My MIX for Love Music Hate Racism, broadcast on 104.4FM and now podcast on Mixcloud via ResonanceFM
YOUR RACIST FRIEND is our call to come together through music, forming a strong counter-culture, so that we can effectively work to counter the snowballing of today’s post-truth, post-compassion society. Artist influence other artists, punters support and influence artists, promoters shift cultural focus.
Titled after the song “Your Racist Friend” by The Specials, covered by many for example, They Might Be Giants (lyrics below). As an update on the song, however, we are calling you to keep your slightly racist friend close and influence them through example, until they can see what they had become, until they are global citizens of the world, as are we. This is because love and community is the opposite of identity politics and hatred, of ‘othering’, of cliquism. After the UK riots in 2024, I made an effort to turn up and meet Love Music, Hate Racism, and later marched behind their flotilla at Notting Hill Carnival all day long. What better way to resist hate than to up your loving quota, to me loving is caring even if its disagreement, and sometimes only music does the impossible. When I think about dancing and community (which in Notting Hill is on signs spelled COMEUNITY) I remember one of Iran’s greatest Sufi poets, Rumi who said:
“Somewhere beyond right and wrong is a green field, I will meet you there.”
This is where the party ends
I can’t stand here listening to you
And your racist friend
I know politics bore you
But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you
And your racist friend
I’ve been considering what the political power of the body is.
When dancing our bodies are “active forces engaged in the negotiation of political boundaries”, the body operates collectively in “the overlap of dance and music, where each imbues the other with new political power.”
Why over the years, have governments worked so hard to stop us from dancing, and organising unchecked?
“We must all listen more deeply. We must be willing to hear bodies in sounds. We must be willing to hear stories in bodies. We must be willing to hear hate in violence and empathy in love. Second, we must dance. We must dance to understand new ways of being and knowing. We must dance more loudly than our Western academic chairs and desks would have us dance. We must dance outside the lines of limited conceptions of beauty. We must dance our truths and cast them against the structures we know must change. Above all, we must dance and listen together. Our bodies and our music are powerful, and in their convergence lies the possibility of a more empathetic world.”
Dr. Chelsea Oden
I’ve also been wondering what Nietzsche meant in a wider context by “and those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” It’s fundamentally describing the dissonance of any activity, versus its perception, that moment when people unaware of the reason for your actions, are unable to understand your reaction, as they have no ability to comprehend or imagine. They have no insight, no first hand experience. Online, we cannot gain these. When others can’t access the core of why you move to music in a collective, and rejoice in the coming together for songs that resonate with you, they will see this behaviour as madness, they will never know. The message is – try a thing before you think you can even begin to comprehend it, put yourself in others’ shoes before you attempt to understand them.
It was the loveliest party that I’ve ever attended
If anything was broken I’m sure it could be mended
My head can’t tolerate this bobbing and pretending
Listen to some bullet-head and the madness that he’s saying
The show went out on air on 104.4FM across London, online and on digital smart speaker twice and is podcast below.
This is where the party ends
I’ll just sit here wondering how you
Can stand by your racist friend
I know politics bore you
But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you
You and your racist friend
Out from the kitchen to the bedroom to the hallway
Your friend apologizes, he could see it my way
He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking Can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding
This is where the party ends
I can’t stand here listening to you
And your racist friend
I know politics bore you
But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you
And your racist friend
Written by John Bradbury, Jerry Dammers & Dick Cuthell.
