Riot police have taken to the streets of several cities in
Mexico to ... defend emo kids?
A series of attacks on dyed-hair, eye-makeup-wearing emo kids
began in early March when several hundred people went on an
emo-beating rampage in Querétaro, a town of 1.5 million about 160
miles north of Mexico City.
The next week, shaggy-haired emo teenagers were harassed again
by punks and rockabillys in the capital, prompting police
protection and a segment on the TV news. Most recently, a Mexican
newspaper reported that metal heads and gangsters have warned
Tijuana's emo kids to stay away from the town's fair next
month.
But the so-called emos are organizing, too. Last week, they
demonstrated against the violence, pictured above, and Wednesday
some met with police in Mexico City.
"They're organizing to defend their right to be emo," wrote
Daniel Hernandez of LA Weekly on his personal blog, which
has provided stellar coverage of the whole affair.
Music-based subcultures have permeated Mexico's major cities for
decades, fueled by constant migration from rural cities. But only
in the past year have emos begun to make their presence felt in the
streets. In response, many of the established so-called tribus
urbanas like punks and metalheads are responding with
violence. The emo-punk battles are reminiscent of earlier
subculture fights among various factions, like the Hell's Angels
fighting hippies at the Altamont Music Festival or the Mods taking
on the Rockers.
But while videos of Mexican teenagers with pompadours advancing
on equally baby-faced emo rockers seem like scenes from a
south-of-the-border version of John Waters' Crybaby, there
are ugly undercurrents to the story.
First, by some accounts, the emo subculture is identified with
homosexuality in Mexico. As Mexico City youth worker Victor Mendoza
told Time.com: "At the core of this is the homophobic issue. The
other arguments are just window dressing for that."
Gustavo Arellano, the author of Ask a Mexican and an editor at
OC Weekly, said that the sexual ambiguities cultivated by emo
fashion helped set the group up for targeting by more macho
groups.
"What do you do when you are confronted with a question mark about
sexuality in Mexico?" Arellano said. "You beat it up."
Forum posts show similar sentiments. One person wrote on a
government youth-website forum, "detesto a los emosexuales," which
translates as "I hate emosexuals." Emosexual is an obvious
play on homosexual, especially in Spanish, where the H is
silent.
Many of the attacks have been planned, or at least fomented, on
violently anti-emo websites like Movimiento Anti Emosexual, which
features videos of physical violence sprinkled liberally with
anti-gay sentiment. Last.fm's Anti Emo Death Squad group has almost
4,000 members.
But Arellano said he thought the riots could have a positive
impact here in the US.
"It's a great clusterfuck for the American mind's idea of
Mexico," Arellano said. "This teaches the rest of the world that
Mexico is not just a bunch of cactuses and sombreros."
Photo: Mexican emo kids gather in response to anti-emo violence by
metalheads and punk rockers.
http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/anti-emo-riots.html
