Imagine walking into a dark, cramped club at midnight to see your favorite band. Excited, you head to the bar and order a beer. As you look around to see if you know anyone within the large crowd of revelers, you notice that there are a number of people staring at you. Is it my newly trimmed Mohawk? My nose piercing? My Misfits T-shirt? And then the excitement to see the band slowly dissipates.
People are staring at you because you are the only black person in the crowd.
After years hanging out in the punk scene, director James Spooner decided to document the lives and experiences of African-Americans in the punk scene, opening a much-needed dialogue about the politics that ensue when a black person gets involved in the punk community. As a teenager, he lived the life as a punk rock fan, enjoying and learning from the DIY (do it yourself) ethnic that emanated from the hardcore Washington DC punk scene. But as he grew older, he realized that trying to blend his punk aesthetic with his burgeoning afrocentricty was not only difficult, but doing it alone was even worse.
And that’s how Afro-Punk was born. The 66-minute documentary is the tale of young, gifted and black people who have dedicated their lives to the punk scene. Some are looking for absolution from previous attempts of assimilation within the media’s limited view of democracy, some are looking for love, some simply for a space where they are free to express themselves. Since it’s initial grassroots distribution in the spring of 2003, Afro-Punk has received nationwide critical acclaim and demands to have the documentary screened across the world have been astounding. It has also spawned an informative website with an active message board in which people from different regions, genders and economic backgrounds have become united for only one thing: their passion for punk.
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