Taste Is Not A Matter Of Race
Karen O and YEAH YEAH YEAH
I looked down at my legs clad in fishnet tights and Dr Martens as I walked up the stairs. I could feel the vibrations of the music through the thick soles of my shoes. As I opened the double doors the heat hit me. Heat from the bodies, some swaying gently, some moving forcefully feeling the music entirely. The spotlights, they added to the heat circulating the room too. This was my favourite night of the week. It was the best Rock Night in town. I weaved past people to get to the bar. Once I got my drink I moved to a quieter part of the room to wait for my friend. As I waited someone, a guy, came up to me. “Hey!” he belted at me enthusiastically around the thumping music. “Hey” I said with a strained smile. I wasn’t sure of his motives and I wasn’t really interested in striking up a conversation. “You’re Asian and you’re at a rock night, we’re a rare breed!”. A bit surprised I smiled and replied “Yeah... we are”. He grinned back, told me to have a good night and wandered off.
This was over 10 years ago and it was the first time anyone mentioned my race to me in the context of Alternative/Rock culture. But looking back I had always been aware that I didn’t look like a typical rock/indie chick. Being ethnically Asian and into Rock music has influenced my clothing style, the types of people I looked up to, the films that resonated with me and my relationships outside of my family.
Being part of this scene hasn’t always attracted positive attention. I was once waiting to go into a Rock Night with my friends when the bouncer let all my friends go through but stopped me stating “I’ve seen you here before, you’re Asian, why do you come to a Rock Night?” This felt like an attack. An infringement on my freedom to be part of something I loved and felt good for me. He was a black bouncer with a lilting Caribbean accent. My immediate family actually originate from the Caribbean, and I think I also felt let down that I was being judged for not fitting into his view of what an ethnically Asian person should and shouldn’t like. I giggled nervously “I like rock music,” but felt irritated that I had to justify myself to this man who had deemed that I shouldn’t be part of this culture.
I think of the role models I had growing up. The ones that made my hair stand on end with excitement frequently looked nothing like me. They were these women who weren’t typically girly but were very proud of being women and came across as confident in themselves. At this moment in time I can think of Karen O who is Asian American and Skin, a British black female singer, as minority women who broke the mould.
Skin and Skunk Anansie
I've always felt affectionately for the lead singer of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Karen O, a performer feeling every inch of her music. Letting it consume her entirely. Defying what was expected as an Asian woman and turning her back upon being put onto a box. To me she refuses to be this delicate, exotic woman sometimes associated with being an Asian woman. Karen O is an otherness within an otherness and by that I mean she is a bold, fierce Asian woman in the rock world.
It feels like people of all races want to put each other into boxes they can label and therefore feel some familiarity with. Even the guy who called me a rare breed at the rock night gave me a label which fell into his understanding as a fellow “rare breed” of what I was like without knowing me. In a more open, less judgemental world we wouldn’t deny people their right to express themselves in a way they see fit. Crossing boundaries for what people of their race or culture normally like without being told they are not enough. Just one human interested in other humans they relate to in their minds, souls, hearts and down to their bones.
Article by Andrea Lewis
Have you felt a need or expectation to ‘conform’ to a ‘stereotype’?