Racism in metal, my story.
This is a reaction to Robb Flynn's video: racism in metal.
Here's what happened; in 2007, in France, at the biggest festival of the country, a large crowd had gathered, the show was about to begin.
I was right in front of the stage. The band arrived and started to play. People were moshing in the pit, I was headbanging. Then, a small crowd movement happened and I was pushed towards the sidelines, which is normal. People took advantage of that to make their way through the crowd and be closer to the stage. The singer was talking to us. He wanted us to make a circle pit.
The crowd became denser. It was impossible to move around, which, again, is normal, especially at a big festival. However, there were not enough security guys. All of them were busy taking care of crowd surfers. There weren't looking at the sidelines. But I was in a safe area. Everybody was having fun.
And all of a sudden a guy rushes me. He and his friend were drunk. They were yelling lyrics. I assumed they wanted to reach the stage so I let them pass. But they didn't move. They wanted me to move from my place because it was theirs.
Encouraged by the singer who called for more violence [in the pit], drunk guy #1 rushed me again. He wanted to start a fight, with me. A man behind me stepped in, he got punched in the the face. Drunk guy #2 hit me and said I should leave because “fucking Arabs do not belong here”. Then he and his friend were kicked out of the crowd.
The man who helped me had a bleeding nose. My arm was broken. We went to the medical unit with no help of the security team.
Now, I know what a metal show is. People are moving, trying to be closer to the stage. It wasn't my first concert, nor my first outdoor festival. Actually I saw this particular band a few years before. But this time it was different. I have never felt so unsafe at a concert.
In 2013 I went to a concert of an American band similar to the one I'm talking about previously. The same kind of audience: people were jumping, headbanging, moshing, drinking. The crowd was much smaller than the one at the festival. The security team was great.
Nobody was exposed to any risk of harm, however the singer said “no karate in the pit”. He took ten seconds to make sure that everyone was safe. He watched us. Ten seconds. And why did he do that? Because he knows that some drunk guys, or some guys who had a bad day will take his lyrics at face value and hit somebody. Immediately after his speech, a kid who was moshing outside of the pit stopped.
2013, back at the festival I talked about earlier. I was walking when a man in his forties approached me. He was trying to help an Italian girl who had lost contact with her friends. Her phone had died, she didn't speak French nor English so he was looking for somebody who talks Italian. I don't speak that language but I let her borrow my phone. She found her friends, said thanks and left.
I was going to meet my friend at another concert scene. The man was going there too so we started a conversation. He told me that he visited my country several times. I said: “oh, you're not French?”. He said: “Your country of origin. You're North African, right?”. I noticed his white shoelaces and the NSBM patches on his battle jacket and I thought, why is he talking to me? He told me everything about his trips. He went to Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya. He stayed in the Saharan desert for a week, living the traditional Bedouin life because “mass tourism is a new form of colonisation”. A very interesting conversation. We stayed in touch after the festival.
Guess who was on stage back in 2007 when I had my arm broken? Machine Head. Robb Flynn could, you know, take 10 seconds from time to time to say “no karate in the pit” but he is too busy being a social justice warrior on the Internet to actually take care of fans who are assaulted at his shows.
His video is simply a pretext to settle his accounts with Philip Anselmo. If he is so proud of The Burning Red and Supercharger, why did Ahrue Luster leave? But what irritates me is when he speaks of the guy who uploaded the Dimebash video as if he was a hero. (IMO the police forces of Bodo, Cameroon are the real heroes of the week.)
It is unfair to heap opprobrium on the entire metal community because of one person.
vaporwave
stormborns
jimmyeatworldofficial
tangentwithtanner
origamiaround
