PUNKS
THAT R*PE

A lot of this “school without walls” was exclamations of disbelief from more well-versed friends when I did not know songs or musicians; the subsequent and immediate required listening. It was playlists made and names absently referenced. Famous venues, iconic shows. One name that left me feeling distinctly connected to punk and like there was some kind of Black alternative inheritance in the midst of it all was Rosetta Tharpe. She was from Cotton Plant, Arkansas, born in 1915. She was a multidisciplinary vocalist and instrumentalist who sang with gospel’s reverence to worship song, but she played the electric guitar when she sang the blues. She was also undeniably involved in the emergence of punk as a genre. Her 1945 song, Strange Things Happen Everyday, specifically traces its way to the 1970’s clear cut existence of the sound. That fast-paced, often politically-charged, intense audio and visual experience style of music. 

The punk sound of today simply could not exist without the Reggae movement and the Ska revival period of that same time, either. There is a distinct production style and sound that punk obtained specifically from a convergence movement of the three genres where respective musical scenes held and made space for one another, while a collective exchange of ideas on sound played out before punk spread overseas. Some of the biggest names in the history of the sound not only picked up nuances of reggae and ska musically, but also borrowed words from its countercultural language of resistance in song; punk found its rhythm in proximity to the pulse of polarizing Black art.

Here in Louisville, the  punk scene is haunted by ghosts of itself. There is a fundamentally destructive pattern of ass*ult occurring between Gen Z people in this city. This culture of lingering whispers and repeat offenders has not only alienated other scenes in other places, but alternative people locally, as well. I know it has alienated me personally from the scene. It was in my disaffection that I struggled to find the true history and truths of punk. I often wondered if the risks did not outweigh potential rewards, for my own personal life, at least. Sitting down to tell this story, the thought that r*pe is happening everywhere, all over the world, kept coming up. Some people I spoke to felt it was impossible to strive for a safe space in a world that is simply unsafe. I will contend to that point; r*pe is a perpetual cultural illness shared by perpetrators, exacted on survivors, creating victims. 

However, I thought counterculture was about subverting the usual. Punk always seemed to me a curated space for undoing norms and finding political freedom in that new space. Escaping—even only for a moment—the social and emotional constrictions of the norm. If your scene is not radical enough to strive for bodily autonomy respected and peoples’ humanities observed, how radical is it, really? I do not think very, not if your space models what Black organizers long ago named an unsustainable kind of space. In such a predominantly white scene, especially one where a lot of members pride and congratulate themselves on their politics, what does it say to live on a legacy of Black art, while fundamentally not listening to Black people? What’s the point of wearing anarchy pins if you go to shows and comfortably sit with neo-naz*s? If you’re going to mosh with individuals who have harmed your community, what’s holding up your liberty spikes-save some got2b you wouldn’t have ever heard of without Black women?

I cannot be sure how long things have been the way they are now. I began to really see it clearly, though, after I came forward with my own experience of ass*ult perpetrated by someone in the scene. During the summer of 2019, clear, intimate boundaries I set were ignored and discarded in favor of someone else’s immediate sexual gratification. I tried, at first, to make accountability a private conversation, but this person was not interested in owning up to the implications of their actions. With care for their next sexual partners and a community of vulnerable people around me, I came forward with my assa*lt. I revealed contexts of coercion and a predator who took advantage of my freshly-understood queerness; who did it. I did not make that decision lightly. I also did not make that decision hoping to ruin my r*pist’s life, cancel them, or get them expelled from school. However, I did expect their community to do the necessary work of holding them accountable. To warn people, even, at least. I saw from the corner of my eye that a lot of people felt comfortable remaining friends with them. Really, there was no action. My r*pist has felt so little in repercussions that this year, they felt comfortable enough to go on a social media tangent where they audibly laughed talking about what they did to me. Then, they thanked me for coming forward, as if it had been my job.

The most disturbing part of it all, is once I chose to be open about my experience, privately, other victims came forward. Four people messaged me with what my assa*lter had done to them. I hope we are all of the victims, but how does  one know where to draw lines when they have r*ped or otherwise sexually harassed at least five people? The clear and undismissible similarities of our situations relayed that this was not some lapse of character or an errant mistake. It was calculated, predatory behavior playing out as it had before, dating back to 2012 in this very city. Even just the allegations whispered quietly into my ear span years. I cannot imagine how I would have felt if someone else came forward before me, and I watched their vulnerability and their pain be discarded. I wonder if anyone else might have spoken if my voice had not fallen on deaf ears. These are not singular experiences. 

People were willing to sit down with me and recount what they had seen. The picture painted was of a punk scene in decay. One person felt that “no one [used to care] what you looked like, how you dressed.” This person began going to shows as a middle schooler; sneaking off with friends’ families to venues, proud Xs on the backs of their hands. They remembered “random women spilling their beers to pick [them] up after they’d fallen in the pit.” The giddiness of disappearing, just for a few hours, from a conservative, Christian upbringing. “But after a certain point,” their tone fell to one of mourning, “[being in the scene] just feels wrong.” As they grew up, they stopped seeing fellow show-goers chase r*pists from venues, and so too, did the cheers from the crowd as it happened die. They saw them come to headline shows. It became too much to stay after a point. They felt people accepted this behavior because they “only had reference to Louisville. It’s a trap.” One of the last things they told me on the record: “You can find the coolest people, but you’ll find the worst people you’ll ever meet.” 

That perspective is shared beyond the boundaries of Kentucky. Someone who used to manage bands a few states over told me they were warned in murmurs not to book this city. They also informed me that those hesitations toward this city weren’t specific to their scene, either. I mentioned as much to a Louisville punk, and they sat across from me for a moment, pondering. They couldn’t remember the last time they saw a band that wasn’t local. They really couldn’t. 

All those misgivings stem from lived experience and witnessed events. Specifically, watching the truly apathetic treatment of sexual assa*lt allegations, in my experience, especially when those victims weren’t white femmes and women that were well liked.

Another person acquainted with punk culture in Louisville sat down and rehashed years of allegations they, through friends and word of mouth, watched unfold; each time, without real or lasting consequences for perpetrators. At one point, they saw a victim come forward, and be dismissed as an addict, as if people living with substance abuse cannot be victims of ass*ult. As if addicts are not routinely disbelieved by normative culture. They watched multiple members of popular bands fully get away with grooming and ass*ulting minors. Those children were called liars and wh*res to their faces when they came forward. Bands publicly acknowledged victims’ experiences, just to turn around and discard them once they could do so without public controversy. N*zi-sympathizing venue owners got away with acts of interpersonal violence that I am deciding, personally, not to speak on. I could keep going, there are so many more traumatic experiences people were forced to live. I hope that you do not need to consume more people’s pain to see the clear and present problem.

White people created cultural iconicity for themselves with self-titles of rebellion they donned with proximity to alternative Black people and Black non-conformity. Punk spaces might be dominated by whiteness and the toxicities tied to it, but they owe their very nature to Blackness, and Black struggle particularly. To live out of accordance with that truth is engaging white supremacy. Creating a comfortable space for people unconcerned with the harm they cause is massively misstepping. Gratifying social institutions’ desires to devalue Black emotional and creative labor is antithetical to the very bones of punk music. Specifically, its Black bones.