“What we fear most is usually what we most need to do. As I have heard said, a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear.” – Tim Ferriss
To be honest, walking into the Southern Discomfort forum held at Redux in Charleston, S. C. , my cynicism was at an all-time high. “Here we go again” I thought, trying to explain to white people our angle, our thought processes, our frustrations and our feelings of living in a society, where after 400 years, still hasn’t fully accepted or embraced US as equal individuals. Though the “slave baby” image sparked the need for this forum, it was actually not as shocking to see as some may suggest. I mean the drawing of the big nosed, big head, chained at the ankle, slave baby pales in comparison to some of the memes, costume party attire, mock lynchings, frat boy party themed events, we have seen – especially since Barack Obama has become President of the U.S. Racism and its ugly head, has really turned the fuck up since POTUS and his black family hit the White House. What was more shocking seemed to be the disbelief white people were having at the fact that someone had actually drew this picture.
I couldn’t understand at first why so many people were surprised at the drawing. Given the obvious separatism that exists within the music communities in Charleston, the outright imaginary line between the white and black music scenes – why would anyone be shocked that someone was comfortable enough to do something deemed racist? If every event in downtown Charleston caters to people who all look the same, if every event in the historic district plays the same music that attracts the same types of people each and every week – at what point didn’t anyone realize that something weird was already going on. In a town that makes billions in revenue on slave culture, the descendants of that culture are put through a type of inspection when they hit the doors of clubs and bars downtown – assuring that their t-shirts aren’t too big, their clothes are too hip-hop, and confirming that the “look” like they won’t be a problem once they enter into an establishment. This is nothing new, so why now are people expressing their shock and awe at the depiction of a slave baby?
There could be a number of answers to these questions. Could it be that now there are more residents in Charleston who are not traditionally of southern descent? Are there more northerners moving south who may be use to more diverse cultures and less use to outright racism? Is the influx of people into Charleston who have more diverse backgrounds the push we need in order to get white people who aren’t afraid to call out the fuckery of ‘slave baby’ and anything else that may be considered offensive? Do any of these questions really matter?
With sweat beads peaking from foreheads around the room, people gathered inside a quaint gallery, shoulder to shoulder, standing room only, room temp of at least 85 degrees or more – I saw people of all colors, ages and backgrounds gather together for almost four hours in order to commit to hearing, voicing, understanding, empathizing, agreeing, and disagreeing in a constructive manner. Today, what broke my initial feelings of cynism, was the idea of being a part of something very unique; something that we don’t typically see here in Charleston. It was not only a chance for people to express their frustrations at the outright lack of equal opportunities available within the Charleston music scene, but it was the realization that others were actually LISTENING.
The outrage from all sides, expressed about the lack of judgment stemming from the drawing of ‘slave baby’ was heard and great points were made. I believe the band member that drew the caricature was clear about the impact he had made with his ‘artwork’. Tyler, who took some heat during the forum received no sympathy, however to say that there wasn’t any empathy felt on his behalf would be a lie. Let’s just keep it real, we all have said and done some jacked up things in our lives, some things we have never had to be held accountable for, and never had to apologize. Many of us have never had to be held publicly accountable for our wrong-doings, and the average person probably couldn’t handle that type of judgement during a public forum. I imagined myself in his shoes, after saying something completely fucked up to someone (which i’ve done by the way) and having to be judged publicly for my actions. How would i deal? So yes, there was a SLIGHT feeling of empathy toward that guy. #shugs
The forum turned from the subject of the drawing to something most were not expecting. Participants discussed the difficulty for hip-hop artists to book venues in many of the clubs/bars in downtown Charleston. As Matt Monday voiced his frustration of attempting to contact and book a local venue for over two months, calling on his white counterpart (who is also a hip-hop artist) was able to get an answer from the same venue within two hours. More questions were raised: Should blacks work on owning their own venues? Should hip hop artists have to ‘water down’ their music by adding a live band in order to appeal to venues in downtown? Should we even spend money with a venue known to give hip-hop acts a hard time?
The Royal American and The Commodore, two very popular venues in downtown Charleston were in attendance, and really attempted to answer some hard questions posed by the crowd. What some may have deemed as an attack on venue owners, may have been misconstrued as frustration misdirected toward other venues who did not participate in the forum. In all, based on the conversation, both venues said they are willing to accept any act that has a following and could pull a crowd, as long as they complete the proper booking procedures.
The almost four hour long forum simply cannot be summed up in this post. Were any goals achieved? If you attended the forum or viewed it online on you can answer that question. For me the answer is yes, there was one important goal achieved. After the forum, the conversation, the questions, and the heated debates made me, as an INDIVIDUAL take some time to reflect on how I could work on making things better within the music community here in Charleston. As a member of media and a publisher of a magazine, what more can I do to push the culture forward. For me, THIS should have been in the hearts and minds of those who attended the conference. Forget that dumbass caricature – there are more important issues at hand. There were artists in attendance that I didn’t even know existed, why is that? There are people having a hard time booking venues, what alternative ideas can be developed that can avoid artists having to go to venues who don’t really want them there? How can we utilize the abandoned buildings and commercial real-estate in this city to create a new, refreshing underground hip-hop culture? Why are some of these so-called hip-hop artists hesitant to use venues that are owned by blacks in North Charleston? If the forum didn’t leave YOU with an internal need to assist in helping fix the problem, then you wasted four hours of your life on a Sunday evening.
So, is it safe to say that anything was “resolved” at the Southern Discomfort discussion, well…
Let’s just say the look on some faces after the forum was over, still told a story that the level frustration is just as real as it was prior to the start of the event. But, now that we know better, let’s do better. Let’s support these artists and take some of the suggestions made at the forum and implement them. Let’s just do some things different from the way we have always been doing them, and let us ALL push this amazing music culture forward.
SHOUT OUT TO DIASPOURA, VERY HYPNOTIC SOUL BAND, CHARLES COMODY, KJ & ELLIOT AND I’M SURE A HOST OF OTHERS WHO ALLOWED EVERYONE TO TAKE PART IN THIS EVENT.
Syllabus Magazine, the Carolina’s source for Music, Culture and Fashion
