Earlier this month, a young man – too young to be named because of his age, 15 at the time of the attack – finally admitted to murdering a 20-year-old woman in Bacup, Lancashire. The woman, Sophie Lancaster, was assaulted in August 2007 primarily because of her look – both the deceased and her boyfriend, Robert Maltby (also assaulted), dressed in a fashion best summarised by the popular press as ‘gothic’ - black shirts, silver jewelry, et cetera. Further defendants in the case are also too young to be named by the press. Motives, it seems, are rather thin on the ground: the boys attacked because of the way their victims were dressed.
Those choosing to dress in a gothic manner have often acknowledged the intolerance of other social groups towards them – after the attack on Lancaster and Maltby, many online goth communities expressed concerns about rising violence towards individuals wearing the traditional black attire. The Observer, in February 2008, commented that the Lancaster case was merely part of a “rash of violent attacks targeting punk, goth and metal kids”. A petition has reached the Prime Minister, requesting that what defines a ‘hate crime’ be expanded to incorporate attacks such as the one that killed Sophie Lancaster.
This attack is a very extreme example of discrimination towards individuals because of their dress sense, one directly influenced by a culture surrounding a particular style of modern music. But cases of kids being intimidated or attacked because of their decision to wear clothes outwardly portraying their tastes in music and culture are common; everyone reading this site, more than likely, has experienced this either personally or through friends and colleagues. I know I have: I’ve seen a kid a few years down from me at university get punched out in Liverpool, and younger siblings of school friends bullied because they’d rather sport a band hoodie than some Nike tracksuit. You can take the nu-ravers out of Hoxton, sure, but you can’t promise their safe return.
This isn’t just a domestic issue, either: stateside many parents use online forums to sympathise with fellow mothers and fathers, whose offspring have been targeted for their fashion sense; each time, music has been a root of the ‘offending’ look. Emo style, in particular, comes in for criticism from many unfamiliar with its contemporary uniform of skinny-leg jeans and long fringes (see this guide). We may laugh at teenagers constantly brushing their hair from their eyes in Burger Kings across the land, but there are examples of this reaction escalating. It’s one thing to be called a gay, or a homo, in the street because your trousers are a little tight (or verbally dressed down by loudmouths like Tom Meighan), quite another to be chased, or beaten.
- - -
In Mexico, right now, trouble’s brewing for emo kids. The Daily Swarm reported earlier this week on how emo fans were being hounded by mobs, but how they were also fighting back. Anti-Emo communities are on the rise, reports the site, linking to a variety of reports and video clips. The government is aware of the matter, and an El Porvenir newspaper columnist, Gilberto Rincan Gallardo, has written in defence of the emo community: “If a group of young people like (emos) decides to get together and live life in a certain manner, and doesn’t hurt others, it’s the obligation of the Democratic state to protect them… It’s easy for an eccentric and easily identified minority group to be stigmatized and discriminated against… It’s the responsibility of the authorities to make sure the threats aren’t carried out and the aggressions are punished.”
While DiS keeps an eye on developments in Mexico (an update today reports on threatened attacks in Tijuana, here), we’re opening up this Weekly DiScussion for you guys to tell us your experiences, first-hand or otherwise, of discrimination experienced predominantly because of a look, a fashion, based on music. Can liking a band that bit more than another lead you to an appointment with A&E? Are we reaching the stage where cases are to increase, due to the amount of t-shirts sold at rock shows across the land? Bands and labels know this is where the money is nowadays, so one shirt design simply isn’t enough. Do you collect them all and get bruised for it? We want your stories, and opinions on how our fractured society can accept individuals, as they are, however they choose to dress themselves.
Of course, prejudice of this nature is nothing new – punks got it in the ‘70s, and goths have taken verbal flack continually since the early '80s. But what, if anything, can be done to change things? When does a hoodie deserve to be hugged, and when do they deserve to be mugged?
DiScuss.
Can't we all just get along?
In a more serious answer
I absolute abhor violence of any kind against any one for any reason. Even worse when it's a group of people on one person. EVEN WORSE when it's completely unprovoked.
Society needs to man the fuck up and get over it.
How about a new TV show
like wife swap but called Goth Swap. Is there a goth version of Martin Luther King?
me and my girlfriend
we're attacked by chavs two weeks ago, we were wearing skinny jeans and american apparel stuff.
She was punched in the face by two girls, while i was pushed into the road and kicked by 3 of the blokes.
thats terrible
I hope you are both ok now.
American Apparel?
Cool.
If we all get the Criminal Damage hannibal hoodies, no one will dare touch us!
http://www.classixshop.com/acatalog/5499.php
I hope you're all ok now... :)
we're ok
we saw a police car and ran to it which scared them off. However if they knew how much help the police would have been in advance they could have probably carried on attacking us in front of it and still got away with it.
It happened in Norwich, and we were coming back from london, so i think the different styles between the cities caused them to single us out more.
Glad your good
it's pathetic really just picking a fight for some clothes. Its not like you were dressed as the KKK. I mean you wore freakin trousers where these attackers an anti trouser police? no idea what I'm saying I need a cupa tea.
Where in Norwich/what time did this happen?
I would have thought the people of Norwich would have seen there fair share as the Waterfront cateres for a different ncihe every night.
friday night
theatre street 11:20odd after the cancelled foals show.
A few years ago
there was actually something along those lines called "Living with the enemy", I think. They made matey out of Cradle of Filth go and live with one of those "ban the devil's music" type Christians. I think they ended up getting on okay.
obviously violence is disgraceful and there shouldn't be any attacks on anyone
however, to dress according to a stereotype and to deine yourself (at least in appearance) according to some other standards is quite a tibalistic attitude. This tribalistic attitude is met by others with a tribalistic attitude and there is naturally friction. It's little different to football fans really.
I'm not the sort of person who goes round shouting at goths, though I did dislike them when I was younger. I felt threatened by them in a way that I now find hard t describe. Maybe it was that they were deliberately being different from me, that felt like a wholesale rejection of the identity I was seeking to forge.
So yeah, teenagers do cause trouble based on misguided sense of protecting their own identity and they will always call each other names. they should never atcually attack anyone though, let alone kill them.
But this 'tribalistic' attitude isn't really
manifesting itself on all sides, is it? Not to condemn any teen who doesn't worship the Way brothers and tar tham as chavvy neanderthals, but physical aggression only seems to be coming from one side.
It is also important to remember that the 'tribes' that inflict such violence are more likely to be prone to it for different 'tribal' reasons; poverty, poor standard of education, lack of respect for the law etc
I dress pretty normally really
I wear t shirts and (normal, not skinny) jeans, yet people still shout abuse at me on the street. for example I was sitting with my girlfriend outside a shop in my town and some bloke just walks up to me and says "motherfucking long haired asshole". I'm not dressing tribally but this guy has gone out of his way to try and abuse and intimidate me, he's the one being tribal, I have friends who dress in tracksuits and others who wear skinny jeans and the like, I'm not tribal in the least.
this is balls.
I don't define myself as a member of any social group, tribe, stereotype or anything like that. i don't hang about with anyone who dresses the same as me, and frankly I'm too old for all this shit, but people still shout things at me in the streets, whether it be speculating about my sexuality or - as happened yesterday - just to inform me that I am a 'state'.
It's nothing to do with music. It's an undereducated underclass being brought up to believe it's ok to attack anyone who isn't like you.
thing is
its not half as bad as it used to be now that a lot more 'rock' or 'indie' style clothing is uber mainstream.
Shut up you grebo
NOOOOOOOO
fucking grunger!!!
See you down the skate park, yeah?
Its easy
to say, people getting victimised because of an inde or emo dress sense.
But I've certainly taken the piss out of guys dressed up in chav excesses in return.
Theres plenty on both sides I'm sure.
This sorta thing is most apparent in younger people when they are struggling for belonging and a sense of identity so its naturally for them to form into tribes based around culture, class or music.
Not to go to "animal kingdom" on you but its definatly true.
The way tribes exert themselves has always been by going up against people with different beliefs and values and thats why there is such animosity.
It'll never go away and is likely to get worse as people diverge more and more.
Unfortunatly its the way we are.
I used to get 'attacked'
(stuff thrown at me, kicked at, punched etc) for being 'gay' all the time five or so years ago ('emo' had entered moronic vernacular at that point). I'm not sure it is now more or less of a problem than it has ever been, but without doubt any attack (prompted by any motivation) should be dealt with in the strictest possible terms.
*had not
i was suspended from high school
(it was catholic) for a weaing a this cannibal corpse shirt:
http://sleevage.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/cc/2_cannibal_c_butchered.jpg
blatant discrimination.
well...
i can see where they're coming from.
i wish i hadn't looked at that
:(
Hero.
Was that dog homophobic?
You make all the good jokes
This reads a bit like...
all those newspaper articles about emo, but from the NME of the internet. Say what you want about Pitchfork - they satiate my musical needs, and leave my newspaper to inform me on the state of the nation. A woman was tragically and brutally murdered. This has NOTHING to do with you being called gay at school. Being bullied for lets face it, dressing in a way that will embarrass you a couple of years from now anyway is pathetic compared to that murder. Whining about it detracts from, not adds to the horror of it. Violence is disgusting, and reprehensible when aimed at people for what they wear, but this article reeks of sensationalism and seems an excuse for most people to take the moral high ground. That someone has already mentioned Martin Luther King is an absolute joke.
I beleive it was a jok, yes.
Well spotted.
*joke
You'll get yours, stupid work keyboard!
it was a joke yeah
cheers
Not really...
Sure this is an extreme example, but it is an extreme example of a certain type of abuse, thus making it reasonable to bring up other examples of this kind of behaviour. If someone had been killed in a racist or homophobic attack and someone said that they'd been abused for the same reason (however not as extreme) to illustrate the point that it was a spreading problem would be perfectly reasonable would it not? This is the same kind of thing basically...
When
I was a kid I used to suffer it all the fucking time, especially at school. Thankfully, I was friends with a couple of lads who sympathised (see post about lockers):
http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/3065495
i used to have big long curly hair
mainly due to my lack of mirror and lack of funds for a hair cut. Because of that hair many fights broken out one of which for some reason ended in the broken nose of my mate. Only trying to stick up for me bless him.
This is all a bit
Daily Mail and moral panic esque. In some ways it's easier now because you can buy emo, indie and new-rave fashions in Top Shop and H & M so it is harder for people to discriminate against the mainstream, but in other ways you could say that these fashions are now more in the public eye and more open to attack.
In summary, we should all gang up and abolish chavs, making it illegal to wear a tracksuit for non-sporting use.
Plenty
of people who wear skinnies aren't 'emo'.
I fucking hate chavs; friends of mine were terrorised at school for refusing to wear nylon tracksuits and horrid plastic trainers.
It seems to me instances such as the murder of that poor girl are more common outside of the capital. My family live in Leeds and more or less every schoolkid wears JD Sport/Footlocker gear and anyone who doesn't is seen as 'gay' or 'punk'. It's ridiculous.
people are people
most are twats. some arent. *shrugs*
I think it was Peter Cook who said
"They're all cunts out there"
peter cook
fuck yeah. 'mon the derek and clive!
My mate...
...and I got called 'gay' by some of the local youths 6 months or so ago because I guess he had a bushy beard and I was wearing a shirt, trousers and a manbag (as in a record bag). I agree with the alaskan, can't we all just get along?
which side are you on boy
victimisation comes from both (or all) sides its just that one side is often more violent than the other. It all stems down to a lot of ignorance and a bit of teenage tribal mentality. The condemning and mocking of 'chav' culture (which is essentially class prejudice in my view)is as disgusting and ridiculous as people being called gay for having a beard or dying your hair black.
In many ways i find the so called 'informed' and their mocking of the 'chav' more disgraceful than the ignorant chants of 'gay!' at someone dressed in 'emo' clothing.
But violence can't be excused.
Live and let live brothers and si...
I must take umbrage at this I'm afraid.
By being PC or one of those godawful phrases, people are being more judgemental, and worse, missing the point.
Chav to me means nothing. Ned is how we describe them up here. But let's deconstruct that. Ned says nothing about your social/class status, and everything about how you behave.
You work in a typically unskilled job and have a low income, you are defined by society as working class.
You glass someone on a night out cos you're drunk and it seems like a good idea - you are a Ned.
I was born into a working class family, my parents still don't own their house, and I still feel working class. I have a 'better' job than my social standing would decree, and my income is probably about average. I've never started a fight, never got drunk and vandalised anything. I don't feel I have bettered myself and become less working class, I'm just a functioning member of society who has an idea of right and wrong.
I think it's more offensive to assume that Chavs or Neds suddenly decrees you part of a class rather than a behaviour set.
I agree with you
but I would say that its probably more likely that a typical tracksuited Chav/Ned will come from a working class family, would you agree? I suppose any idiot teen can be a violent teenager but again, its less likely for middle/upper teens to exhibit such behaviour probably.
This isn't really a topic suitable for discussion on these boards mind you. There are much wider social implications like teenage drinking, the reasons for that, the failure of the state to provide youths with stuff to do, the breakdown of the family unit, poor education etc. I'm assuming that a Chav or a Ned is less likely to have tried at school and doesn't have a good education leading to low income and disenchantment with their lot - especially in today's society where people see "celebs" doing nothing and getting paid to be a dick on TV. Jail beckons, criminal records and things just get tougher.
Having said all that, I'm digressing, I think this discussion is more about teenage violence which is less easy to deconstruct. Some people are just violent I suppose, thankfully a vast minority. Apologies for this rambling post.
I would be surprised
if anyone on here hadn't had a single experience of getting hassled or attacked because of their clothes at some point- being in town with the indie/skater/goth kids when we were in our middle teens seemed to be a constant invitation to 'orrible kevs everywhere to verbally/physically abuse us when we hung out on saturdays... pretty fucked. When I read that awful story about the girl that was killed, I could imagine the scenario immediately, just from the number of times me or my friends were in situations when you thought that something really fucking serious might happen. and we always tried to stay out of trouble! don't want to sound like a rabid daily mail reader, but it is fucked up that this kind of thing can still happen in this country in the 21st century
sorry
but i can't recall ever being picked on for the clothes i wore
I appreciate your reasoning, but i've always found it difficult to have much time for people who feel that they all have to dress very similarly, for some kind of outward statement of their teenage angst or whatever. that attack was horrific, and although i don't know all the details, completely unprovoked attacks like it should be treated with the same severity as racist attacks and hate crimes.
I would argue that i would get more hassle walking around dressed as a chav in meadowhall than i would dressed as a goth, and there are still quite a lot of people who would find a large group of goths just as threatening. if you are willing to dress similarly, then rightly or wrongly you are probably going to get the same reactions from people, and tarred with the same brush (lol). I'm all for kids wearing what they want, but for emos and goths especially who want to be rebellious and alternative, it's strange that they choose to reflect this by wearing the same clothes... just like chavs do but instead they want to fit in, and not be alternative
.
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/your-band-sucks/field-guide-north.php
pop nerd!
but more on the bald guy side than the jack black
.
Luckily I've never been threatened by anyone coz of my appearance as of yet, but I do get a lot of verbal abuse from my own sister coz I like to backcomb my hair and don't listen to the chavvy music that she does.
Not strictly 'emo' anyway.
No one who gets called emo is actually emo though are they? I bet they haven't even heard of Sunny Day Real Estate, damn kids!
does anyone remember...
earthworm jim...? me and my mate got called 'gaymans' by his doppelganger the other week on Bethnal Green Road...!his clothes were so oversized it made his head look ridiculously tiny just like our mr jim...!
Could someone
please explain to me the appeal of those incredibly skinny jeans?
the ladies seem to like them.
not all, but quite a few i've met. :D
Don't worry though, i'm going to single handedly bring back the trend for those mega baggy jeans which were popular between about 1999-2002. Just give it a few months until it gets a bit warmer...
I have
had stuff shouted at me in the past. Just for simple things like badges on my hoodie or the eyeliner that i choose to wear.
Once i was with my friend and we were only going to asda, by the time we returned home a 12yr old kid had threatened to "cut us up".
Its getting out of control.
.
"Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds." albert einstein
My friend got attacked once
He was wandering around the cosmopolitan city of Colchester and was verbally abused for being a goth.
But then, he was wearing the traditional goth attire of white skinny jeans and a t-shirt.
.
i think we're all guilty of mocking people for how they dress, however its a shame some narrowminded people take it to extremes.
I get shit everyday waiting for the bus home from work
because i'm gay/emo/poof/goth/etc ... obviously some H&M cords and plain black jumpers scream this.
that said it's all stupid lazy verbal stuff, and i'm pretty sure they wouldn't try and beat me up unless i started ripping on them.
mind this is from the same bunch of kids (14-16ish) who always have a couple of big blue cider bottles on the go, dance music blasting from their speakerphones and are often trying to goad their staffys into trying to fight each other.
they aren't cunts for dressing like they do but how they act. it just happens they rock every charver stereotype that's on the go.
another tale...
One of my housemates was once punched in the side of the head on the Metro for what he was wearing but he was a lot bigger than the guy who'd run up and done it and they all fucked off when he turned around. even though he wasn't actually go to do anything about it.
Like on Peep Show
when Mark gets called 'clean shirt' by a bunch of kids, then attacks them with a rusty pipe at the end. Haha.
I think it's be funny...
to ask them what they are actually angry about.
What is it in particular that you are unhappy about?
My jeans?
Why?
To quote Jermaine Clement:
"Be more constructive with your feedback"
i've only ever been really started on
once. and it happened quite recently. If i had to pigeon-hole him into some sort of group it would be 'emo'. so you know, it's not all one sided.
I used to live in manchester
kids used to take the piss cuz i didnt waer a shellsuit and gold jewellery, but since i got older, nearly 29, no one seems arsed. I wouldnt really be arsed at their shitty little small-town inbred opinion anyway. I used to get called a freak. I used to reply "Id rather be a freak if being normal puts me in the same league as you!"
Is it only the UK?
When I went to study abroad (Milan), many kids were goth/emo/etc and they were all mingling, no fights, etc. Most people were shocked to hear about my stories about growing up in Edmonton, and having brawls every single fucking day in school.
I'm really getting fed up with all this shit we have to put up here.
I think it's terribly sad
about this girl Sophie Lancaster. What irks me is she had obviously had a bright future ahead of her with uni and everything. The people who assaulted her are morons with no intelligence and no prospects. And all cause she dressed different to them. makes you wonder about the state of society in general.
Someone should just nuke the whole planet
It's the only sure-fire way of wiping all the cunts out.
And
the dicks too.
Couldn't resist.
white pants
i got kicked in a bush for wearing white pants
thats life in a village