Nazi Punks Fuck Off
Remember when neo-nazis were platformed on talk shows in the 80s? Hosts would bring in these ludicrous racists so we could rubber neck at their white supremacy. Audiences would respond with a menacing agog. I remember a white woman telling neo-nazis to “rub their pennies together” and go buy an island for them all to live on. Geraldo’s nose was broken on his show after a brawl broke out (staged or not) between black men and white supremacists. He was also arrested after punching a nazi in the face when reporting at a KKK rally.
As racist as the 80s were, we can’t deny that the status quo knew nazism was trash. WWII had ended 40 years ago, and racial segregation was still alive in many people’s memories, so the collective understanding of the dangers of ethnosupremacy was still reasonably strong. Despite this, neo-nazis were having a moment, and some of them appropriated the image of the street punk working class solidarity movement. Anti-racist punks were collectively horrified by the violent and racist skinheads who were infiltrating their community. Jello Biafra, a political activist, musician, and the singer of the Dead Kennedys gifted the world with the simple retort “nazi punks fuck off”.
The 80s was a glorious time for free speech exercises and punk rock - two necessities in keeping fascism at bay. My favourite moment was everything that Jello Biafra did. Biafra was the brain of the punk rock band the Dead Kennedys until they parted ways in 1986, and he has attracted attention for his dissenting political opinions and public antics since the 1970s. He was and still is anti-authoritarian, pro-personal freedoms, fiercely critical of mainstream media, and unwaveringly dedicated to free speech.
In 1986, Biafra debated Tipper Gore, a self-declared liberal feminist who just happened to be married to the vice president of America, on Oprah. Gore wanted to protect children from the allegedly distasteful, lewd and “anti-Christian” ideas found in the punk rock and gangster rap of groups like the Dead Kennedys, Public Enemy and NWA. Biafra had recently been sued by the newly created Parents’ Music Resource Center (PMRC, founded in part by Gore) for his content on the album Frankenchrist, citing an album insert of art by H.R. Giger depicting genitalia. The PMRC claimed this image would harm children, but Biafra’s music is also aggressively critical of government, and offensive lyrical content found in punk rock and gangster rap was often descriptions of the everyday experiences of black and other oppressed people in the US. These descriptions often included, and still includes, shocking and offensive realities. Tipper’s censorship work relied on yet another moral panic about children’s “safety”, and was seen as a way to control minority voices and stifle government criticism.
Sherman Alexie, author of the young adult novel The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian, explains this well in his essay about censorship. He explains how cultural critics are not “protecting” children, but rather protecting their privileged notions of what privileged children should read (and listen to). Alexie argues that you can’t protect a child who has already lived through hell, and that censorship of the arts only further erodes support for traumatized children, and perpetuates the silencing of minorities.
Biafra is anti-cancel culture, uses a derogatory nickname for Hillary Clinton, and his rants about politics and government overreach on YouTube seemed to amass new attention from so-called freedom fighters during the pandemic. Some of the “freedom fighting” ethos is certainly mirrored in Biafra’s speech. However, he wore a mask during the pandemic, hates Trump as much as he hates Democrats, and continues to recognize a fascist when he sees one. Amusingly, Biafra gets ripped on for not being a “freedom” fighter whenever one of them feels tricked by their own ignorance. Under Biafra’s YouTube video about the Fairness Doctrine, an upset fan even accuses him of having turned into some kind of bank shill. I imagine a world view collapses every time a so-called freedom fighter figures out that hating the government and loving free speech overlaps with actual democracy.
To the shock and dismay of his “freedom fighter” fans, Jello Biafra was and still is woke AF, championing the exact same causes 40+ years ago that current wokeism advocates for today. In his protest music, he compares California to Nazi Germany (California Uber Alles), calls out anti-unionism, criticizes nuclear weapons, and satirizes government response to poverty (Soup is Good Food, Kill the Poor). He scrutinizes jock dominance and the abuse of teenaged athletes in high school sports (Jockorama), calls out police brutality (Police Truck), vehemently denounces religion (Religious Vomit) and defiantly contrasts American privilege with the living conditions in war-devastated Cambodia (in which Biafra also daringly uses the “n” word. Free speech.). Biafra also heavily criticized his former Dead Kennedy bandmates for licensing the song “Too Drunk to Fuck” to Tarantino’s movie “Grindhouse”, to be played during a rape scene of a disabled character.
Like the post-lockdown “freedom fighters”, Biafra is a champion of free speech, but is and always has been a classical anarchist, a socialist, an anti-colonialist or whatever label is most offensive to them. It is interesting but not surprising that so many anti-progressives have been attracted to, and then offended by, his woke speech. Even in the 70s, Biafra, a white American man, understood his privilege and used it to platform the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970), also known as the Biafran War, in which the Indigenous population (who were actual Freedom Fighters) living under colonial rule in Nigeria attempted to secede and failed after their attempts to self-govern triggered a civil war.
Imagine the identity crises and offence of post-lockdown “freedom fighters” after discovering they momentarily shared ethos with a *gasp* woke leftie?! It sucks to have to stop listening to the greatest punk rock ever told, but I imagine Biafra enjoys how his music serves to expose others’ bigotry and internalized fascism. Fake Freedom Fighters seem to find it shocking that someone who is so invested in their interests might actually be a socialist, or an anarchist, or anything left of right. It’s almost as if freedom fighters “woke up” in 2020 and started crusading for their rights thinking they were inventing activism.
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In the 80s and 90s, when the PMRC and Republicans in America were attacking free speech, they were attacking artists, who are often, if not typically, anti-oppressive and socialist. Censorship was working against historically oppressed minorities by trying to control their freedom of speech expressed through art, music, literature, and other publications. This included their brutally lived experiences, and ideas that were successfully attacking the government and those who held power. Of course white, rich, politicians were working to censor that. When Biafra was calling to protect speech, he didn’t just want unfettered rights to share any old trashy thought that floated into his head. He wanted the right to be “offensive” through his critiques of socioeconomic disparities, American exploitation, institutional systemic failures, nationalist policies, and authoritarian hypocrisy without the interference of the FBI.
With consideration to power, authority and the success of the free speech exercises that led to increased liberation, it is sadly predictable that free speech is now being misappropriated from and then weaponized against those who have most needed it. Those who are calling to “censor” bigotry are the same anarchists, socialists, working class, racialized, and gender-oppressed people who have always fought against censorship, because they are the ones who suffer under it the most.
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So Stop ✋ saying the woke left is attacking your right to free speech. If the type of speech that is valued by “freedom fighters” was truly “under attack”, none of them would be fucking Trudeau on their F-350s, misaligning the CBC with Russian communist propaganda, accusing teachers of “grooming kids with their gay agenda”, telling the egregious lies of gay children being “forced” to transition genders by medical authorities, or claiming the Covid vaccine is a government conspiracy to commit genocide. Claiming woke leftists are fascists who are attacking free speech connotes a misunderstanding of fascism and free speech.
Woke lefties know very well that bigots have rights to their hateful, vilifying, divisive, revolting, discriminatory, misinformed and even deliberately false speech because of the past work of extremely woke leftists. Ironic. There are laws in BC and Canada around hate and discriminatory speech, but they are very selectively enforced. Recent public speaking panels attacking trans people, large-scale protests across Canada denouncing SOGI and other aspects of education, and websites and social media accounts that have platformed infamous bigots and bigotry in the name of “freedom” proves that bigoted speech, both overt and implied, is well protected.
Free speech isn’t an explanation or an excuse for bigotry. Bringing attention to it when being canceled is a logical fallacy, a distraction tactic and emotional hook. Using it as a rebuttal distracts from what is likely a weak or absent defence of one’s claim.
Freedom of speech and expression does not mean freedom from criticism or consequence. Yes, you are entitled to speech, but that doesn’t mean your ideas are good or exempt from scrutiny. One outcome of free speech is choosing how and if to engage with the speaker and their ideas afterward - and we don’t have to be polite or “inclusive” about it. While consequence for sharing thoughts should not include imprisonment, a good canceling communicates that one’s dusty, repackaged bigotry has been well scrutinized and is no longer welcomed. We can’t have free speech without accounting for bad speech. If your ideas and community are constantly under attack by woke “terrorists”, maybe it’s your ideas that are the problem, and not the left “attacking” free speech?
Free speech is more than diatribing unchecked in front of a paying audience, using AI to generate alt-right propaganda, or creating FB accounts with the sole purpose of vilifying people you hate. Free speech demands a free EXCHANGE of ideas. Witnesses get to respond, question, and even dissent to publicly shared diatribes - not just validate bigotry with stanning. Unlike white nationalists today, neo-nazis weren’t to be left alone when they got up on a stage for our entertainment; their diatribes were to be mocked and oddititized as part of this exchange. If you are prioritizing your right to speech, no matter how poorly crafted and egregious, over others’ right to live free from vilification and humiliation that centers basic human existences, you might be lost in the freedom sauce, and we have a right to call that out.
Attacking and canceling trash ideas matters because good ideas withstand repeated scrutiny and will eventually command a reasonable consensus. Perhaps this is why universities are notoriously progressive, and it’s certainly why women can vote, why gay couples can legally marry, and why we can all drink from the same water fountains.
Respecting free speech means welcoming a range of responses, including being canceled, critiqued, and bearing witness to the anger and harm your speech may have caused. Critiques are meant to help you dispose of your trash ideas - not strengthen your resolve toward them. A commitment to free speech includes having the humility to recognize weaknesses in your position, and then invoking the strength to change your mind - hopefully toward ideas that are liberating for all. If you shame and belittle others for doing this, you are the problem - not them.
While free speech has always been a primary tenet of the left, we enthusiastically recognize that it belongs not only to opponents of woke ideology, but to everyone (and it doesn’t even have to be polite to be relevant or true!). We’ve honoured rights to speech by witnessing the bigoted diatribes, the basic bitch insults, the abundance of lies, the rage-farming, the low-key threats, and the bad-faith exchanges being made by homophobes, racists, science deniers, TERFs, misogynists and other claimants of “freedom”. We think your trash ideas suck, and pointing that out falls well within the scope of free speech. So nazi punks - you can fuck off.
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Contributed by S.G.
