Stepping out of the Boundaries

For years I have been attending numerous concerts; Warped Tour, Florence and the machine, Miike Snow etc and at each of these events, I not only witness breathtaking performances but I also have the pleasure of sticking out like a sore thumb. The color of my skin is what gives me that ability, and although I am not the person to care about something like this, it got me thinking about a deeper issue.

At this point in our generation where everyone can and should be treated as equal and therefore live freely making their own decisions, there is still this lingering idea what each race is expected to listen to, way that they should dress, along with speak and so on. Therefore when people who are for example black don’t fit into those boundaries it is sometimes shocking for others to see.

This means that when one of us are seen singing along to a song by the incredible artist Yeasayer people are so taken a back that they find the need to ask about it as if this person is unaware of who they are singing along to. This also means that buying a ticket to a Bring Me The Horizon concert makes the employee at Ticketmaster laugh. It also means that when I buy a certain album such as The Black Keys, or MGMT, the person working at the store has to take a double take from my face to the album as if I’m crazy. It needs to be understood that there is still some ignorance out there to a certain extent. Ignorance that allows me to be looked at as if I possess a third arm when trying to enjoy myself, singing along to Pierce The Veil.

Not everyone knows that occurrences like these happen all the time, and the people who don’t realize it are the ones who probably have accepted that not all black people are glued to watching Black Entertainment Television 24/7 and that many are exposed to different genres of music that we enjoy.

The thing is, there might not even be a specific way in order to open up other peoples narrow minds but hopefully if they keep witnessing more fans like me in the audience for artists that in their little world is unknown to black people it will become more easy for them to comprehend that Hip Hop and R&B aren’t the only genres on our ipod.