Time to decolonize decolonization?
I predict that, in five years or so, bands will no longer be spouting the same homogenous rhetoric that makes them indistinguishable from one another. It won't come a moment too soon.
This week, I received a press release about an upcoming album that’s being billed as “a futuristic soundtrack to the decolonization of the Latinx diaspora.”
I should say off the bat that, on first impression at least, the music knocked my socks off. It struck me as a highly imaginative blend of sounds that makes for a truly galvanizing experience.
Unfortunately, the artists have chosen to undercut the inherent power of their music by packaging it in rhetoric that’s become so predictable we can all recite it in our sleep by now. According to the press release, this group “taps into the music of their ancestral roots in Bolivia, Brazil, and Puerto Rico to create a meditation on decolonization and the defiant power of ritual and protest. This music is bleeding edge, visceral, and muscular.”
I won’t name the band here because they deserve a chance to openly rebut what I’m saying, and I don’t want this post to be the reason they get attention while they’re promoting their record. I also don’t want to bring any negativity their way. If you’re reading this and feel the impulse to search this band out and give them grief, I ask that you don’t — or at least that you listen to the music first, remind yourself that these are human beings, and then do your best to be polite about it and talk about actual ideas rather than personally attack them. Their music deserves to be heard. So does their message, and they have every right to go about their press campaign joyfully, with a sense of triumph over having just put out new work.
My point is here is not to single this group out, but to push back against this kind of rhetorical framing more generally. Using terms like “decolonize” has become part and parcel with a kind of linguistic automation that’s sold to us edgy and militant. But I feel like the PR phrasing I quoted above has become so ubiquitous that it’s lost all its meaning. In truth, saying things like this is just about the safest approach bands can take.
I absolutely think there’s a conversation to be had around how societies are supposed to grapple with the residue of their colonial past. But those conversations are complicated. Reducing them to a set of slogans is hollow. And perpetuating the linear logic that we’re now engaged in a holy crusade against power that flows in a straight line from top to bottom is… absurdly over-simplified.
Moreover, to stoke the flames of antagonism towards “whiteness” in Latin America — which is heavily racially mixed — is a prescription for igniting social division. It also speaks to a kind of collective death wish — a suicide mission driven by self-hatred. I’m not going to go so far as to call the musicians in this band “white,” but let’s just say I have to wonder how much they’re compensating for, um… not exactly being dark-skinned either.
Many, many, many people of Latin American origin have European blood in their veins. To demand that they renounce that part of their cultural and literal DNA is as foolish, unproductive — and hurtful — as it is to ask them to be ashamed of their black or indigenous roots. As a Latin person myself, I say: like it or not, history has led to us being mixed peoples. And trying to expunge the original sin of whiteness from one’s being is a fool’s errand. It’s also indulgent — what we might currently refer to as a “luxury belief.”
Today, racial grievance is sold as edgy and daring. In truth, it’s monotonous and dull — yawn-inducing and utterly unthreatening. Instead of signaling bravery or a willingness to go to the mat for what’s right, it signals nothing but conformity and an utter lack of imagination. And when musicians in particular tap into racial-grievance porn, they’re putting themselves in position for social reward — at least for now. It’s not even that artists are necessarily being insincere, but we have to remember that the pursuit of recognition is their primary motivation.
Besides: let’s not forget who the real colonists are here, which I address in my response to this band’s publicist:
I'm loving what I'm hearing [but] for what it's worth, as a Latin person with progressive politics, I actually abhor the term “Latinx” and find it to be a form of side-door colonialism. The overwhelming majority of Latin people aren't even aware of it, much less enthusiastic about having their entire linguistical framework de-engineered. I also think that racial grievance has become so ubiquitous and over-the-top in culture that it's about the safest, most low-effort stance for musicians to take.
In five years, I'm guessing that very few bands will be ringing these same kind of bells with this kind of rote rhetoric. They're doing it now because they're being rewarded for it. That'll inevitably shift with the wind, and music with this tone will sound dated the same way [we now say] that nuclear-war anxiety sounds "so '80s" and depressive angst sounds "so '90s."
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To his credit, the publicist was a real sport about it. He was actually quite diplomatic in his response. I also don’t think it’s fair to corner a band into a debate. But I have major concerns about how willing others in the music ecosystem — musicians, other publicists, editors, writers, and record labels — are to even broach these subjects. How much room is there to interrogate the most sacred pieties of the moment? I can pretty much guarantee you that, among my peers and the people who employ them, it is simply sacrosanct to deviate from the gospel. And I haven’t even touched-on the most contentious part.
My views on transgenderism are, like my views on everything else, complicated. I think it’s a hugely complex phenomenon that necessitates equally complex discussion. That discussion is being strong-armed out of taking place — so much so that even the diversity among trans voices is being stifled. This cannot hold, and we must be able to face the complexities of the issue head-on, regardless of how uncomfortable they might be.
Regardless of where one stands on trans issues, however, one thing must be acknowledged: which is that forcing a new language on an entire continent based on sensibilities that emanated from Americans of a certain socio-economic breeding is the definition of imperialism. If you use the term “Latinx,” you are a colonizer. And perhaps what needs to be decolonized is your sense of certitude that you’re liberating people when in fact you’re trying to subjugate them anew.
Latin people, apparently, are not in the mood to be conquered a second time.
From a 2022 Axios article written by the co-author of the Axios Latino newsletter:
Elected officials, a major newspaper and the oldest Latino civil rights organization in the U.S. have all spoken out strongly in recent weeks against the continued use of "Latinx," the gender-neutral term promoted by progressives to describe people of Spanish-speaking origin.
Why it matters: The pushback highlights some generational, class and regional divisions among Latinos as their numbers and influence grow in the U.S. It also reflects a movement by some Latinos to define themselves rather than be labeled by predominantly white progressives and Latino academics who advocate for using the term.
Academic and social media circles began using Latinx over the last decade, saying it was more gender-neutral and inclusive for Hispanic LGBTQ members.
But Nevada political consultant Alex O. Diaz told Axios the term hasn't caught on in working-class Mexican American communities where people are more concerned about jobs and schools than they are about identity.
"Some people also feel this is a term that is being imposed on them and it's not organic."
Now, before anyone attempts to brand this post as transphobic, my counter-response — if we’re going to hide behind the armor of grievance — is that it’s racist and imperialistic to presume that other cultures will submit to your will by force. They won’t.
I’m not suggesting that trans people don’t have a place in those cultures. I’m saying that the intersection between culture and newfound notions of gender must be navigated with the utmost care. To refuse that is to subscribe to the very same American/Western exceptionalism that the voices calling for “decolonization” are supposedly railing against.
I know in my heart that the band I reference above has more salient things to offer than what they’re spouting alongside this new record. No one should be reduced to robotic obedience. No one is truly this uninteresting. And it’s a shame that we haven’t created a climate where artists can feel free to say things that are as remarkable as the work they create.
So my suggestion to musicians is: if you have observations or convictions that go against the grain of what you’re expected to say, you’re better off saying them anyway. It may be difficult. It will likely come at a cost, and indeed may come at a steep cost. But it won’t be long now before the wind changes direction. Soon, a newly-installed lexicon will be fashionable. What will you say then?
<3 SRK