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"Race, Class, Electronic Music and Unitarian Universalism" by Colin Bossen
| "All I can hope is that music from our label can without words or explanations knock down all the barriers (racial, economic, religious, etc) that the programmers have cleverly set before us in order to keep us from understanding that categories and definitions separate and with separation comes explotation and profit!...WE are all tribal people but some of us have strayed away from the talk of the drum and they talk with words and languages that mean nothing!" |
About two months ago I went back to Michigan for the Detroit Electronic Music Festival. The DEMF was a free three-day event held in downtown Detroit to celebrate techno, the electronic dance music that began there almost 20 years ago. This year, the first year of the festival, almost 1 million people from as far away as Japan attended.
I started listening to techno when I was 16. A friend of mine discovered raves, all night illegal dance parties, and convinced me to attend one with him. We arrived at the rave at about midnight. We had been wandering around downtown Detroit for a couple of hours looking for the space. The party, when we finally found it, was being held in an abandoned churhc in a marginal neighborhood. I remember that the wall were covered with intricate murals full of Christian iconography. When I stepped inside the music, the lights and the crowd overwhelmed me.
The music was all eccompassing, fast, furious, funk, a queer mixture of pounding bass and off tempo dissident sounds. The lights were minimal, just enough to see the outline of person writhing next to you. And the crow, the crowd was something else.
The people at the party formed the most diverse body I had ever seen. There were whites, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, queers, straights, squares, hipsters, men, women, rich people, poor people all getting down to the same groove. It was incredible an dit was happening in one of the most racially divided cities in the country. That night I had what some people might describe as a conversion experience. I was a believer in the power of techno to bring people together.
I spent the next several years heavily involved in the scene. I threw parties in Michigan, Ohio and California. As my involvement in the scene increased I started to develop a jaded attitude. Many of my friends became deeply involved with drugs. Parties got whiter, less urban and more expensive. I began to lose faith. This year at the DEMF I experienced a renewal.
One of the people I saw at the festival was ed luna, the spokesperson for the now defunct ele_mental collective (based in Columbus, Ohio). Ed had been one of my mentors, he taught me a lot about techno culture, urban art, Marxist and libertarian (anarchist) politics and how they all intersect. Since I had last seen him ed had gone through a deep depression. His mother had died and the project that he had been working on for hte past seven years had collapsed. He was now involved with another project (Fire Exit) and was starting to work his way out of depression.
The DEMF amazed both of us. It was by far the most integrated, positive event that either of us had ever attended. Not only were there people of all races and classes present, there were people of all ages there as well. We saw 7 year olds dancing next to 70 year olds. The most impressive thing was how well everyone got along. Every time I looked up I saw someone smiling at me.
In the midst of all this dancing ed and I had a serious conversation about techno culture. We were curious about hwo the DEMF had managed to appeal to such a diverse crowd. We decided that the DEMF succeeded in attracting a multi-cultural, multi-generational, cross-class crowd for several reasons. The primary one was that the promoters keep race and class firmly in mind while planning the event but never mention it explicitly. The fact that they were trying to create an environment where people could relate to each other on a human level was apparent through their actions rather than their words.
There were no barriers to attending the event. Simply put, it could attract a diverse crowd because it was free, easy to get to by public transit and centrally located. You didn't have to own a car to attend the DEMF, you could take a bus there if you wanted to. Since the DEMF was free there was no financial barrier to attend. The event was held in a public space in a very multicultural area. The promoters went to the people they were trying to attract, they didn't expect those people to come to them.
The event had an attractive central ritual. People attended the DEMF to dance and listen to music. They were there primarily to have fun. Anyone who showed up could dance and listen to music. In fact, everyone was encouraged to do this, encouraged to participate.
The community that surrounded the event was accessible on multiple levels. Within the techno scene there is, quite literally, something for everyone. If you are of an artistic bent you can create flyers, decorate spaces or learn to DJ/make music. If you have an organizational mind you can throw parties. If you are an intellectual you can write for a magazine. If you are of a social nature you can build community. And if you just want to show up and dance, you can do that too.
Unitarian Universalists could learn a lot from rave promoters when trying to make our events more attractive to a multi-cultural community. We claim to be concerned about making our events inclusive yet often we fail to design them so that ethnic minorities and working class people can feel comfortable participating in them. We want to be open to all seekers and create a community in which all people - regardless of ethnic identity, sex, class, sexual orientation, creed or age - fell welcome. If we are going to do this we need to develop a better understanding of how to create this sort of environment.
As UUs we've never been afraid to learn from other traditions. I suggest that we learn from the DEMF and the rave scene. In the future, when planning our events we should ask the following questions:
Colin Bossen is the co-chair of PCD-UUYAN and active in the SF-UUYAN chapter. Formerly a YRUU Youth Council Representative form Michigan, Colin has brough amazing clarity and depth to our community organizing potential in C*UUYAN. Colin has strong links to the International Workers of the World and is an amazing cook (he showed off his love of food at WestCon 2000). He has beena key coordinator behind the recent "Creating Sacred Space" worship training in PCD as well as bringing the Bridging Ceremony to PCD District Assembly.