Music Segregation

I wrote a paper on this many years ago, so in some aspects I am cheating. Nobody will care except that solitary teacher (maybe) so I think I am good.

    Right now, what are you listening to? Could be just your computer fan humming, or your air conditioner, or even your stomach grumbling. This is likely, sure, and you can eat while reading, so go make that sandwich. The majority of you, however, are likely to be listening to some kind of music. I am. I have on the Wolf's Rain soundtrack, which helps me write. Mostly instrumental music that I don't have to focus on. So in this age of music's unprecedented prevalence, what is the appeal? 

   Well, in my time of digging about it, I came upon these findings that only solidified what I had suspected all my life. Music is an immense influence on our minds and temperament, and does so with remarkable efficiency. Usually, I am listening to something, and many of the conversations I have with my friends include music at some point. Now it is easy to think about your favourite genre. Well, for most of us. Some people are sufficiently diverse as to make that a tricky question. The far more interesting question, I think, is 'What music do you NOT like?' The clutch answer is usually polka, old joke. Go beyond that line, though, and conversations become a little touchy. Say you don't like rock or r&b and someone is going to look at you sideways, guaranteed. Why is this?

       The reality is that music is so connected to some peoples' identity that it has become its own form of prejudice.

"Hi, I'm Mark. I'm from Jamaica-"

STOP! What does Mark listen to?

Were you forced to make a choice, the majority of people would shrug and say reggae. Our hypothetical friend Mark is quite insulted, and you no longer have a ride home. While you walk, you wonder why you said that. "Well, most reggae artists come from there, and Bob Marley..." etc etc.

That was an easy one. Let's go a little deeper.

"Hi, I'm Maggie. I come from Alabama-"

Same question.

"Well, she's from the country, so I'm gonna say country western music?"

"Well I listen to hip hop and some black metal..."

Just picture the general populace's reaction.

"Those don't go together!! What are you Maggie some kinda hipster? Pick one!"

Why are people like Maggie judged because of what they are "supposed" to listen to?

I have a lot of stories from my history about this that I wasn't going to pull out. Just realised though that this is my blog, and I am allowed a bit of self indulgence. So here we go.

   I listened to reggae,soca and dancehall pretty exclusively until about 93, when I started getting into rap. By 98, I was deep into the Wu Tang well, and oftentimes 2 am would find me with a new album in the radio, literally too hyped up to sleep. This was the situation until I heard Third Eye Blind's 'Jumper', which chilled me out. Seeking more of this effect, I got pretty heavy into alt rock as well, which opened me up to rock in general. One day I walked into a classroom with a friend and saw some band names scratched into a desk, with a younger kid clearly disgusted. I walked up and saw "pantera" "metallica" "slayer" "judas priest" gouged into the wood, and read them off. The kid looks up at me.

"You know who those are?"

I had seen their names in magazines for years, so I said yes.

"You're a disgrace to black people," he said, shaking his head.

I was too confused to hit him, so he walked out while I stood there. What had just happened?

Another time, a girl in the house next to ours had her stereo speakers on the porch playing music. Not uncommon where we were, but she clearly wanted to push some buttons. This was when Backstreet Boys were pretty big, and she started playing them loudly. Before I knew it, people were yelling at her and throwing stuff. When the bottles and shoes started knocking down her flowerpots, it finally got to her that maybe she should turn it off. 

This kind of stuff happens more often than you might even realise, and it is tied to a simple truth. Stereotypes about race are not limited to food and clothing, but music as well. From my own experience, I have made an effort to not judge people or assume what they listen to, nor do I assume that fandom of one style of music eliminates a desire for another. It all comes down to what you are listening to the music for. I listen to rap and rock in tandem for a reason. I listen to R&B when I feel the need for that kind of mood, reggae when I feel it, soca when I feel it. Each fills a particular void in my musical needs, and makes it hard to profile me as anything but someone with a short attention span. 

In the future, I challenge you to try something different. Listen to something you would not normally try. (If you shy away from polka, I'm not going to judge you.) Above all, do not assume that Mexican people should only listen to reggaeton, White people have an exclusive claim to metal or that all Black people listen to 2 Chainz and Gucci Mane. You might offend someone. 

Sorry, Polka fans.

From Russia With Love

This one begins with an anecdote. Recently, a friend of mine was at work in the break room. Another employee is on the phone in the break room, and overheard snippets of conversation. These snippets followed this general line. "Yes, she was supposed to be in London this morning, and flown over to Fort Wayne today at 1:30.....yes I have arranged for transport.....yes....YES, I paid for the ticket! My name is [redacted], card number [also redacted]! She's pulled this before, but I'm going to get her through this time!"
     The average mind at this point will go for the conclusion "haha, it sounds like he's ordering a mail order bride! But no one does that these days....right?" Being in possession of an average mind, these were my words  in response to this story. So I relate it to my friends, and in the retelling, a small light bulb blazes its way into existence, battling its way through the flotsam in my brain to ask its nagging question.

'Is it possible?'
I decided to investigate.
I started in the simplest way possible...I went to Google (sorry, Bing) and typed in mail-oh hello, the smart response system Google implements to guess your search has 'mail order brides' as the third most likely search. Eyes widening, I went on a tour of the web's vast knowledge banks, and found out some crazy things.
1: They're not all from Russia.
The mail order bride system is based around women who post their details in a way so that people from more developed countries can see it (magazine or internet), arrange for marriage with a willing partner and thus be set up for life with some lucky guy who can then parade around his "exotic" wife. Marriage maybe for the wrong reasons, but I'm not in the business of judging. Anyway, these brides can come from anywhere. The stereotypical source is Russia, but also Belarus, Ukraine, China, Thailand, Philippines, Taiwan and Colombia are only some of the countries that also supply this market. Motivations usually come down to one thing; financial security.

2: This is really old.
Apparently this has been going on since the 1800's in the U.S. Frontiersmen would get out west, stake their claim, build a house....then get lonely. So through an elaborate pen pal system in which pictures would be sent back to the guys (pre phone sexting, good lord) and courtship letters sent back East, women would agree to marry guys they had never met or seen. In the age of E-Harmony and match.com, I find it harder to laugh at that idea. Nothing is new under the sun.

3: They stay together.
According to USCIS, fully 80% of the marriages that started in this way stayed intact as long as they were being monitored, with an estimated 4000-6000 marriages happening per year. PER YEAR. That's wild.

So after reading all of this, I wonder about the kinds of guys who are doing this. Are these just guys who don't want to go through dating, holding hands, long walks on the beach.....just skip straight to the altar? Are they hoping that they will avoid drama by picking up a woman from a country with a history of subservient spouses? Whatever the reason, and with apologies to the guys doing it for the right reason, a lot of these guys are terrible, and can only get a woman with the promise of money and a house in the U.S. I'm willing to bet that a lot of them see it as some kind of sex slave catalog for 'exotic chicks'.

Which brings me back to the incredulity of my initial reaction. This still happens? You can compare it to internet dating, but it's generally understood that there is the matter of citizenship status and financial burden to factor in. Also.....a lot of the women doing this are trying to get to the U.S. Funny, in a time when so many citizens want to get out.

Finally, in case someone wants to make the point, I'll do it myself. I, as a foreigner, married an American woman. Does that make me equivalent to a mail order husband?
Something to think about tonight...as well as if that woman ever caught her flight.

'By: Anonymous.'

        A popular tag line for the internet-savvy, to be sure. Stop and think of how many times on a daily basis you see that word, and how few times you ponder what it signifies. Not what it means, as even the most basic man in the street can fumble out a definition, given the context. "It means that nobody knows who you are? I guess that's what it means. By the way, who are YOU?"
        I did not start thinking about the consequences of this status until a few months ago, when YouTube proposed having their millions of users open up their profiles to the public, and using their actual names to post. This was met with immediate and massive resistance by the vast majority of their user base. Why, though? Well, as far as I can see, it means culpability. Comment sections on the internet are generally a no fly zone for me, as I know what is waiting for me there. Racist, bigoted and outright idiotic comments are a dime a dozen. All the fun would be sucked out of it if XxSwaGZiLlaxX had to actually post "fuck you faggot" as, say, Theo Wilson. The same for gaming consoles. Xbox Live would be a far tamer place, I think, if the entire user base had to use their actual names. Underage gamers, the landfills of verbal abuse shoveled down billions of ethernet cables daily, discriminatory emblems and such, all accredited to the people instead of the personas? Madness.
        Mind you, I understand that the shield of anonymity has its uses. A person who would normally be easily identified and attacked, verbally, legally or even physically, can conduct their business privately with no fear. This helps millions of young people reach out for help for drug problems, sexual questions, mental illnesses and much more. Hell, one of the most instrumental documents making the case for American freedom from British rule was a pamphlet called 'Common Sense' written by Thomas Paine, but published "by an Englishman." I get it. So here we come to the grey area.
           Anyone paying attention to the news for the past couple of years should know about the internet hacker activist group Anonymous. They are represented by men wearing Guy Fawkes masks, and as the name suggests, no one knows who they are. You can make the case that this makes them a more romantic idea, that the everyman can make a change, it could be anyone etc. Under the blanket of anonymity they have made it onto Time magazine's 100 most influential people list for 2012, exposed homophobic practices, publicized the names of the Westboro Baptist church members (those guys that tried to picket the funeral for the Sandy Hook children) and generally were e-vigilantes on a level that is usually hit only in movies. They are also breaking the law maybe once a minute with database violations and other hacking related crimes. Is anonymity their shield or sword? Would any of them be around if their names were fodder for the publicity machine? I doubt. Is that a bad thing? As of this post, I am still not sure.
             Before I start dinner, I will leave you with this one. A new bill being put forth wants website admins to delete any comment posted by an anonymous account. Examine for yourselves.