Social commentary
The rest of the country knows three things about Richmond. Can you guess what they are?
At the risk of casting against the boulders what tiny reputation I might have built for myself as a burgeoning journalist, I will abandon nerdmusic-dom for one hot second to take a shot at what they call “social commentary.” Undoubtedly and justly you find this laughable, but I certainly don’t mind because although you may not, my many nieces and nephews swear they love me unconditionally.
So I spent the last six weeks traipsing about the United States. Currently I am home in my parents’ house which means two things…
1. Since they do not quite have the same sort of Dub and early Hip-hop collection that Pinson has, I will have to put off my final diaspora article for an additional week.
2. I have had a chance to reflect, amongst the yelping of my many nieces and nephews, on my trip.
Truthfully, I haven’t done too much of this “reflecting” business, as it sounds a bit dated. However, since there has been a slew of “What is Richmond known for slash Gwarman2k8 tours Richmond” posts, and for 45 nights my stage banter consisted of this…
“I love Richmond, all ya’ll should move there. You can come stay at my house. (laughs all around) We’re The Great White Jenkins and we’re going to play a few more songs.”
I thought I’d use what little reflecting I have done and chime in. As for the stage banter, that was it. You might think that I could be more clever and funny, but really all I did was blabber about Richmond and all its superior qualities. Thus, I was inundated with Richmond comments, pro, con, and curious quite often. Turns out, in quite an extensive sampling of the country, our city is known for three things…
1. Avail is from here.
2. It is really, really hot.
3. It’s a bad place for Black people to live.
Truthfully, I am proud of the heat – even more proud of the humidity and love, with all my heart, that those namby-pamby, pantywaist, candy-ass west coast poltroons melt under the same sun under which I blossom. The Avail business registers in my personal book as a neutral. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard an Avail song, I certainly haven’t seen them play, don’t really roll in that scene, and although I’m sure they are great, I don’t hold any sort of positive or negative emotional attachment. I’ll just leave it at that. I’d rather people be stoked that Bill Robinson or Douglas Adams or Edgar Allen Poe was from here, but we’ll have to go with Avail.
Hopefully no one will argue that, at the very, very, very least, Richmond used to, not very long ago as well as the hundreds of years before that, be a horrible place for Black folks to live. No arguments, por favor. As for the current state of things, I’m going to hold off comments mainly because I’m not Black. I will say that to my untrained yet curious eyes the “history” that we put so quickly behind us doesn’t seem too much like history. Also I’ll just go ahead and beat the dead horse and just say again that having a massive statue of Jefferson Davis in the middle of the city doesn’t help our rep. Hell, reputation-schmeputation , I would safely say that it might hurt inter-race relations quite a good bit. Anyhow, obviously this is an issue that isn’t going away soon and has plagued the city for a long long time. All I’m saying over here is that people know it, not just us. It is far and away that character trait of our city that proceeds us, and it bums me out. I have no interest in being a passive member of a city whose reputation is racial injustice, past and present. Anyhow, let’s be proud of Avail as they have made their name great, let’s soak up that heat and laugh at the left-coast losers that have bottles of water packed like bandoliers around their body, and let’s do a thing or two about fixing our shit.
All my love,
MattWhite
-
Recommend this
on Facebook -
Report an error
-
Subscribe to our
Weekly Digest
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
I thought Douglas Adams was British.
he went to an early incarnation of vcu. theres some awesome quotes of his on Richmond and as soon as i can track down pinson i will post them. he, of course, is the keeper of all douglas adams quotes.
There was this girl at my college that was from Richmond but told everyone she was from DC. I could never figure that out. Maybe she hates Avail.
I just moved here from New Orleans. Relatively speaking, Richmond is not hot, and it’s an absolutely wonderful place for black people to live. Really, it’s lovely and interesting and has nothing to be ashamed of.
But would someone kindly help me find the good music? I appreciate the Great White Jenkins link. So there’s at least one band worth listening to. Others?
thats like some of my students who are really proud that they are from glen allen???
Is…this a setup? It’s like a commercial for Eight Track!
http://rvanews.com/eighttrack/
the number one thing Richmond is known for is cigarettes. Cigarettes and murder…
Dude on the Street in Dallas: Dude, do you want to sign my petition to ban cigarettes forever blah blah blah.
Matt: Uh, I’m from Richmond, Va, do you know what that means???
DOTSID: Oh yea, aren’t there huge confederate generals in the street.
i think avail is known for being from richmond because they sing about a billion songs about richmond.
In my travels as a musician (especially in Europe) when I asked where I was from all I had to do was hold up a pack of Marlboros and they understood. Also, once you get past the Mississippi, everyone magically forgets about the civil war. It’s as if it never happened. As far as bands recognition goes, I had more people know that GWAR was from here than Avail though both are mentioned frequently in the same breath as Richmond, Virginia.
here’s another great richmond artist….sexy too!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAngelo
Richmond is best known for superior customer service
Here are three more things Richmond is known for: 1) Hanover tomatoes 2) great local artists 3) parents fretting over what schools to send children to.
ooooh we should compile a master list!!
Why can’t Richmond be known for that time when they loved minorities TOO much?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Richmond_v._J.A._Croson_Co.
That url is effed because of stupid wikipedia. Just make sure you have the period on the end if you want to read about an exciting supreme court case.
Also I wanted to mention that in Tacoma I talked to a girl who only knew about Richmond from hardcore bands and she said it sounded fun because we just bro down and drink beers on porches with bros and get tattoos with our other bros. I said yeah, that’s about right.
Actually, Avail didn’t form in Richmond. I first saw them in ’89 at a Jam for Man show in Reston.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avail
Being a transplant to Richmond myself, I understand why they would claim our city as home. After all, no one is _from_ NoVA, and Richmond is a great city.
As far as racial tension, it’s not all bad to have tension. Some southern cities don’t have that tension because the underprivileged people of color are so used to oppression that they’re afraid to stand up.
Piss on those statues, most of the rednecks who find them meaningful (in a Confederate sense) wouldn’t last two days living in Richmond.
I’ve always dreamed of turning Stonewall Jackson into Michael Jackson…
Mattwhite, are you a transplant to Richmond? I only ask because I LOVE RICHMOND. There are problems, but there are issues with any location. I moved here from Alexandria in ’83 and nothing in the world could get me to move back there.
Richmond has a cool, funky beat. It’s eccentric and certainly non-conformist. It’s cheap to live here and it has very active and accessible art and music scene.
Do you know any “black” Richmonders? I live in a predominantly black area, and as far as I can tell through conversation with my neighbors, it’s a great place to live. It has been my personal experience that nothing can screw up a neighborhood more than a bunch of “white” transplants offering their judgements on the community without bothering to really get to know the community.
However, I will complain about the lack of good radio, here. But the lack of good radio seems to be a problem everywhere these days. At least we have WRIR.
Edg – i am a transplant. – i’ve only been here a handful of years. I would like to think that no one loves Richmond more than I do (except for maybe Ross) but that only serves to strengthen my resolve to fix what problems we might have here. Really my point was to bring up that, in all seriousness, I talked to tons and tons of people in six weeks traveling the country and a significant amount of them knew Richmond as being a bad city for race relations. Whether we like it or not that is how we are known it seems. Thats just a data point entry from my side. The question really is, aside from anything anyone said to me, is – is that true. Are we a bad city as far as race relations? If we are then I would like to make it part of the public conscious – bc maybe thats not something that everyone thinks about. If we are not then thats great and I’ll be happy to say that those opinions that were expressed to me are skewed and incorrect. As far as my personal opinion, I also live in a predominately black neighborhood and there are certainly issues – crime, education, housing(related to, as you said, “white transplants”) that are problems here that are not as apparent in white neighborhoods. I think its an area that at the very least we certainly could improve – but I could be wrong, or be phrasing things the wrong way. I mean to be as positive as I can about Richmond, I love it here. But being a lifetime member of a community calls for some responsibility and input and I’m just giving my two cents about something I think can be improved upon.
Sorry to lash out at you. I am so tired of Richmond bashing, but you sound like you are trying to be objective.
I am white, too, but I really feel more part of the black neighborhood. My children attend the neighborhood school and play with the kids next door. There are other white families in my neighborhood, but for some reason, you never see them playing in the playground with the other kids. Most attend out of zone or private schools. No other white kids except mine particpate in Richmond Parks and Rec sports leagues.
Yet, these same white families that have virtually no contact with their black neighbors love to make all sorts of judgement calls about them. And, these same white families consider themselves very liberal. But, they do not socialize with their black neighbors.
What are they so scared of? We are all just people.
So, there is a race problem. But it’s not because of our racist past. It’s the hypocritical attitudes of the new white middle class that is taking over the urban neighborhoods. I call them “colonists”, because they want to build their own paradise in the middle of the ghetto and keep all the current residents far away.
We would do better if we would attempt to become part of the community rather than move in and make a stand to exclude the majority of the community. Yes, there is crime, and there is poverty, but most people are just hard-working families who care about their children as much as anyone els.
General “stonewall” Jackson donated 10% of his salary to a school in Lexington Va, to educate black kids, what do you donate money to?
a black guy with short hair raped a white girl on belle island today, i guess this proves theres racism
I mean, MW is on your side. He’s expressing humorous frustration that this is how people view our city.
edg – your input is so valuable and wise. thanks so much for weighing in. I also hate Richmond bashing, i try to be as positive as i can because there are tons of truly wonderful things about the city, truly. i think its important, with a spirit of positivity and hope, for all of us in the community to constructively criticize the city around us. when i die here in 50 years i would prefer it would be a better place than when i came here 6 years ago. thats my goal at least
I have only lived in two cities. When I moved to Cleveland from Richmond, the biggest local issue in Richmond was whether there should be a mural of Robert E Lee on a wall. The biggest local issue in Cleveland was whether the marchers in the KKK march should be allowed to change into their hoods and robes in a public building.
That’s pretty anecdotal, but I don’t think there’s enough racial insensitivity in Richmond for a KKK march, and I can’t imagine Cleveland being sensitive enough to care about a mural on a wall. After five years there and four years back in Richmond, I think the race relations are much better here. But that’s just how I feel.
Give me a chisel, a ladder, and about 13 hours and I’ll turn Jefferson Davis into Tim Barry. We have the Avail thing, let’s run with it.
that sounds fantastic! can we get one of those suckers to be josh small – thats really my dream now that i think about it.
Confederate Trivia:
Do you know why Stonewall Jackson was called “Stonewall”?
There was no act of gallantry nor bravery to which Thomas Jackson was dubbed “Stonewall”. He was narcoleptic and would often fall asleep on the battle field, falsly giving the image of a steadfast commander willing to fight to the death.
I agree, people do know Richmond for its cigarettes and edgy race relations.
Matt, maybe you could just chisel his eyes so they appear closed, at least that would would be historically accurate and the nazi fan district association would keep their mouths closed…I’m just saying