THOU SHALT NOT TALK ABOUT THE WHITE BOYS’ CLUB: CHALLENGING THE UNWRITTEN RULES OF PUNK - SECOND EDITION
This updated second version of Thou Shalt Not Talk about the White Boys’ Club is 60 half-sized pages, over three times as long as the original (clocking in at 35.5K words), and includes expanded essays on topics like: failed opportunities for white punks to work against white supremacy, the duality of excessive consumption or sobriety, the hierarchy of acceptable anger in punk, the effects of satire used in lyrics and band imagery, femmephobia and (internalized) misogyny, punk as an utopian ideal of white and male carelessness and ignorance, labeling critiques of shock value as “PC culture,” desirability politics, and most pit etiquette. [Content Note: This zine features quoted material and discussions about topics such as racism, white supremacy, trans/misogyny, sexual and physical assault, and mental illness.]
This zine aims to: + Investigate unwritten rules of punk and how they (not so) subtly reinforce hierarchies that we do / don’t benefit from + Identify the avenues we explore/d to get involved in punk and how they are not accidental or coincidental + Teach the reader media literacy skills by being critical of punk music that simultaneously embodies leftist politics and reinforces oppressive narratives + Create a dialogue with and among punks who are both privileged and marginalized on various social axes + Provide working ideas of ways that punk can be improved on a subgenre-wide level
Table of Contents: + SECTION I: Thou Shalt Not Get Dressed Without A Mirror [raced and gendered expectations for dress and behavior] + SECTION II: Thou Shalt Fear The Feminine [perpetuating misogyny, girl hate, and “special snowflake” syndrome] + SECTION III: Thou Shalt Not Talk About The White Boys’ Club [accessibility, faux unity, and ironic perpetuation of racism in punk] SECTION IV: Thou Shalt Play In A Band (Or Try Like Hell To Do So) [influence, creative participation, and going behind the music] + SECTION V: Thou Shalt Not Take Mercy Upon The Weak [mosh pits, white masculinity, and normalized aggression and anger] + SECTION VI: Thou Shalt Be Pure [purity in politics, behaviors, and interests] + SECTION VII: Thou Shalt Not Shake Shit Up [trying to incite positive change in the scene] + END NOTE AND RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
[imgs: 4 photos of the cover, table of contents, and two sets of pages from the black and white zine, Thou Shalt Not Talk about the White Boys’ Club: Challenging the Unwritten Rules of Punk.]
