkable genre.

One area of blues music that remains fundamentally misunderstood is its political and social significance. Though we acknowledge the musical debt owed to the blues by the writers of the great protest songs of the civil rights era and beyond, we rarely see blues as a form of protest music in itself. Blues, instead is regarded as deeply introspective, dealing with themes of love, pain, and personal misfortune. Where Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye and Bob Dylan hit out forcefully and explicitly against the injustice facing African American communities in tracks such as ‘Chain Gang’, ‘What’s Going On’, and ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, blues musicians seemed content singing about spurned lovers, sexual prowess and the wonders of rail travel.

According to one study by the University of Mississippi, overt political protest was present in just two percent of the blues records produced before 1945. However, when blues music is placed in its historical context of racial oppression in the Jim Crow South, it becomes clear that the blues was a radical and sophisticated form of dissent against white supremacy in the USA. Not only did blues provide the musical foundation of twentieth century popular music, but it was also the first musical genre that brought the experience of an oppressed minority into mainstream culture and laid the groundwork for the more famous protest anthems of the 1960s.

The seemingly trivial themes that southern bluesmen addressed in their songs all carried a far greater meaning than a superficial look initially reveals. One such theme is the recurrence of the trope of rail travel in Delta blues music. Southern bluesmen were not simply impressed by the locomotive as a symbol of modernity. Instead, rail travel was an expression of one of the most prized freedoms of the post-emancipation South: the freedom of movement. In this context, a seemingly simplistic song such as ‘Hello Central’, by Lightin’ Hopkins, in which Hopkins moans about being prevented from catching a train to see his lover, can be understood as a protest against the structures of southern racism that sought to limit the freedom of movement of African Americans and tie them to their traditional role as plantation labourers. Protest against the structures of Jim Crow racism is similarly evident in the reverence shown for criminals and vagrants who challenged white supremacy by existing outside of the control of white landowners. The popularity of the itinerant bluesman, Henry Thomas, who sang about his existence beyond the grasp of white plantation owners, is testament to the power of Delta blues as a declaration of African American autonomy in the post-emancipation South.

Arguably the most politically radical and powerful of the blues artists of the South were the Blues Queens who dominated the ‘race records’ industry in the 1920s and 30s. These women, whose popularity far exceeded their male counterparts until the 1930s, directly challenged the structures of white patriarchal society that sought to defeminize and even dehumanize Black women. The Blues Queens, led by Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, asserted their own freedom and sexual agency through their music in a manner that shocked white audiences. Bessie Smith’s ‘I Ain’t Goin’ to Play No Second Fiddle’ is an assertion of female agency, in which the singer talks about kicking her man out of her house, as she “ain’t gonna play no second fiddle ’cause, I’m used to playin lead”. In her 1928 hit ‘Prove It On Me Blues’, Ma Rainey even challenged the gender normsr imposed by US society by singing “It’s true I wear a collar and tie”, and later alluded to her lesbian sexuality with the words, “I went out last night with a crowd of my friends, It must’ve been women, ’cause I don’t like no men.”

The radicalism and political significance of the blues is confirmed by the reaction of white society to the growing popularity of what was described as the “devil’s music” by many social conservatives. According to the musician, Adam Gussow, who was one half of the blues double act, Satan and Adam, a pastor from Baltimore described the blues dancehall as “hell’s ante-room”. Gussow even identifies Black community elders who warned that the blues “only poisons the soul and dwarfs the intellect”. Such an extreme reaction against the radicalism of the blues can only serve as evidence of the efficacy of blues protest and expression.

In the context of Jim Crow oppression, blues artists, who dealt with themes such as freedom of movement, resistance to labour exploitation, and female sexual agency, were vital in the development of consciousness of racial injustice in the USA. Without pointing the finger explicitly at the white establishment, the blues gave expression to the simmering anger of African Americans, both in the South and in industrial North and West. It was these artists who laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights movement and the protest anthems that accompanied it.

The blues deserves credit for establishing a tradition of protest and dissent that had never existed in popular music beforehand. Just as from a musical perspective James Brown could not have existed without the influence of the likes of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, nor could he have written the Black power anthem, ‘Say It Loud – I’m Black And I’m Proud’, without the trailblazing protest of the bluesmen and women of the American South.

Categories
Culture

Charles Manson’s Other Side

By Ed Merson.

Spotify can lead to many different places. The rabbit-hole of music which I embarked on during lockdown opened my eyes to the peculiar phenomenon of Charles Manson’s debut album in 1970, ‘Lie: The Love and Terror Cult’. Music often evokes emotions of happiness or sadness, but not much has incited such confusion and fascination, or even guilt, as Charles Manson’s debut record.

When people think of Charles Manson, the most likely things which come to mind are the events of mid-1967 involving the Manson Family. Feeding a commune of middle-class teenagers LSD while manipulating the words of the Beatles to incite a race war, Manson coerced lost souls in the Summer of Love to commit nine murders on his behalf, including that of Sharon Tate, the wife of Roman Polanski.

Before listening to this album, it’s interesting to consider what to expect. Dark and estranged by madness is the first inclination. The album cover immediately gives this impression, which features Manson, Swastika on forehead and ‘LIFE’ magazine changed to ‘LIE’. Besides, what else could come from the mind of a serial murderer who forced innocent people to paint the words ‘Piggies’ on Polanski’s kitchen walls with blood.

To my dismay, the album offered a deep and reflective Charles Manson, commenting on US Society, his wish to return home and his relationship with girls. If anything, this fits perfectly into the context of counterculture and Woodstock.

The first song ‘Look at Your Game, Girl’ is a soft and intimate address to a girl, asking to reveal her emotions to his confused and sad state:

What a mad delusion

Living in that confusion

Frustration and doubt

Can you ever live without the game

The sad, sad game

Mad game

Just to say loves’ not enough

it can’t be true

Oh, you can tell those lies

but you’re only fooling you

Although experiencing familiarity while listening, I was immediately snapped back to the narrative of murder and manipulation.

‘Look at Your Game, Girl’ is followed by ‘Mechanical Man’: an unemotional response to the monotonous nature of industrial life in middle America. Manson offers a satirical and receptive comment on the dysfunctionality of life that Manson experienced himself, growing up with a negligent father who worked in local mills in Ohio.

 I am a mechanical man, a mechanical man

And I do the best I can

Because I have my family to look out for

I am a mechanical boy

I am my mother’s toy

And I play in the backyard sometime

I am a mechanical boy

Largely abandoned by family, he lived between foster homes and eventually committed his first offence of arsenal when he was 13. From then on, Manson’s home would be in state institutions, spending 20 years in rehabilitation centres and prison intermittently. The background brings sadness when listening to ‘Home is Where You’re Happy’: a short and upbeat song that resonates with his own loneliness and isolation.

Up to this point in the album, without knowing the origin of the words, you could equate it to the voice of Rodriguez, also lost in American culture until recently. However, the insightful lyrics are interrupted by ‘I’ll Never Say Never to Always’ performed by an ensemble of girls. The same ensemble who loyally followed Manson and whose hands killed nine people. A chilling amalgamation of murderous voices.

The album was written during his incarceration, where he learnt to play the guitar and met Phil Kaufman, producer of Gram Parsons, who encouraged Manson to record his music. Through this relationship came another with The Beach Boys. He recorded his album in their studio and even harboured his family in Dennis Wilson’s LA house. The Beach Boys even went on to adopt his song ‘Cease to Exist’ as ‘Never Learn Not To Love’.

If ever you wanted a means of gaining an insight into the mind of a psychopathic multi-murderer, behind the Swastika tattooed on his forehead and his chilling expression of madness, an album with a mixture of longing for love and social commentary provides the perfect opportunity. You may now continue on the straight and narrow of modern music.

Categories
Culture

2021: Shining lights in a dismal year for music

2021: Shining Lights in a Dismal Year for Music

Tom Sykes

 

2021 has been a year to forget for many reasons, not least for the music industry, which seems to have done its best to churn out a host of mediocre and unoriginal albums. Aside from predictably inane pop releases from the likes of Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber, and Selena Gomez, producers have turned to celebrity amateurs in the hopes of making a quick buck in what is fast becoming a TikTok driven industry. This year has seen a UK number one record from Youtuber, turned-boxer, turned-rapper, KSI, meanwhile Usain Bolt has his eyes on a Grammy for his recent reggae release, ‘Country Yutes’. While these albums have provided an entertaining distraction, their surprising success hardly indicates a thriving global music scene. To make matters worse we seem to be in the midst of an Abba reunion – need I say more.

To cut artists and producers some slack, it has been an exceptionally challenging 18 months for the industry. The pandemic has wreaked havoc to live venues leading to a decline in emerging artists and hiatuses for those bands who rely on live performance. However, it is hard not to be disappointed by the creative output of an industry emerging from the pandemic.

That said, 2021 hasn’t been all doom and gloom for music lovers. A select vanguard of talented artists has put their long periods of isolation to good use and cobbled together some brilliantly innovative albums. Hailing from the London post-punk, Aussie indie rock, and US country and bluegrass scenes, these artists are attempting to save the stuttering music world and provide some direction to a rudderless industry. What follows is a list of the best albums released in 2021 designed to restore some faith in the creativity of today’s generation of musicians.

1. Bright Green Field – Squid

Quite simply the best punk band around. ‘Squid’ has burst to the forefront of the London punk scene this year with their faultless debut album, Bright Green Field. In fact, it is reductive to describe Squid as a punk band, as Bright Green Field demonstrates that they are so much more than that. Along with Black Midi and Dry Cleaning, the members of Squid are representatives of a musically sophisticated London punk scene with jazz, blues, and funk influences seeping through their records. They are at their raw and thoughtful best on the rollercoaster post-punk track ‘Peel St.’.

2. Sharecropper’s Son – Robert Finley

At the tender age of 67, Louisiana-born bluesman Robert Finley has released his second studio album, Sharecropper’s Son. Finley is a musician with an incredibly diverse musical and professional background, having served as a US army guitarist, led a gospel group, and appeared in the 2019 incarnation of America’s Got Talent. Having been spotted busking by the Music Maker Relief Foundation in 2015, Finley has gone on to achieve the commercial and critical acclaim that his work richly deserves. Sharecropper’s Son is an autobiographical album that returns to Finley’s roots on the plantations of Louisiana while incorporating some of the many influences that Finley has picked up on his long musical journey. The result is a rich, bluesy record built around the distinctive twang of a southern blues guitar with some strong nods to gospel and soul. The album provides a strong indication of Finley’s musical versatility built up over years of toiling in an industry that never paid him his due. The title track ‘Sharecropper’s Son’ and ‘County Boy’ represent classic southern blues in its modern incarnation, meanwhile, Finley shows off his vocal range in the more soulful tracks, ‘My Story’ and ‘I Can Feel Your Pain’. The standout track from the album is ‘Souled Out On You’, a gritty and powerful southern soul track, sure to become an instant classic.

3. Shyga! The Sunlight Mound – Psychedelic Porn Crumpets

This is not the best album on this list, nor is this the most talented band. The Psychedelic Porn Crumpets make it onto this list not on merit but by virtue of their magnificent name. The Aussie prog-rockers returned in 2021 with their fourth album with a little less psychedelia than their previous offerings, but a whole lot more crumpet. Well worth a listen.

4. Daddy’s Home – St Vincent

One of the more established names on this list. St Vincent released her sixth album in 2021, a haunting record that defies categorization grounded thematically on the release of her father from his ten-year prison sentence. The album is almost impossible to define as it veers from funk guitar riffs to discordant thrashing and occasionally threatens to spill over into trashy pop before a cutting lyric brings it back into focus. Daddy’s Home is certainly not an easy listen, but St Vincent has built on her strong reputation for innovation, lyrical talent, and sheer strangeness with a commercially unfriendly but fascinating album.

5. The Ballad of Dood and Juanita – Sturgill Simpson

This concept album from Sturgill Simpson is a true product of pandemic-induced reflection and creativity. Simpson dreamt up this civil war love story, or as he calls it, a “simple tale of either redemption or revenge” while recovering after being hospitalized with coronavirus. The ballad has come to life in the form of a bluegrass album that cements Simpson’s status as country music’s brightest star. The album even features a cameo from country legend, Willie Nelson on the delicate love song ‘Juanita’. As good a reason as any to give it a listen.

6. Comfort To Me – Amyl and the Sniffers

If the London punk scene is dominated by thoughtful and sophisticated post-punk bands, Aussie surf-rock is at the other end of the spectrum. Along with the Chats and the Smith Street Band, Amyl and the Sniffers have been thrashing out 3-chord punk tracks since their 2019 debut. The Londoners seek to emulate the post-punk groups of the 1980s, while Amyl and the Sniffers are far more akin to the early punk-rockers of the 70s. Their rapid delivery of their simplistic songs gives them a Ramones-like quality, while lead singer Amy Wilson has the energy of Iggy Pop combined with the alluring stage presence of Patti Smith. Comfort To Me is stylistically nothing new. It is Taylor who makes the band compelling, with her empowering lyrics and irresistible presence – punk rock for the age of female empowerment.

7. Delta Kream – The Black Keys

Ohio blues group, The Black Keys, are succeeding in the traditional quest of the ageing rock band to remain relevant as they enter their forties. They have returned in 2021 with Delta Kream, an album that pays tribute to the legendary bluesmen of the Mississippi Delta. Delta Kream provides a shiny new coat of paint to some of the oldest and most influential country blues songs ever written. The Black Keys’ rendering of ‘Poor Boy a Long Way From Home’, a song that has been covered by almost all the greats of the blues, is the standout track on an impressive album.

WAYZGOOSE (n.)

Pronunciation: ‘ˈweɪzɡuːs

An annual festivity held in summer by the members of a printing establishment.
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