What is Violence?
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Fun^da^mental’s music video for their song ‘Dog-Tribe’ was controversial for its alleged promotion of “political extremism”. Images of people sporting keffiyehs and Islamic symbols setting a bonfire seemed to scare white audiences. It was banned by major music platforms like MTV and was quickly condemned by magazines like Melody Maker (Hutnyck 58). Not only are these reactions indicative of the anxieties surrounding terrorism – particularly following the Gulf War and mirroring ongoing Western imperialism (59) – but they ignore the context in which Fun^da^mental wrote this song.
As we discussed in previous weeks about “seeing through whiteness”, white people often blindly uphold racist systems because of their distance from its consequences. This includes racial violence experienced by communities of colour, either through vigilantes like the skinheads depicted in the ‘Dog-Tribe’ music video or directly from the state itself. As such, the violence that racialized people experience tends to go ignored, while any reactions to it are over-emphasized as “violence”. For instance, the aggressive policing of black communities is often merely seen as “protocol”, but situations like the Watts Uprising are reduced to being “violent riots” when recorded in history. What is and is not considered “violence” seems to rely on the perpetrator. As Kundnani points out, the violence within Muslim communities is also prone to disproportionate media attention. “Honour killings” and domestic abuse faced by Muslim women are frequently used to justify attacking entire cultures on the basis that this violence is inherent and must be driven out of Western liberal democracies. Domestic abuse perpetrated by white men, however, is not seen as a national threat (Kundnani 138). Fun^da^mental seeks to address these double standards in ‘Dog-Tribe’ through lyrics like the following:
“People wonder why I’m positioned by the window / Ammunition close at hand though / Looking like the man brother Malcolm / If I can’t reason, time for some action … Don’t ask for violence, just self-defence”
Fun^da^mental likens their call to action by alluding to Malcolm X’s infamous call for black Americans to defend themselves “by any means necessary”. Methods that function within white institutions often do not work, which they demonstrate in the music video with a scene of a politician dismissing a brown man’s petitioning. The apparatuses borne out of white supremacy are not designed to address the concerns of racialized people – when reasoning cannot work, they argue that the oppressed need to “take action”. Asian Dub Foundation’s song ‘TH9’ presents a similar stance, arguing that “fascists” (a definition encompassing the state) do not listen to them, so they must resort to violence because it is the “only language [they] understand” – both because fascists employ violence themselves, but also because direct action is the clearest way for the oppressed to demonstrate how they feel when they otherwise go ignored.
So, while songs like 'Dog-Tribe' and 'TH9' seem extreme in their messages, it is worth questioning what factors might drive them to feel this way and whether those factors cannot be considered just as, if not more, extreme or violent. As Hutnyck argues, violence from the police, state, and law are frequently underemphasized compared to the reactions of the victims (77). I will say that, as someone who was recently physically assaulted by the police and has been feeling rather angry because of it, I do not blame Fun^da^mental and ADF for their calls to action. Racial violence is immediate – not everyone can be perfect Gandhis when dealing with it.