The following is a letter I sent to the Melody Maker back in 1993. It was published as "Letter of the Week" in the 23rd of October issue of the renowned music paper, which was then fast succumbing to misandria and political correctness. The MM folded in 2000, when some of its staff were taken on by the equally vile NME.
There's a horrible Balkanization creeping into your organ. It goes something like this:
"As for gender politics - well Billy's just as entitled to comment on femininity as Kurt Cobain - both of them have dicks, after all" (Cathi Unsworth, Smashing Pumpkins review, 2/10/93).
"I tend to think that men discussing feminism always has something of a Black And White Minstrel Show feel to it” (Taylor Parkes, Backlash, 2/10/93).
The logic of this is that all comments about girls should be made by girls, and all comments about men by men, and so on ad infinitum, breaking down into race, region, age, animal, vegetable, mineral. What right has Peter Paphides to comment on the music scene north of the border? Surely he can't be Scottish with a name like that!!! Etc., etc..
This attitude forgets one big thing thing –intelligence! An intelligent comment about femininity or blackness by a white male is worth much more than a stupid comment by someone who supposedly really knows because they live it. "You wouldn't understand it's a black thing," goes the T-shirt slogan.
All this produces is ghettoism and alienation. Political Correctness creates more bigotry than it solves. Of course the ironic-as-hell reason PC is making such headway is because it is a cultural and moral weapon employed by mainly white, educated middle-class interests (e.g: those students who want to cancel out the moral debt they owe the well-off parents who subsidise them). I don't mind this so much, but what I do hate is the fact that this attitude puts more emphasis on who's speaking than on what's being said – a form of censorship surely.
Colin Liddell
Melody Maker
23rd October, 1993
There's a horrible Balkanization creeping into your organ. It goes something like this:
"As for gender politics - well Billy's just as entitled to comment on femininity as Kurt Cobain - both of them have dicks, after all" (Cathi Unsworth, Smashing Pumpkins review, 2/10/93).
"I tend to think that men discussing feminism always has something of a Black And White Minstrel Show feel to it” (Taylor Parkes, Backlash, 2/10/93).
The logic of this is that all comments about girls should be made by girls, and all comments about men by men, and so on ad infinitum, breaking down into race, region, age, animal, vegetable, mineral. What right has Peter Paphides to comment on the music scene north of the border? Surely he can't be Scottish with a name like that!!! Etc., etc..
This attitude forgets one big thing thing –intelligence! An intelligent comment about femininity or blackness by a white male is worth much more than a stupid comment by someone who supposedly really knows because they live it. "You wouldn't understand it's a black thing," goes the T-shirt slogan.
All this produces is ghettoism and alienation. Political Correctness creates more bigotry than it solves. Of course the ironic-as-hell reason PC is making such headway is because it is a cultural and moral weapon employed by mainly white, educated middle-class interests (e.g: those students who want to cancel out the moral debt they owe the well-off parents who subsidise them). I don't mind this so much, but what I do hate is the fact that this attitude puts more emphasis on who's speaking than on what's being said – a form of censorship surely.
Colin Liddell
Melody Maker
23rd October, 1993
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