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It was an early Spring morning, the soft yellow light crept through dusty floral curtains as the young white lady arose from her upcycled bed, tenderly, ready to embody Stuart Murdoch’s archetype of an ethereal indie darling. "We are open to Eve’s nationality (e.g. British, French, Australian)," read Murdoch’s
casting call
for the lead character in the Belle & Sebastian bandleader's blindingly white film, God Help the Girl. One does not imagine he meant the native Aboriginal population of Australia when envisioning his perfect leading lady; the cast is entirely white.
As a lover of
Belle and Sebastian, I was disappointed, though certainly not surprised. Over their entire discography, a grand total of two people of color have graced their album artwork, appearing on the cover of
Storytelling. While
Storytelling
commodifies the cover girls’ culture, Belle and Sebastian commodify Whiteness; God Help the Girl
merely underscores this. The film itself is an egregious mess that romanticizes a woman’s struggles with an eating disorder for the sake of Murdoch’s self-promotion. The optimistic, happy-go-lucky and painstakingly adorable aesthetic evidenced in every character he created is founded in Whiteness. Whiteness is beauty; Whiteness is what gives the character the ability to dream of fostering a career in music; Whiteness is what enables the audience to empathize with Eve’s character. A recurring filler in the film was a fictitious radio show where two men try to decipher what "real" indie is and every band mentioned is white, enforcing the film’s aspirational Whiteness. While Belle and Sebastian aren’t the only examples of perpetuating Whiteness through indie rock, this movie serves as a microcosmic view of what is wrought by racial exclusivity that is omnipresent in indie rock.
In indie rock, white is the norm. While indie rock and the DIY underground, historically, have been proud to disassociate themselves from popular culture, there is no divorcing a predominantly white scene from systemic ideals ingrained in white Western culture. That status quo creates a barrier in terms of both the sanctioned participation of artists of color and the amount of respect afforded them, all of which sets people of color up to forever be seen as interlopers and outsiders. Whiteness is the very ideal for which art is made in Western culture, be it the cinema of Wes Anderson or, say, the artists on Merge Records.
What substantiates this are the microaggressions, as well as overt and covert expressions of racism, that happen as a result of those systemically held ideals. Some may take the success of artists of color as threat to their space or scene. White art is deemed more worthy of respect, and so white audiences respond to it positively—it is set up for success. It’s evidenced the last week of news: be it the insidious
petition
urging Glastonbury to drop Kanye West in favor of a "rock band" (read: a white artist), or the repeated co-option
of Indian and Desi pop culture by Major Lazer going unremarked upon. White art additionally dilutes and flattens aspects of other cultures' music that it adopts in the process of making them more "accessible" for those whose curiosity does not extend beyond the parameters of Europe and North America. White "ambassadors" decide what parts of these musics of cultures get to filter through based on white notions of what is good, or real or what ethnomusical practices appeal to an American sense of authenticity (see also: Diplo).
Artists, labels and producers are not the only ones complicit in perpetuating this, though. It’s successful music publications—Pitchfork included—who have celebrated Vampire Weekend and Dirty Projectors' use of attenuated 'afro' elements, calling the latter’s music "idiosyncratic" and saying the former owes thanks to Paul Simon, the evident creator of African music. White musicians seemingly can have it all: their almost impenetrable music scenes as well as their bastardization of most any other cultures. The root work by artists of color effectively disappears.
I can count on one hand the prominent performers in the independent scene that look like me:
M.I.A.,
Rostam Batmanglij
(Vampire Weekend), Himanshu Suri (Heems
and Das Racist), Dapwell (Das Racist) and Natasha Khan (Bat For Lashes). Five people. Batmanglij and Khan are highly visible but have never courted controversy, and rarely acknowledge their ethnic heritages through their art. What we hear in their work is artistic assimilation, their careers evidence the easy acceptance that comes of that. However, both Heems and M.I.A. root their work in rap, put their Desi heritage and brown skin on blast, curve balling their outspoken resistance back to critics with a middle finger. Whether it’s Arulpragasam’s observation of "Some people see planes/ Some people see drones/ Some people see a doom/ And some people see domes" on "CanSeeCanDo" or Suri’s ironic chanting of "USA! USA! USA!" on
Eat Pray Thug’s "Al Q8a". They illuminate political issues that concern and affect them, which is what resonates so intensely with brown fans of their music.
The price of being outspoken about race--the price of speaking their truth—for Heems or Dap, for M.I.A., is much higher than it is for any white musicians with a message, be it Kathleen Hanna or Kim Gordon’s mass appeal white feminism or Bono, whose career is foundationally built on his white savior complex. Heems' work (both solo and with Das Racist) explores racial problems in both American and Asian society with a distinctly satirical slant, but the label of "joke rap" is one that has
become difficult to escape, and one that invalidates and writes off the truth of their experience as Asian Americans. M.I.A. prefers to take a route that relies less on humor and blunty screams about her problems with both the West and Sri Lanka. The often casual dismission of her politics ultimately results in her having to scream even louder. M.I.A. or Heems' assertion of their racial identities and experiences, becomes, at best, inconvenient, and often plays as badly in the underground as it does in the mainstream.
Intellectual delineations associated with race make for a lack of serious discussion here: White people accept Kathleen Hanna’s branch of feminism though it has often and primarily benefitted
other white women, and stand by her in solidarity as she praises icons of White aspiration like Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift. While Hanna has, historically, played with sarcasm and irony in her lyrics, her work has never been derided as a joke, her lyrical critiques have been taken as just that. M.I.A. and Heems, however, are often subject to bad press for this same approach--press that paints them as attention-seeking and caustic. The feel-good feminism of white women earns infinitely more respect in both the artistic and 'real' world as evidenced by their prominence and visibility; making art about your experience of racism is seemingly much less acceptable, cool or "punk".
It’s difficult not to be deterred and alienated by the overwhelming Whiteness of it all, especially when as a person of color, Western society flat out resists the witness of your life. However, it’s important to seize and act on precedents being set by the likes of Heems and M.I.A., paving a way that makes it easier for new artists of colour to follow suit and make their mark. Whiteness is a mark of exclusivity that must be broken; to have masses of talent ignored in favor of a select few is not acceptable. Visibility of people of color in independent music is absolutely paramount for the genre to evolve and truly represent those cast away from the scene for too long.
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