Blerd, Blipsters, Afropunk rockers, Black metalheads, these are labels i see quite a lot and i wonder… Why are these kind of labels popping up? Well here’s what i think…

The stereotypical black person is someone who listens to hip hop/rap/r’n’b music, wheres clothing that makes them appear gangster and acts in a similar fashion too. For a black person to like a completely different subculture e.g. punk is considered weird, strange and too white. They end up either feeling intimidated by fellow black people or not being fully accepted by their own subculture and sometimes have to deal with mild racism. JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE BLACK.

When people associate subcultures like punk, indie, hipsters, metal heads they automatically think of it as something with a majority of white people. If you’re black and you tell someone you like those kind of things you’ll instantly get the raised eyebrows look and a comment with a definite undertone of racism. This has to be one of the top things that pisses me off. Why can’t it be accepted that black people like other music and cultures that are different to what is generally typcasted of us? Why does rock, punk, indie,scene, all those kind of things have to be associated with white people and not black? And then we are given stupid names like blipsters, afropunk rockers, black metal heads which annoy the hell outta me. These subcultures shouldn’t be divided down even more into black and white, that’s just encouraging segregation all over again and are we really gonna move backwards in time to when segregation was prominent? 

For me, i’m a young black girl who enjoys listening to rock/heavy metal/grunge/indie and my dress sense is like soft grunge/indie with my own added edge. My black friends are very much the typical rap listeners, who try to dress thuggish and act “thuggish” too. Even though my taste is different to the majority of people in my school,I’m not afraid to tell anyone about my taste in music and i’m very much ready to fight my corner if anyone wants to put me down about it. But other black people like me should not have to face that, whatever taste in music/ fashion we have should be accepted and encouraged; we have the guts and the originality to act the way we want, dress the way we want, even if it’s completely different to what we are stereotyped as. I hope anyone reading this will be encouraged to be original in their own sense of style and to not tolerate or feel intimidated if someone doesn’t approve of the way you look. After all, you ain’t doing it for them are you?

Anyways i’m gonna end this coz i think this rant is longer than i expected it to be and i’m now gonna have dindins which smells good. 

Peace out bloggers!

xo