Punk rock has Black origins. This reality is on the coronary heart of James Spooner’s 2003 documentary, Afro-Punk, which fostered a world motion of punk youth from Black and minority backgrounds. In Spooner’s graphic memoir, The High Desert: Black. Punk. Nowhere., he recounts his first encounter with Nineties punk tradition in Apple Valley, a dusty, rural city in Southern California. As the angsty biracial skateboarding son of a white single mother, Spooner found that the choice scene could possibly be for youths like him, and this punk group supplied him a refuge from his troubled house life and Apple Valley’s widespread racism.
Although Spooner first noticed punk as a commodified type, amounting to nothing greater than the newest data and edgy leather-based jackets, he got here to acknowledge how this aesthetic functioned as an armor to hide his personal vulnerabilities: “This was more than a haircut; it was a way to take control over the teasing and slurs, all of which I internalized. Punk rock helped to set me apart from all the things I hated.” As Spooner met extra folks from the punk group, his understanding of punk likewise developed in additional productive instructions. He realized that punk doesn’t must be restricted to cynicism, nihilism and self-destructiveness. Rather, the vitality of punk could be directed towards political resistance, group constructing and intersectionality.
Throughout The High Desert, the voice of an older Spooner punctuates the narrative by way of analeptic black textual content packing containers, providing historic context and a complicated political perspective (which Spooner’s youthful self lacks) whereas acknowledging the authenticity of his teenage self’s frustration and isolation. Characters’ racist language isn’t censored; as an alternative, Spooner’s older voice feedback on it, imbuing The High Desert with vital self-critical realism.
The High Desert reclaims punk on behalf of Blackness and does so with electrical type. Lyrics intermittently zigzag throughout the panels, the background is all the time dynamic with life, and the characters’ facial expressions are riven with wrinkles, frowns and shadows. Spooner’s unorthodox coming-of-age story is a visible and musical achievement.
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