I'm not down with this.

From: Fiz
Date: Jan 9, 2009 10:12 AM

Rposted from a repost:
i ripped this off of my friend ben's blog. this is fucked up. just read.

"First night of tour.

(friends please read)

So I am not usually one to post personal shit on myspace but I really wanted to let my friends know about some shit that happened that has been bothering me the past few days.

Our first day of tour we played in Oakland at some warehouse. The show seemed rad enough at first. I was enjoying all the thrashy/punk bands that had played so far. I realized off the bat this wasn't the normal crowd we play to but that was fine with me because I love playing to new people we usually don't play to. Shit started to go downhill once Dogs of Ire started to play. They are friends of our good friends in restrained so i was excited to see them/meet all of them. About two songs into their set, a group of assholes started pelting them with half full beer cans just because they weren't like the rest of the bands on the bill. This continued to happen their whole set but they stuck it out and played on. We were up next and I was expecting about the same reaction but i wasn't too concerned. Two songs into our set, I was explaining on of our songs and I started talking about how in Richmond, only miles away from the venue, a woman was gang raped by four men purely based on the fact that she was a lesbian. While I was talking about this, we started getting showered with beer cans and people yelling "shut up faggots" and other things along those lines. I was blown away that even though we weren't these guys usual type of band, they felt they need to start giving us shit the instant i started talking about a women being gang raped. The whole rest of our set we were pelted with half full beer cans, cushions, beer boxes, etc... After we were done, we started to load up and i figured the whole ordeal was over. I was walking outside right in front of several of the dudes from dogs of ire when i heard yelling. i turned around to see about 20 of these trash metal dorks seig heiling the guys in dogs of ire and i heard multiple people yelling "gooks". Keep in mind, the dudes from dogs of ire are asian americans so it was obvious what was going on. Needless to stay, a scuffle broke out between us and them but it was broken up fairly quick. Then these guys were yelling about how we were all "PC nazi's" and continued to seig heil and yell "gook" and "faggots". Seeing as there was 10 or so of us total, and about 30- 40 of them we just all packed up and left after that. It turns out that some of the guys in the group that were instigating all this shit were members of the band Annihilation Time.

I just wanted to write about this a.) out of frustration that this kind of shit still happens at punk rock shows. b.) that it is tolerated. c.) to let everyone know, who they are supporting when they support Annhilation Time.

I am just waking up so if any of this is incoherent or misspelled i apologize. I will probably go through this later and add more but i just wanted to let my friends know about what was going on. Thanks for reading.

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I am not down for this. People say that racism barely exists in the scene, but from being a booker and having friends in bands with people of color in them, I know that closet racism and overt racism are very much real and alive in the scene. It bums me out, but does not surprise me that this happened in Oakland. I just hope that this incident opens people's eyes to the reality that the scene is not as un-racist as people believe it to be. Sure, some people may say that my comments and the story above are "PC" and I'm taking a joke the wrong way, but when you experience racism outside the scene and have to tolerate this 'joking' racism just because you are from a different country or have different color skin, then I don't stand for that. I am sorry if you feel offended by what I have to say, but I do not tolerate that kind of shit. Calling people gooks and faggots because they are talking about issues that are actually important and not about your own problems and partying does not mean that you are cool and that it is ok to say these things. It sucks. Most 'all-white' bands don't have to deal with half the shit that people of color have to deal with in this scene SOMETIMES. I am really upset about this. It pisses me off. I'm not the most "PC" person in this world, but this just makes me really angry to see that this happened to friends of a friend. Makes me think what would happen if I booked a similar show. But, now I realize why I am in booking and why I promote the shows that I do promote. Fuck racist scumbags. I'm not down with this at all. It's embarrassing how our scene is being represented. I like the Bay Area scene a lot. It's just sad to see that ignorant assholes still do stupid shit like that.