Morrissey is a racist

thx dude :)

yeah that's really good

Those songs were always expressing the pov of an isolated misanthrope, who knows he turns people off. That their author is a racist, which was clear enough to me since I first bought an album titled Viva Hate and heard the song titled "Bengali in Platforms", doesn't change their meaning that much for me.

I read it some time ago and want to join the chorus of praise for Mark's piece.

Like, this would probably make "Girlfriend in a Coma" more innocent:

Girlfriend in a comma is totally about cutting funds to the nhs too when you think about it

— McGarvey (@McGarvito) June 29, 2019

https://www.facebook.com/billybraggofficial/posts/10156047846402471

posting here for posterity, also Bragg makes some great points:

"Last Sunday, while much of the British media were lauding Stormzy’s Glastonbury headline show as epoch defining, Morrissey posted a white supremacist video on his website, accompanied by the comment ‘Nothing But Blue Skies for Stormzy...The Gallows for Morrissey’. The nine minute clip lifted footage from the grime star’s Pyramid Stage performance while arguing that the British establishment are using him to promote multiculturalism at the expense of white culture.

The YouTube channel of the video’s author contains other clips expressing , among other things, homophobia, racism and misogyny - left wing women of colour are a favourite target for his ire. There are also clips expounding the Great Replacement Theory, a far right conspiracy trope which holds that there is a plot of obliterate the white populations of Europe and North America through mass immigration and cultural warfare.

My first thought was to wonder what kind of websites Morrissey must be trawling in order to be able to find and repost this clip on the same day that it appeared online? I came home from Glastonbury expecting to see some angry responses to his endorsement of white supremacism. Instead, the NME published an interview with Brandon Flowers in which the Killers lead singer proclaimed that Morrissey was still “a king”, despite being in what Flowers recognised was “hot water” over his bigoted comments.

As the week progressed, I kept waiting for some reaction to the white supremacist video, yet none was forthcoming. Every time I googled Morrissey, up would pop another article from a music website echoing the NME’s original headline: ‘The Killers Brandon Flowers on Morrissey: ‘He’s Still A King’. I’m well aware from personal experience how easy it is for an artist to find something you’ve said in the context of a longer discourse turned into an inflammatory headline that doesn’t reflect your genuine views on the subject at hand, but I have to wonder if Flowers really understands the ramifications of Morrissey’s expressions of support for the far right For Britain Party?

As the writer of the powerful Killers song ‘Land of the Free’, does he know that For Britain wants to build the kind of barriers to immigration that Flowers condemns in that lyric?
Party leader Anne Marie Walters maintains ties with Generation Identity, the group who both inspired and received funds from the gunman who murdered 50 worshippers at a Christchurch mosque. How does that sit with the condemnation of mass murder by lone gunman in ‘Land of the Free’?

As an explicitly anti-Muslim party, For Britain opposes the religious slaughter of animals without the use of a stun gun, a policy that has given Morrissey a fig leaf of respectability, allowing him to claim he supports them on animal welfare grounds. Yet if that is his primary concern, why does he not support the UK’s Animal Welfare Party, which stood candidates in the recent European elections?

Among their policies, the AWF also aim to prohibit non-stun slaughter. If his only interest was to end this practice, he could have achieved this without the taint of Islamophobia by endorsing them. They are a tiny party, but Morrissey’s vocal support would have given the animal rights movement a huge boost of publicity ahead of the polls.

Instead, he expresses support for anti-Muslim provocateurs, posts white supremacist videos and, when challenged, clutches his pearls and cries “Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me”. His recent claim that “as a so-called entertainer, I have no rights” is a ridiculous position made all the more troubling by the fact that it is a common trope among right-wing reactionaries.

The notion that certain individuals are not allowed to say certain things is spurious, not least because it is most often invoked after they’ve made their offensive comments. Look closely at their claims and you’ll find that what they are actually complaining about is the fact that they have been challenged.

The concept of freedom pushed by the new generation of free speech warriors maintains that the individual has the right to say whatever they want, whenever they want, to whoever they want, with no comeback. If that is the definition of freedom, then one need look no further than Donald Trump’s Twitter feed as our generation’s beacon of liberty. Perhaps Lady Liberty should be replaced in New York Harbour with a colossal sculpture of the Donald, wearing a toga, holding a gaslight.

Worryingly, Morrissey’s reaction to being challenged over his support of For Britain, his willingness to double down rather than apologise for any offence caused, suggests a commitment to a bigotry that tarnishes his persona as the champion of the outsider. Where once he offered solace to the victims of a cruel and unjust world, he now seems to have joined the bullies waiting outside the school gates.

As an activist, I’m appalled by this transformation, but as a Smiths fan, I’m heartbroken.

It was Johnny Marr’s amazing guitar that drew me to the band, but I grasped that Morrissey was an exceptional lyricist when I heard ‘Reel Around the Fountain’. Ironically, it was a line that he had stolen that won my affections. “I dreamt about you last night and I fell out of bed twice” is spoken by Jimmy, the black sailor, to his white teenage lover, Jo, in Sheila Delaney’s play ‘A Taste of Honey’.

The 1961 movie, starring Rita Tushingham was an early example of a post-war British society that would embrace multi-racial relationships (and homosexuality too). By pilfering that particular line for the song, Morrissey was placing the Smiths in the great tradition of northern working class culture that may have been in the gutter, but was looking at the stars. Yet, by posting a white supremacist video in which he is quoted as saying “Everyone prefers their own race”, Morrissey undermines that line, erasing Jo and Jimmy and all those misfit lovers to whom the Smiths once gave so much encouragement.

A week has passed since the video appeared on Morrissey’s website and nothing has been written in the media to challenge his position. Today it was reported that research by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a UK based anti-extremist organisation, reveals that the Great Replacement Theory is being promoted so effectively by the far right that it is entering mainstream political discourse.

That Morrissey is helping to spread this idea - which inspired the Christchurch mosque murderer - is beyond doubt. Those who claim that this has no relevance to his stature as an artist should ask themselves if, by demanding that we separate the singer from the song, they too are helping to propagate this racist creed."

https://i.redd.it/xt8zs1vzapc21.jpg

Jesus ppl yeah Moz DEFINITELY the only one of that lot who's ever trafficked in suspect politics

I'm a little sad they didn't use a picture of Siouxsie rocking a swastika

siouxsie is an excellent example of someone the specifics of whose dabbling was v swiftly and firmly taken to task by the UK music press at the time -- i can't claim she mended her heart bcz i don't have the correct levels of access but she certainly mended her public ways

the only nazi to ever sample schoolly d

yeah lol @ Siouxsie and Ian Curtis inclusion

I don't know who three of those artists are. I am not a Goth.

if the diagram were purely a quilt of unproblematic goths* then the exclusion of morrissey would have no sting: it has to be saying "even these often quite bad ppl are forgiven, but not you buddy, no you"**

*this adjective possibly creates a category error
** also it wd allow him merely to say (like Οὖτις and tom before him) "but i'm no goth!"

(of course he is and so are they, and here we are)

"joy division"

my guess is the 3 you don't recognise are Alien Sex Fiend, 45 Grave & Christian Death

xps

he was in all of them

btw lol @ Christian Death, they can fuck off forever

(I agree with mark's reading of this btw, I just hate Christian Death)

(xxxp) I think you're right.

the 80's were just a more permissible, less PC time. Everyone rocked swastikas. Most people wore blackface. It was legal and expected to murder Jews in the streets. You can't judge a person by the times they live in!

Ironically, Christian Death did end up on the right side of history with their condemnation of the Catholic church, which landed them in very hot waters back in the 80s. Although their fascination with necrophilia still remains beyond the pale I guess.

the only nazi to ever sample schoolly d

kiSS them for me

Unproblematic Goths = great band name

mark s at 10:30 8 Jul 19

if the diagram were purely a quilt of unproblematic goths* then the exclusion of morrissey would have no sting: it has to be saying "even these often quite bad ppl are forgiven, but not you buddy, no you"**

*this adjective possibly creates a category error 
** also it wd allow him merely to say (like Οὖτις and tom before him) "but i'm no goth!"

(of course he is and so are they, and here we are)

.... seen this shared on Facebook a bunch and you are drastically overestimating how this is interpreted by most people and likely the intent as well

you are drastically overestimating how this is interpreted by most people

i can absolutely promise i have spent literally no time contemplating or adjusting for how anything is interpreted by "most people" on facebook and do not plan to start

and likely the intent

ok but all yr saying here is: "assuming the nonsensically dumb reading, in conclusion this is nonsensically dumb"

it's a meme created for Facebook! that's where it circulated, it's like saying it's not worth considering how a tv audience will interpret a tv show

and I don't even think people are dumb, I don't think that many people really know about Curtis's politics or the old Souixsie Nazi stuff

Curtis voted Tory, which is worse than being a play Nazi in 1979

it's not worth considering how a tv audience will interpret a tv show

agree

Curtis voted Tory, which is worse than being a play Nazi in 1979

So did Harold Pinter btw. I suspect a lot of people did who wouldn't admit it later on.

yeah when I see folks on Facebook talking about the Bragg thing most are like, aw, does this mean I have to stop listening to the smiths ? In that context the meme almost implies if you cancel morrissey you don’t have to think about the systemic issues

I don't think that many people really know about Curtis's politics or the old Souixsie Nazi stuff

it's probably true that many people don't know either of these things! and there's certainly no good reason not to continue to point them out whenever there's an opportunity, and now is as good an opportunity as any

but lol these dudes clearly didn't know these facts bcz their meme makes no sense if they did is not a sustainable claim, bcz
(a) it works perfectly well if this knowledge is in fact assumed, and
(b) it actually works somewhat better
(c) i can't actually really see how the joke -- and the spite of the joke -- is intended to land if you assume they didn't know this? it just dissolves into "here's the type of music we actually like! lol the music morrissey is bad and different and we hate him, also he's cancelled". which ok, maybe that is all that's going on! but if so we're back at "assuming the nonsensically dumb reading, in conclusion this is nonsensically dumb"

god lol why am i wasting so much brain on this badly executed barely funny meme?

ans = i am meant to be writing a ticklishly important job application due end tomorrow and so far i haven't really started on it

Morrissey vs. 15 amphetamine-addled freaks: whose side are you on?

relevant: The Ian Curtis memorial thread

ans = i am meant to be writing a ticklishly important job application due end tomorrow and so far i haven't really started on it

― mark s, Tuesday, July 9, 2019 9:42 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol not even joking but...me too!

here's where i got to since that post: Quick answer - job application help.

and solidarity and best of luck! what a world we live in

good luck to you mark :)

i like to think that you're both applying for morrissey's job now that he's been cancelled

Who is the band on bottom centre?

Really need to get around to that second Christian Death album sometime.

I think I read Siouxsie talk about the swastika but not sure. Also heard she fell out with Morrissey over him wanting to use a british bulldog+flag in their music video and she said she loathed the idea, hated the gross patriotism.

45 Grave

Looking good.

What I've read from Siouxie about the swastika/too many Jews for my liking was a really shit copout tbh like why are you guys still going on about that, no actual apology or anything, but maybe I missed it

I cant trust my memory on this but I think she said something along those lines and then followed with "Dido's inoffensiveness offends me".

She definitely said the latter part.

Inexplicable skywriting this morning:

https://i.imgur.com/GsnKX8M_d.jpg

crazy that they can fly backwards like that

I'm going to assume that was actually meant for morrisp and the pilot couldn't spell

"Signed, Morrissey."