With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?

VICE Defends Reggae To White People Who Don’t Like Reggae

So you’ve decided you don’t like reggae. I can respect this decision. There’s some good thinking involved in this decision. Whenever I talk to a fellow white person who has decided they don’t like reggae, they usually make the following points: 1. I don’t really smoke weed, so it doesn’t really do anything for me; 2. I find it repetitive and unvarying, two qualities I don’t appreciate in music because see point 1; 3. I am white; 4. people who are “really into reggae,” especially white people who are “really into reggae,” are annoying little dipshits, and based on social programming, I wish to avoid being seen as an annoying little dipshit; 5. Bob Marley Legends is the fucking WORST. Actually the title is Legend, but whatever; More after the jump…

There is some pretty indisputable logic going on there. There’s also some fear of the other, but I can be charitable and call it fear of the self in the form of colonial, self-aggrandizing, condescending racism of appropriation that comes from white people overindulging in “multiculturalism.” As far as the cultural achievements of nonwhite people are concerned, white people SHOULD walk a fine line. Appreciate, but don’t exploit. I mention all of this because white people who don’t like reggae, and they are legion, have usually come to this decision after having made another decision: not to investigate reggae. “It’s not for me, best to leave it alone.” That’s not an ignoble sentiment for a white person to have, especially compared to “Wait, what are you people up to? I WANT IN.” Read the rest at VICE.com.

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