Up Front by Emma Hart

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Up Front: White in Brighton

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  • Michael Stevens,

    Yes, thank you, such a deserved filleting. Young and dumb, but taking pride in being "White".
    Nauseating. Where do we contribute to the shock collar fund?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 230 posts Report Reply

  • richard,

    What is about "White Pride" advocates that always makes you think that if these sad clowns really are the ubermensch, then the world is very likely headed to hell in a handbasket.

    Not looking for New Engla… • Since Nov 2006 • 268 posts Report Reply

  • James Butler,

    If a European youth was found vandalising property: "We'd probably say `Hey, what are you doing? That's not really the white way'."

    I'm waiting for them to try this, and see where it gets them. I'm also imagining them seeing a PI youth vandalising property and saying "Goodo, carry on son, that's the brown way".

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report Reply

  • Just thinking,

    I think I've seen these patrols. It consisted of one skinny angry bonehead wearing black and walking his dog around Riccarton & Hagley Park. This was about 2years ago or more.

    He moved with purpose and meanace.

    This was the reason I wasn't allowed to put political placards on my front lawn during elections. A bit of self sensorship or descretion and the welfare of the kids need to be taken into account.

    I find it interesting Kyle Chapman has moved into being a Mormon. I'm pretty sure they have a survivalist attitude, probably born of the deprevation that comes from a bad harvest in a fronteer existence.
    Still guns and food stockpiles are within the Mormon religion.

    The guy apparently leaves the NF behind and becomes a Mormon and so none of his family attend the wedding. Now that's strange.

    Putaringamotu • Since Apr 2009 • 1158 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    The weird thing is, I can recall a time when it was Auckland, not Christchurch, that had the skinhead types.

    We had loads of white trash there, but they all had shaggy 'dos.

    Also: New Brighton is quite strange. I had a great afternoon there with a friend recently, but some of those streets look kinda ... unloved. With all the mortgagee sales on the go, I couldn't see why bohemians weren't descending on the place for the super-cheap housing. But they're not.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Barnes,

    If a European youth was found vandalising property: "We'd probably say `Hey, what are you doing? That's not really the white way'."

    Budding property developer maybe?
    I suppose it's all white if the vandalising makes a profit.

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report Reply

  • James Butler,

    Budding property developer

    I always laugh when someone uses that phrase, as if there are some kinds of people who can only reproduce asexually.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2009 • 856 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    I suppose it's all white if the vandalising makes a profit.

    This is Christchurch. If it doesn't, the council will bail you out anyway.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Andrew Stevenson,

    Ooh ooh, I know this one. Its sarcasm isn't it?

    Looks like Emma is on form

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 206 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    Still, according to Bob Parker, you don't exist. How does that make you feel?

    Not quite. According to Parker, these geese are "Well-meaning amateurs" who could easily become "loose cannons". Well-meaning - what mealy-mouthed rubbish. Let's not forget that the party at Edgeware Road in May of 2007, which lead to the deaths of two high school students and injury to others, was run by white supremacists. A deliberately provocative sign at the gate telling non-whites to stay out was no more well-intentioned than the current pin-headed nonsense that Parker's attempting to play down.

    New Brighton is quite strange. I had a great afternoon there with a friend recently, but some of those streets look kinda ... unloved. With all the mortgagee sales on the go, I couldn't see why bohemians weren't descending on the place for the super-cheap housing. But they're not.

    I've not lived here long enough to understand why, in contrast to most towns, Christchurch's residential desirability is kind of arse-about, with most low-lying waterfront areas being relegated to the proles. When you ask why, people look resigned and mutter about the easterly.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • Kumara Republic,

    Do these fellas fall under the Gang Patch Bill? Or does it only apply if there's a test involving a brown paper bag?

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report Reply

  • Caleb D'Anvers,

    Your capacity for self-deception, too, is simply fascinating. You said, didn’t you, that:

    If a European youth was found vandalising property: "We'd probably say `Hey, what are you doing? That's not really the white way'."

    Now, you know that’s total bullshit, really, don’t you? The first time I read that, I thought it was some kind of performance art. Do you actually think all the vandalism in ‘white’ suburbs is done by ‘brown kids’ driving down the Crime Motorway?

    Well, there's that, but I take it that they're probably even more afraid of white kids aping teh "black" ways, i.e. getting all jiggy with hip-hop culture. I mean, wasn't this fear of cultural miscegenation a big part of the original, punk-inflected white pride movement in the late '70s? The sense that the one thing worse than a brown kid sporting an afro and saying "I love jah" was a white kid doing the same? Hence the need to create a form of music with all the "black" elements systematically excluded, which is what punk originally was?

    So, I get the sense that the boneheads know that it's white kids providing the majority of the graf in New Brighton, and that's why it's so scary -- spiritual and cultural, rather than just physical, infiltration by the Other.

    London SE16 • Since Mar 2008 • 482 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    Christchurch's residential desirability is kind of arse-about, with most low-lying waterfront areas being relegated to the proles

    We were on to that whole global warming thing first.

    According to Parker...

    His remarks are prefaced by: "I would be disturbed to find out that we had a vigilante approach to security going on."

    So, I get the sense that the boneheads know that it's white kids providing the majority of the graf in New Brighton, and that's why it's so scary -- spiritual and cultural, rather than just physical, infiltration by the Other.

    Ah, it's the coloured paint, isn't it?

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    His remarks are prefaced by: "I would be disturbed to find out that we had a vigilante approach to security going on."

    Just as he'd presumably be hypothetically disturbed to discover that Dave "Seventeen Million Dollar Man" Henderson might just be a raving shonk. When you're Bob, the bleeding obvious penetrates at a glacial pace.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • Rich of Observationz,

    Kyle Chapman has moved into being a Mormon

    Mormons regard Polynesians as being amongst the alleged Chosen. I wonder how that sits with Kyle. Keeping track of who is and isn't an ubermensch must be quite hard these days..

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report Reply

  • Keir Leslie,

    Well, there's that, but I take it that they're probably even more afraid of white kids aping teh "black" ways, i.e. getting all jiggy with hip-hop culture. I mean, wasn't this fear of cultural miscegenation a big part of the original, punk-inflected white pride movement in the late '70s? The sense that the one thing worse than a brown kid sporting an afro and saying "I love jah" was a white kid doing the same? Hence the need to create a form of music with all the "black" elements systematically excluded, which is what punk originally was?

    Jah Wobble would be rather surprised to hear that.

    (In fact punk was music with all the black elements put back in, going back to real rock music before white American suburbia fucked it all up. Or at least that's the narrative and I really rather think it's much closer to the truth than `punk = white music'.)

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Islander,

    I partly grew up in North New Brighton. My father was born in South Brighton. New Brighton was the next-best-thing to the city - better even, because the shops opened on Saturdays (when almost nowhere else in the country did.) And it used to be (we *are* talking half a century ago) a thriving really go-ahead kind of a place (my father was president of both the NB Buisnessmen's Association and the NB Workingman's Club at one & the same time, and they were, in a microcosmic way, quite powerful & driving networks.)

    The last time I visited New Brighton I expected tumbleweeds to be blowing down the main drag...it had turned into just the kind of place a loser would try to make a name for himself.

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Idiot Savant,

    Mormons regard Polynesians as being amongst the alleged Chosen. I wonder how that sits with Kyle.

    However it sits with him, his return to racism doesn't sit well with his (soon to be ex-) wife.

    Girls just don't like racists, it seems.

    Palmerston North • Since Nov 2006 • 1717 posts Report Reply

  • Caleb D'Anvers,

    (In fact punk was music with all the black elements put back in, going back to real rock music before white American suburbia fucked it all up. Or at least that's the narrative and I really rather think it's much closer to the truth than `punk = white music'.)

    Well, yeah, that's one narrative, I guess. But a significant part of the aesthetics of punk, especially in the UK in the late '70s, was amping up and accentuating the whiteness of the performers. Take a look at the self-presentation of the Sex Pistols, for instance. Where are the "black elements" in that? The Sex Pistols were part of a reaction to something -- mainstream '70s rock acts who derived their faux-sexuality and sense of implied menace from an appropriation of black personae, in fashion, hair, vocal stylings, and mannerisms. The punk critique involved a deliberate disavowal of what was seen as the self-serving fakeness of this form of racialised cultural appropriation.

    So, while I'm certainly not claiming that punk can be reduced to the music of the "white pride" movement, the self-conscious "Whiteness" of the punk performer, and the punk guitarist's self-conscious abnegation of "black" or funk elements in favour of "white noise," aren't things you can just dismiss. They're kind of central.

    London SE16 • Since Mar 2008 • 482 posts Report Reply

  • Just thinking,

    I recon the John Lyndon and Kele Okereke incident put a bit of reality into the punks were hardcore hippies line, popular with Richard Branson et al.

    Putaringamotu • Since Apr 2009 • 1158 posts Report Reply

  • JackElder,

    Derail: one of the catchphrases of racist skinheads in the UK used to be "There ain't no black in the Union Jack!". But that's just because the union flag is s a merging of the flags of England, Scotland, and Wales. If they'd thought to include Cornwall, there would indeed have been black in the Union Jack.

    As you were.

    Wellington • Since Mar 2008 • 709 posts Report Reply

  • Sam F,

    My absolute favourite bit:

    And these ‘sporadic patrols’ of yours. Let me guess. You have a few mates round, drink a few beers, shout at each other about coconuts, and then somebody says, “HEY! Let’s go on, y’know, patrol-thing!” And you stumble around a few blocks scaring old ladies until you get tired and go home. Alone, because you’ve been wearing the same matted black fisherman’s rib jersey since 1987 and no woman will go near you. No, you prefer to hang out with ‘the boys’. Have you considered… no, perhaps we’ll leave that for another session.

    This is precisely how it will have been going down. Magnificent piece Emma, thank you.

    Also, of possible interest: the pisstake blogsite of the National Frunt.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1611 posts Report Reply

  • Just thinking,

    Wales isn't on the Union Jack, Ireland is with the St Patricks cross, but of course St Patrick doesn't have a cross.
    Dan Brown there is a bad movie in this.

    Putaringamotu • Since Apr 2009 • 1158 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Barnes,

    We are not Mensch, We are Devo?
    New Brighton is not a patch on the old one. Big, brassy and gay as they come and you call that a pier Mr. Parker?
    I'm sure Mr Chapman has the best of intentions, if the best he can do is strut around like a peacock and display an intellect of something less pretty.
    I just can't see what people see in Christchurch, it just seems so, so... so?...

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    better even, because the shops opened on Saturdays

    My father briefly lived in New Brighton during this period, I think in a halfway house after he came out of Sunnyside. I remember it as a bright vibrant shopping area, where you could get Blue Lagoon ice-cream from a little parlour upstairs that had an unthinkable number of flavours - like, more than twenty.

    I've been out there a couple of times as an adult for events, but going to anything major becomes a nightmare given the utterly bizarre traffic access to the beachfront area. And yes, that shopping area is now uncomfortably ghost-towny.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

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