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B A PARKER, HOST: Hey, everyone. Parker here. Before we get into this week's episode of the show, a little bit of news - CODE SWITCH is coming to Arkansas. We're going to be performing a live show in Little Rock on December 7. We'll be sharing more information about that, including where to get your tickets, really soon. But in the meantime, we need your help. We'll have portions of the show with our famous Ask CODE SWITCH segment, where we answer listener questions about how to deal with racial questions that come up in your own life. They can be silly, serious, social, personal. We want to hear them all.So please send us your questions, especially if you're from Arkansas or live in Arkansas or want to know something about racial dynamics in Arkansas. My co-hosts and I will choose some of these questions to answer live on stage. So if you want to hear our brilliant musings, reporting and advice, email us at codes...@npr.org with your questions, subject line, Ask CODE SWITCH. Again, that's codes...@npr.org, subject line Ask CODE SWITCH. Alrighty (ph), on to the show.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)PARKER: Hey, everyone. You're listening to CODE SWITCH. I'm B.A. Parker. Just a warning - there's some salty language and very loud rock music in this episode. In my teens and early 20s, I dabbled in the punk scene. The scene had a level of chaos I could work with while still going to church on Sunday. I'd lean against the wall and nod my head to aggressively loud hardcore music, giving no care to lifelong eardrum damage, and just rock out to myself. And through the sweat and the noise and the darkness, I'd find the 1 or 2 other Black kids in the room, and it gave me comfort. And every once in a while, I'd get up the nerve to go into the pit. It didn't feel safe by any means, but I would feel galvanized.The first time I got into a mosh pit, my date shoved me and encouraged me to shove him back. There was a transference of energy. I couldn't explain it. But in my experience, the volatility of mostly-white mosh pits always forced me to do some kind of cost-benefit analysis - my need for community versus gauging the intentions of a drunk white person wanting to dive at me in a crowd. That didn't feel fun or freeing. My guard would stay up. Then, I experienced the freedom of a Black mosh pit, plus-size Black femmes having a twerk circle to the gnarliest bass chords you've ever heard.That's the plus side of being in Black punk circles - is no one's just beating the s*** out of each other.AHIYA NETA-ARRIGAN: No 300-pound white men trying to kill you for no reason. God.PARKER: (Laughter).NETA-ARRIGAN: Yeah.PARKER: Recently I went to a Black punk show in Brooklyn with a friend - fellow journalist, Ahiya Neta-Arrigan (ph).NETA-ARRIGAN: I want to say - I don't know if you saw the girl who walked out as I was walking in, but we had on essentially the same outfit, and I think we are going to the same event.PARKER: I mean, there was two Black people in dog collars. I would assume we were all going to the same show.Here I was, a decade removed from the Black punk scene, but all of the hallmarks were still there - dog collars, anime T-shirts and Doc Martens. I'm only guilty of the last one.(SOUNDBITE OF GUITAR SCREECHING)NETA-ARRIGAN: Do we think this is the sound check, or do we think they're just going?PARKER: Either or - I'm down.Then, alas, there was the pit. Here's how it works. A person runs in a circle, basically cordoning it off, letting everyone know that this space is for moshing. And then there was a larger Black girl who stomped on the floor. Others joined her, gleefully shoving each other and jumping around. When someone would fall, she'd immediately help them up, and they'd go back to jumping around again. That was new - the helping people, the lack of fear. It felt like a correction. And I was reminded of a quote that said, what is more liberating than a mosh pit full of smiling Black faces? It comes from James Spooner. About 20 years ago, he co-created the music festival Afropunk and directed the documentary of the same name.How would you describe the feeling of a punk show or, like, the pit?JAMES SPOONER: I mean, in most cases, you're at a show, and the energy from the stage is so powerful that it forces you to move in a certain way. And slam-dancing or moshing is, like, the way that makes sense for that kind of music. At the same time, I'm, like, creeping up on 50 years old, so I'm not typically in the pit anymore, you know?PARKER: No?SPOONER: Old guys in the back, you know (laughter)? I mean, I'm sensible enough to know or to foresee what could happen to me if I go in the mosh pit.PARKER: (Laughter).SPOONER: And those are not the kind of things you think about when you're in your teens and 20s. So, you know, if I go to a show with my daughter, who's 14, like, I'll push her in. Or, you know, when she was younger - maybe like 11 or 12 - I would, like, run in and, like, try to assess out the circle pit and try to figure out, like, this is a safe time for me to run in there with my little one. But, you know, now she's that age where she just jumps in by herself.PARKER: Baby's first pit. All right.SPOONER: (Laughter) Yeah. It's bonding moments, you know?(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)PARKER: Like a week or so ago, I went to a punk show. I hadn't been in a while. I went to The Secret History of Black Punk show in Williamsburg.SPOONER: Oh, amazing.PARKER: It was really fun, and, like, I hadn't seen community like that in a while. But then there was like - I realized the same thing that you had. Like, maybe I'm too - like, maybe I'm not ready for the pit anymore. There was a kid who was performing on stage, and then - like, he thrusted himself off of the stage and face planted onto a hardwood floor.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #1: Sweetie, are you OK?PARKER: He went, oh, my face.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #1: OK.UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #2: All right. "Trigger Happy," take two. Apologies, folks.SPOONER: There is definitely a - an art to stage diving. And, you know, it's like any other dance. If you're just going to, like, wing it, you might get hurt, you know? Like, don't go out there and do the Dutty Wine without knowing how to, like, swing your head around without breaking your neck, you know?PARKER: I wanted so much to get him some ice, but he just, like, kept doing the set. And I was like, you're, like, 22. You're going to be in your 30s, and you're have all this arthritis, and you won't know what happened. But you know, you live, you learn.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)PARKER: I sat down with James Spooner because I wanted to hear about how he helped document the Black punk scene and hear about his new book. He, along with Chris L. Terry, created an anthology of writings, comics and interviews from multiple generations of Black punks. It's called "Black Punk Now."What was your entry to punk music and the punk scene?SPOONER: I got into it - I lived in a small town in Southern California, in the desert. And I was a skater, and this was, like, the late '80s. So punk was very much, like, the soundtrack of skateboarding and skateboard videos. So eventually I, like - I went out, went to the mall and, like, bought a Black Flag tape and, like, a Sex Pistols tape and, you know, like the kind of, like, Punk 101 bands that you could buy at the mall, you know? And then my first day of eighth grade, I met another Black punk, and that was just a life-changing moment. Just to see him, it validated my interest. And in my mind, he was the coolest kid in the school, so I wanted to be just like him.PARKER: That's cool. I mean, that's enviable. It was - it took so long for me to find other Black kids who were interested in what I was interested in.SPOONER: Oh, yeah. And I'm not saying, like, it was smooth sailing from there. Like, it was just me and him and then a bunch of Nazis, you know? And then I moved to New York, and the Nazis went away. But there was a whole other set of problems.PARKER: Yeah. I grew up in Baltimore. And the first punk show I went to, me and the - and my date were the only Black people, and we realized that there were some voluntarily bald white people within the group that we were in. And I was like, oh, no. I think I fell. A girl stomped on my wrist when I was - when I fell in the pit.SPOONER: Oh, no.PARKER: I was like...SPOONER: On purpose?PARKER: Unclear.SPOONER: Yeah.PARKER: But it felt on purpose.SPOONER: It could go either way.PARKER: It could go either way.SPOONER: Yeah.PARKER: But punk music became, like, a big soundtrack for my teen years. But also, I - feeling the need to, like, find Black folks within that music.SPOONER: Yeah.PARKER: Like, being really excited to learn that, like, Pat Smear was Black or like..SPOONER: Yeah.PARKER: I mean, it's always Bad Brains and like, you know, Poly Styrene, like, searching and clinging for Black people within the punk music that I enjoyed.SPOONER: Yeah. I mean, you know, that need for validation is super real. And I think that, you know, when you see shows like that Secret History, it's kind of a testimony to how far we've come because - I mean, growing up in New York, there was a small scene of Black punk and hardcore bands, but they certainly weren't verbal about being Black hardcore bands, you know what I'm saying? Like...PARKER: Yeah.SPOONER: So when I was, like, 15, I found an all-Black band called Bushmon from New York City, and they completely changed the way I looked at myself. You know, it was just like for, for the first time, I was like, oh, here's the example of how to be Black and punk at the same time. And obviously everybody in the room knows that those dudes on stage are the coolest people in the room, you know? Like, that guy with the one long green dread, that's my North Star, you know? And shortly after that, I had grew dreads, and I was like, you know - I felt a certain sense of, like, pride in my Blackness because I found a way to do Blackness in a way that, like, suited me, you know, that made sense for me, right?PARKER: OK. Can I be, like, fully honest with you?SPOONER: Yeah. That's what we're here for.PARKER: Yeah. Something that I - like, I know I was guilty of as a teenager, and it's something I've - always get concerned about when talking about this is because it tends - there tends to be - it's kind of like futile back and forth sometimes with a lot of alternative Black kids. I know that, like, I had this problem of, like, oh, well, Black kids didn't get me, white kids didn't get me, and it ends up feeling anti-Black and weirdly exceptionalizing (ph) ourselves in just another - for, like, lack of a better term - like, white supremacist space. And, like, it feels like a different kind of respectability but just, like, this time, like, in Doc Martens.SPOONER: Yeah.PARKER: And...SPOONER: No, that's...PARKER: ...Did you...SPOONER: I think that's right.PARKER: ...Ever feel like you had that internal/external conflict?SPOONER: A hundred percent - the New York hardcore scene is negative in a lot of ways. There was a lot of misogyny, a lot of homophobia, just a lot of, you know, kind of, like, gang mentality - just stuff that I wasn't into. So I found a more political scene out in the tri-state area suburbs, and there it was like, oh, this is very, like, political, very - like, really smart. Like, you know, people are, like, you know, vegan. And, you know, it felt very like in-line with, like, the politics that I was gaining. But the compromise was that I was around a bunch of white kids. Like, this was literally a space where it was like, I'm the only Black person in the room or the only person of color in the room, you know?PARKER: Yeah.SPOONER: Or maybe there's two, but we're not talking to each other or about it, you know?PARKER: Yeah.SPOONER: And then that's where the self-hate starts coming in because you want to be like your friends. You want to, like, fit in. And, you know, while all these kids in the late '90s were getting these, like, Spock-like emo haircuts, I had dreads, and I didn't - you know, I didn't look like them. And then when I would talk about my experiences in New York, like on the subway, getting, like, harassed and beaten up by, you know, Black folks on the train, like, those were experiences that they could not relate to. And those were experiences that embarrassed me, you know? So there was, like, a self-hatred that came with just being submerged in whiteness.PARKER: Yeah.SPOONER: And I think that there either needed to be the other extreme, which was, like, creating an all-Black punk space, or some kind of middle ground where I am both secure in my Blackness - like, have experienced Black joy, have a real sense of pride in being Black - and then I can, like, kind of more comfortably hang out with white people, you know? I feel like the '70s, '80s, '90s internal dialogue of POC punks was like, we're here, but we are not - like, you don't have to - like, we don't want to make our white friends uncomfortable by talking about race, you know? So the conversation around race was usually limited to like, f*** Nazis, which is great.PARKER: Yeah.SPOONER: But what are you doing on the other days? You know, when I made the documentary "Afro-Punk" in 2003, it was certainly the first time that I ever heard any kind of - I'm Black, and I'm proud - in the punk scene, and I think that "Afro-Punk" was kind of the first wave of saying like, no, like, there is a unique Black punk experience, and we want to talk about that.PARKER: How did you come around to making the documentary? - 'cause I remember watching it, like, at 19 and being like, oh, this is really helpful.SPOONER: (Laughter) Yeah. Yeah, I made the documentary because I needed to make the documentary. You know, I needed to see it. I needed to - like, basically I was going through a bit of a identity crisis in my early 20s. I'm, like, mixed race. I'm light skinned. I had a perm. You know, there were like, people who didn't even know that I was Black. So it's like I was passing, but I didn't - it wasn't like I'm trying to on purpose. But I just - you know, I felt the effects of all that. And at a certain point, I just started getting angry. And I went to Saint Lucia, where my family's from, and kind of had this, like, awakening.And then I came back to New York, and I started talking to my friends of color who are in the kind of, like, New York nightlife rock scene I was part of. And the conversations were just so vivid. It was like we were all going through this alone. Like, nobody wanted to talk about it, or nobody felt comfortable talking about it. But when I, like, set up a camera, all of a sudden everybody was like, oh, my God, I got all these stories. And the more that I talked to people, the more that I realized, like, I have to string this together. I need to make this documentary so that future generations don't have to deal with what we're dealing with, you know?PARKER: For sure. There seems to be this universal experience of feeling like being Black punk was an oxymoron, that somehow you were, like, quote, like, "being Black wrong."SPOONER: Yes.PARKER: But being able to flip that switch and say that being Black is the most punk thing I can do, how did that shift happen for you? Was it making the documentary?SPOONER: I mean, I was basically doing, like, intensive therapy for a couple of years while - you know, in just making this movie, you know, doing, like, group therapy with, like, 80-some odd other Black punks and then spending eight hours a day watching their interviews, stringing it all together and reinforcing this idea that, like, this is a valid Black experience. And that's not something that we are told very often, you know, as young Black punks. Like, oh, you're having a very valid Black experience. It's mostly, like, you know, why are you trying to be white, you know? That's mostly...PARKER: Yeah.SPOONER: That's mostly the feedback we get.PARKER: Did it help you find community or, like, a larger community?SPOONER: When I started screening the film, within the first couple screenings, I started meeting people who were not punk, who were, like, what I would think of as just kind of, like, regular mainstream Black people, you know, who were like, yo, that's my experience too. Like, I'm the only Black person at my job, you know? Like, once this conversation was opened up by the film, I started realizing that, like, oh, this is a Black experience. It's just not the one that I'm seeing on TV, you know?And then once - on my one-year anniversary of screening the film, it was like - I did 120-some odd screenings. I was like, oh, I want to do an event. Like, I want to do, like, a party and have bands, you know? Like, we'll show the movie. We'll have bands. And when I did that, like, I can look up that date and be like, this is when the, for lack of a better word, I'll call it the Afropunk community started. Like, obviously what the Afropunk community is today is much different than what it was 20 years ago.PARKER: Yeah.SPOONER: But then it was like, this is where the Black punk community begins.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)PARKER: Coming up, how the Black punk community begins to get corporatized.SPOONER: I mean, without even throwing shade, like, Afropunk is a multimillion-dollar brand, and the community who built it were gentrified out.PARKER: Stay with us.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)PARKER: Parker - just Parker. CODE SWITCH.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)PARKER: As a teenager, I had this dream of one day moving to New York City and going to Afropunk. It seemed like an alternative Black person's Mecca where I'd find Black punk kids like me. So I grew up, moved to NYC and finally went to Afropunk, only to realize the Black punk kids had been relegated to something called the Pink Stage. It was in a skate park outside of the festival. We'd been segregated. I spoke with James Spooner, co-creator of Afropunk, about the search for Black community within the punk space and how the Afropunk Festival that he'd helped build got co-opted by the mainstream.So you co-created Afropunk. Tell me what that was and, like, what was the goal?SPOONER: So I made the film. I co-created the festival, right? So if you ask me what the goal is and you ask my partner at the time with the goal is, you got slightly different answers. For me, I wanted to, like, validate the Black punk experience. I wanted to just create space for us to be ourselves and feel good about that. It was really simple. Let's get Black bands on stage. Let's put Black people in the audience, and let's have a good time. You know, for him, it was about building a brand, getting bands signed, I mean, making money, you know? So our paths diverged in 2008. I left the Afropunk company. And if you look at what Afropunk is today, you can see that it - there are remnants of what I wanted, you know?PARKER: Yeah.SPOONER: But there's a whole lot more of what he wanted.PARKER: Yeah. 'Cause I was going to ask, did you feel like it got away from you?SPOONER: Oh, yeah.PARKER: Yeah.SPOONER: I mean, without even throwing shade, like, Afropunk is a multimillion-dollar brand that the musical focus is alt R&B, you know? You'd be hard pressed to find a rock band anymore. And the community who built it were gentrified out. The focus was not about them. It was not for them. And it became for a different group of people and a different group of people who also needed it. So there's a part of me that can't get mad at slightly less underground, maybe queer, maybe people who just want to fly their freak flag for the weekend, like...PARKER: Yeah.SPOONER: ...You know, my aunties, like - you know, like whoever it is that goes to Afropunk today. Like, they have a good time, you know what I'm saying? Like, I can't get mad at that, but I can also recognize - like, it's owned by Essence magazine now, or the guy who owns Essence magazine.PARKER: Is it really?SPOONER: Yeah. So Afropunk is Essence Fest, alt edition - you know? - like plain and simple. This is just about marketing, and for that reason, it's fine. It's as fine as Coachella or any other festival, but it's also irrelevant to the punk scene, you know? To answer your question about it getting away from me, yeah, there was a lot of years where I was, like, salty and felt betrayed and hurt. But that started to shift when I saw that the punk scene - that, like, the next generation of 20-something Black kids were reacting and saying like, oh, this isn't for us. So they started creating their own thing. And the ultimate irony is that I got what I wanted through the underground, but I had to give them something to react to because that's what punks do. Like...PARKER: Yeah.SPOONER: ...We're nothing if we're not reacting, you know?PARKER: So you and Chris L. Terry just came out with a book called "Black Punk Now." How would you describe it?SPOONER: Well, it's a anthology of Black punk writers. It's fiction, nonfiction, comics. So the stories, they run the gamut. You know, there's fairy tales. There's horror. There's sci fi. There's interviews. We really wanted to kind of show how expansive the Black punk experience is yet contain it in this book that allows you to see the threads, you know?PARKER: Does the book retcon some of your feelings about punk? Like, are you trying to take back some of what capitalism stole from punk with this book?SPOONER: I mean, I think I'm always trying to take back what capitalism has stolen from punk, you know?PARKER: Yeah.SPOONER: And again, this isn't a new thing, you know? Like, I saw an ad from JC Penney's from like, 1980 that was like, punk summer, you know? And it was like - you know, like people wearing these, like, you know, hot-pink T-shirts or whatever, you know? It's like, punk has been exploited by capitalism since the Sex Pistols. So it's like, this is just the push and pull of the underground and the mainstream. And I find - I found - find a certain beauty in it, you know? Punk can't exist without something to react to.PARKER: Yeah.SPOONER: And the mainstream can't exist without stealing from the underground. It's a cycle. Like, without the underground, the mainstream has no soul. And without the mainstream, the underground has nothing to rebel against.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)PARKER: OK. So in the book, your contribution is a comic about watching your daughter become interested in the same music that you did growing up. What's it like being able to share that part of yourself with her and to share the scene in the music with her?SPOONER: I mean, I'm so thankful that I have this in common with my kid, you know? 'Cause it could've really gone any way, you know? My other daughter, who I love as much as - I mean, you know, they're both my kids. I love them both.PARKER: Please note. Please note.SPOONER: Please note. And also, my younger daughter is 9. I expect her to only like pop music, you know? Like, when my older daughter, who is now 14, was 9, she also only liked pop music. So it's fine. But, you know, it was during lockdown, I think, that she was in her room. And then she came out of her room, and she's like, guys, have you ever heard of Smashing Pumpkins?PARKER: Ooh.SPOONER: And I was just like - I was just crying. Like...PARKER: (Laughter).SPOONER: ...I just started crying right now - you know? - because it was just so sweet, you know? It was like, yeah, we saw them last year, you know? Like, whatever. But, like, to walk into her room and be like, oh, what are you doing right now? Oh, I'm just looking up Nirvana facts, you know? And now, a few years later from that - removed from that, she's introducing me to punk bands. I'm literally wiping away tears, you know? Like, I love it. It's amazing, you know?PARKER: That's lovely. Meanwhile, I let my dad listen to one Rage Against the Machine song, and he was like, are you a socialist?SPOONER: (Laughter).PARKER: And I'm like - I was like, that's - that's neither here nor there.(LAUGHTER)PARKER: Ooh, does she feel the need to react against you?SPOONER: I mean, she does in her own ways for sure, you know? And we kind of have, like, an agreement. I take her to concerts, you know, whenever I can - you know, when she can bring a friend. And then it's just like - we walk in the door, and it's like, all right, I'll see you later, you know?PARKER: (Laughter).SPOONER: 'Cause I know she doesn't want to, like, hang out with me. Like, we'll talk about the show later. But, like, she wants to have a different experience - like, the same experience that I wanted to have at that age. You know, she wants to scam on boys.PARKER: (Laughter).SPOONER: She wants to, like, get in the pit with her friend. She won't get in the pit with me. She wants to get in the pit with her friend. And I want that experience for her.PARKER: I love that - just like, no, dad. I don't want to get in the pit with you.SPOONER: Yeah. Come on, you know? So, you know, we just walk in, and it was like, all right, see you later.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)PARKER: And one last thing - I hear you've got a museum exhibit in Las Vegas that goes along with the book?SPOONER: Yes. The "Black Punk Now" exhibit that runs through March is happening in conjunction with the release of the "Black Punk Now" book. And I think it's really important that we can have an exhibit like this. You know, there's going to be literally thousands of people who go to the museum with the expectation of seeing early Ramones T-shirts or, like, flyers from Minor Threat or whatever, but stumble into this room that's just hella (ph) Black - not only Black bands, but, like, I have a whole wall that's just crowd shots. Like, we've all seen pictures of Bad Brains. Like, we know that Black bands exist. But what we don't all know is that there can be a room with 300 people, and most of them are Black.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Shouting) Now (ph).PARKER: And that's our show. You can follow us on Instagram @nprcodeswitch. If email is more your thing, ours is codes...@npr.org. And subscribe to the podcast at the NPR App or wherever you get your podcasts. And you should definitely check out our newsletter. It drops every Friday in your inbox. Sign up for that at npr.org/codeswitchnewsletter.Just wanted to give a quick shout-out to our CODE SWITCH+ listeners. We appreciate you and thank you for being a subscriber. Subscribing to CODE SWITCH+ means getting to listen to all of our episodes without any sponsor breaks, and it also helps support our show. So if you love our work, please consider signing up at plus.npr.org/codeswitch.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)PARKER: This episode was produced by Courtney Stein and Xavier Lopez. It was edited by Dalia Mortada. Our engineer was Josephine Nyounai. And a big shout-out to the rest of the CODE SWITCH massive - Christina Cala, Jess Kung, Leah Donnella, Veralyn Williams, Steve Drummond, Lori Lizarraga and Gene Demby, with special thanks to Ahiya Neta-Arrigan, Honeychild Coleman, Raeghan Buchanan and her "Secret History Of Black Punk" show and Chris L. Terry. I'm B.A. Parker. Hydrate.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)