Alkaline Trio – From Here to Infirmary • Page 2

I say this as a person who tends to believe that Skiba isn't a secret nazi---you realllllllllly don't have to pretend that the shit he posts/the people he associates with aren't at all problematic, and that people who are pointing that out are somehow crazy. He has a large platform, much larger now that he's in Blink, and some of the symbolism and books he puts out there uncritically on social media is a big problem. The last 10 years should show you that we can't really trust people (especially young, impressionable white men) to be able to think critically and not fall down the wrong rabbit hole on the internet. It's not a very big leap to go from googling a book Skiba posts about or a nazi symbol he thought looked cool in a picture or whatever to suddenly seeing youtube videos from...well, the wrong types of people and ideology.

 

And also it's a silly cop out to try to pretend like the people who are concerned about it aren't also concerned about trump and the rise of fascism in America. I highly, highly doubt they're watching the news going "this is fine" but then turning on the anger when they see a Skiba news blurb.

 

I hate that you have to live your life like that all because of a silly difference in skin pigmentation. You deserve to live exactly how you want without having to fear reprisals for merely existing. It's not right that you have to live with systemic racism. It's a blight this country will never escape from, it's better to acknowledge it's reality and discuss how we can change things for the better. You are absolutely right when you say that the scene could better serve African Americans and Indigenous people.

However, Matt Skiba's activities as someone with an important platform do not make him a racist.

I would give anything for you to have a better existence within this country but I feel like we're missing a moving target when we lay this large an issue at his feet especially given his public stances to the contrary ( whether you wanna believe the Rolling Stone interview or not).

I am also not saying that hating what he is doing and hating someone like Trump, Jones, or any of the other big hitters are mutually exclusive. What I should have said is that these figures have even larger platforms and are far and away more deserving of this critique because I believe they play a major role in perpetuating systemic racism.

 

Well this took a turn!

 

My experience as a black man leads me to disagree with you about Skiba associating and platforming a white supremacist and the extent of harm that leads too. This is a case where I am being forced to educate you from that perspective which should not be my damn job.

Skiba reading Might is Right , a book that his racist friend Douglas Pearce from the band Death in June who he's featured on an Alkaline Trio record, unequivocally declares that the white race being superior to all other races on the basis of an appeal to nature/biology that supposes that white men enjoy nature's favor which btw has NO BASIS IN MODERN SCIENCE AND IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF RACISM. Let's read some quotes from this book shall we?:

"What power on earth can permanently keep the Negro on a parity with the Anglo-Saxon?"

"Are all men really brethren?—Negro and Indian, Blackfellow, Kalmuck, and Coolie—the well-bom, and the base-bred,...What proof is there that the brotherhood-of-man hypothesis is in accordance with nature?"

"What white father for example, would encourage the marriage of a hulking thick-skulled Negro with his beautiful and accomplished daughter?

"Take the Negro for example. His narrow cranial development, his prognathous jaw, his projecting lips, his wide nasal aperture, his simian disposition, his want of forethought, originality, and mental capacity: are all peculiarities strictly inferior."

"American sheriffs and detectives hunt down tramps and criminals vdth specially trained bloodhounds, just as Russians hunt wolves, and sheepfarmers hunt coyotes and dingos. It is nowise unusual for Negros to be first captured, then chained to a stake, flayed alive, soaked in kerosene, and buftit to death amid exultant shrieks of corybantic delight."

"Our race cannot hope to maintain its predominance if it goes on diluting its blood with Chinamen, Negros, Japanese, or debased Europeans."

Now, when Skiba appeals to "Nature" in the same breath he's decrying racism, while he's adopting the symbology of nature fascists that read this book widely - at the same time he's celebrating cops as grim reapers, this is not something we can separate. It calls significant suspicion on his claim that he's not racist when he continues to associate with people who believe this.

 

I have not and will not ever deny that that book is a disgusting and immoral abomination of mankind. Who is arguing the science of Might Is Right or whether it's racist or not? Don't recall having ever said anything close to that. It's content is hideous and I wish that it had never come into existence along with the all the other atrocities that exist in humanity, especially those atrocities that serve to glorify one race over another. We are all human beings. I'm simply saying reading it doesn't make you a racist. Know history or be doomed to repeat it.

I'm not forcing you to educate me because I've known long enough that there is nothing in that stupid book worth me ever wanting to pick it up.

However, there are those who have the morbid interest in doing so and associating with people who are problematic to say the very least. That is their right whether anybody agrees with that or not.

Is it possible to read that book, associate with people who promote it's hideous ideations of racial superiority, and use symbols that were co-opted by racists and bigots yet still disagree and disavow the meaning behind all of it? A lot of the runes and symbols have pagan or benign origins and were picked up by monsters to propagate hate and inequality.

Where we disagree is I see Alkaline Trio and Matt Skiba as an entity and person that has always co-opted things that have pushed the boundaries and made it uncomfortable for people.

From using the upside down crucifix, singing about Charles Manson, The West Memphis Three, Anton Levay, and the list goes on and on and on. Many interviews point to them using these things to make people uncomfortable, not to push one ideaology or another. Is what he reads or "studies" as he puts it, who he associates with, and symbols he uses problematic? Absolutely. I would argue they've been doing that since at least 1996. Point me to one lyric or interview where they unequivocally pronounce that the white race is superior to all others and I'll destroy anything I have with them associated and renounce any enjoyment of anything they have ever done.

I could never understand the injustice that you've had to live through, and you have ample reason to feel the way you do about this, but I don't think Matt Skiba has a racist agenda or he'd use his platform to actually further it by going on radio like Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh, running for President like Donald Trump, or being grandmaster of the KKK like David Duke. What someone does with their Instagram, what they read, and who they talk to is their business. The minute people start policing what you read, who you talk to, and what you talk about is the day the right to privacy dies.

 

You really asking this? Come on, man

 

Okay nobody read anything ever, noone have interests in anything good or bad, and nobody talk to anyone who could be more evil than you. Alright societies problems are now solved.

 

If this means "people who promote hideous ideations of racial superiority and use symbols co-opted by racists and bigots" as you said in your last post, then yes, I agree we shouldn't hang out with them. Very easy for me not to, in fact

 

Then don't. It's not a big deal. Whatever floats your boat, but what you do isn't absolutely what everyone else is gonna do.

Why was the album review even posted? Close this thread and get rid of any mention of Skiba, Trio, and Blink 182. We have to completely sanitize and cleanse any mention of this. That's the only way to end this because I can't obviously like Skiba because of his personal decisions to do things and hang out with people you wouldn't.

 

Why is it so bad for me to believe that this shit is his business? I wouldn't spend any time with a racist. That's my decision. He does. I don't like it but hey that's him. I still like him and I still like Trio.

 

You suck