The Black Swan Theory

What do you think of when you think of the image of a swan?

Graceful birds, or maybe the ugly duckling that grew into a beautiful swan, and you more than likely pictured that the swan was white.

And indeed, most swans are indeed white birds.

But, there exists black swans, and they are rare but they do exist.

Black swans have always coexisted with white swans but were not documented until the 18th century.

There's an excellent Wiki article about the Black Swan theory that basically describes unpredicted and undirected events as black swan events.



In a previous post I talked about exoticization of black goths, and to break this down.

A perspective from the punk side

Being a minority in a minority subculture is a double-edged sword. Some people will use your existence as merely a form of tokenism to prove how "accepting" and "diverse" the culture really is. Because you know one black kid at a punk show means that punks aren't racist ;-)

But racism/invisibility go hand in hand with subculture scenes sometimes. For example, a quick look through alt-porn sites like Gods Girls and Suicide Girls will show you just how real this tokenism is. These sites loudly declare that they accept alternative forms of beauty, and yet, the girls all look the same. So what to make of that is it hypocrisy? Ill-intentioned? That's hard to say, the problem with living in a white supremacist culture is that if you are white it's hard to see beyond whiteness. So, it's as if to say if you're a white swan and all your used to seeing is white swans you assume A. All swans are white. B. Only white can be attributed to being a swan.

It's a logical fallacy, and yet it's one that plays out whenever a black goth or punk goes into a predominately white scene and has to shoulder a racist comment that was just "a joke" or when someone says "You're not like all the other black people, you're different."

That's not a compliment for sure, it's an insult. That's akin to me saying "You're not like all the other white people, you're different."

A quick read through Gothic.Net's infamous "Black people don't make good vampires," or "Black goths...Never seen one" thread will show you the spectrum of just plain ignorance associated with goths who are not white, specifically black. Some people think that black goths don't look good in goth attire, as they believe that Victorian clothes are well suited for white people maybe. Now it's true, you will not see a Black goth scrambling to paint their face white, that would be rather ridiculous yes?

The problem here is that the whole set up is breeding in icky racist bacteria. It's hard not to feel a sense of bitterness towards people who are from the same scene from you thereby the same "we're all misfits cumbaya" but...they'd rather you go back to some other box. It's not fair but neither is life. I ran across a horrible joke that said the reasons you don't see black goths is because they *can't* be seen. It's so stupid in it's scope, and so really, it's a dumb joke. Listen here whoever came up with that pile of trash, if you can't see me, you can't see the damage I'm getting ready to come up with for you *grin*

To re-iterate, goth is an aethetic choice. Aesthetic. Choice. Meaning if it's a choice anyone can do it. It's an aesthetic, meaning it's a look, you put the two together and it's a look that someone can choose. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Reading some life stories of black goths and punks actually makes me sad, the idea that someone can make you feel inferior for simply choosing something is beyond me and really sad. Those goths/punks/emos/whatever who condemn non-white members based on their race and other hideous facets should really be ashamed of themselves, and in fact they should get kicked out of the club. :P

Truth is, anyone can carry a certain aesthetic if they want to, free fucking country.