“I am so goth, I was born black.”
Clockwise: Ms. Sally Bonetta Forbes, Cathleen Naundorf, Untitled (check out the rest of the “gothic lolita” tag as well), Roni Zulu
While there’s still never been a black model on the cover of Gothic Beauty Magazine (in fact, having looked the past twelve years of covers up close, it’s clear that even models with brown eyes appear to be a rarity among the blue- and green-eyed cover ladies), and while most spooky fashion designers still prefer white models for their branding, a host of blogs dedicated to multicultural dark fashion are bringing greater visibility to the people that these venues ignore. Just on Tumblr, there’s Darque & Lovely, DarkSKIN (subtitled “I was so goth, I was born black), and Black Sheep Goths. On Facebook, groups such as Black/African American Goths foster lively discussion.
Of the Tumblr communities, Black Sheep focuses most specifically on people who are othered (providing a platform for “queer/fat/trans/non-binary/disabled/POC” goths), while DarkSKIN delves most deeply into different time periods (from Victorian photographs to seventies album covers to a friend’s most recently-uploaded snapshots), pop culture personalities taking a turn for the macabre (from Eartha Kitt singing “I want to be evil” to Aaliyah playing a sultry Anne Rice vampire) and media (from high-end fashion shoots to grainy self-portraits)
Many of the images come with empowering and, at times, defensive captions. It seems that even in 2012, some try to claim that the goth scene belongs to white people only. One caption on the Darque & Lovely blog, below an image of tattoo artist Roni Zulu, reads: “this is for the chicken-shit anon who said black people shouldn’t ‘do’ goth or punk. At certain points in history to be black in America was (still can be) a pretty gothic experience, to say the least.”
Clockwise: Asha Beta/Silentinfinite collaboration, Neon Leon, photo by Mert and Marcus, Actress Vonetta McGee as Princess Luva in Blacula, photo copyright Everett Collection / Rex Features
Is the goth scene unfriendly to people with dark skin? What do non-white goths think about the fetishization of paleness in the gothic subculture?
“The only time I experienced anything racial in the scene was at Death Guild [a San Francisco goth night],” says Shamika “Meeks” Baker, a San Francisco-based writer, artist and model. “A guy walked up to me, shouted ‘scuse me!’ and shoved me aside. Of couse, when I grabbed the back of his Fun Fur coat and yanked him back to demand an apology, he started screaming ‘get your black hands off of me!’ Happily, after I finished scaring him and turned around, I discovered several of my friends behind me and ready to back me up. [Other than that incident], I’ve found that the goth scene has been really welcoming and open.”
“For me, the fetishization of paleness in beauty in general is very much a class issue as opposed to straight race,” says New York-based artist/maker Numidas Prasarn. “The ‘ideal gothic beauty’ of being pale comes from this sense of otherness. When mainstream de mode is tanned beach babe, the pale contrast is taken up as the signifier of an Other that defensively puffs itself up. The problem is that it’s a microcosm that doesn’t necessary carry the sense of self-awareness to realize that it’s also othering people.”
Clockwise: Amanda Tea, Barron Claiborne, Leif Podhajsky, Unknown from Burning Man by Iñaki Vinaixa
Asha Beta, a sculptor, jewelry designer and musician currently living in Prescott, Arizona, comments on her invisibility within a community that borrows aesthetics from her cultural heritage:
The “traditional” ideal of the scene as the pale-faced, black-clad individual definitely never applied to me, but because of my instant and deep connection and attraction to the music and atmosphere of the scene I had to set that aside. I always felt that I was not perceived to be as attractive, as beautiful or even as “goth” as girls who were paler than me. I never attracted many suitors and I reconciled myself to never being able to approach the “gothic ideal of beauty” very early on, although I felt within myself that my personal way of being “goth” was very sincere and creative and very much true to what “goth” was all about. The one part of the scene that obviously made me uncomfortable was the military/Nazi/Aryan faction of it, although I understand that for many of those people it was a fetish or history obsession type of thing, and not necessarily based in racism.
Many of the aesthetics of goth culture are taken from my cultural heritage (Asian/East Indian/Middle Eastern, African/Egyptian/Voodoo/Haitian-Caribbean) so I still felt and feel strongly that my connection to it is natural and instinctive and powerful. It was achingly difficult to be a minority within the subculture I deeply loved because it’s within these that we find acceptance and understanding where the larger society rejects us. I was a loner within the scene just as I was in society. I found a personal solace and creative outlet, but I never found the community I was searching for. I am overjoyed to finally see our subcultures mirroring the multicultural quality of our world, and so glad to see the younger generations of subcultures finding and creating communities to connect with and support one another.
Meeks Baker agrees. “I love that more emerging blogs/sites focus on us dark-skinned gothy types. To be honest, I never really cared much for gothic beauty magazines because they didn’t really reflect my aesthetic, but I did still feel marginalized. To this day I am thrilled to see ethnic diversity represented in alternative culture.”
January 4th, 2013 at 1:15 pm
Oof. Shata, just an FYI… I fear you have missed the point/points of this article entirely (as well as the gist of Coilhouse more generally). Nonetheless, good luck right back atchyer.
April 13th, 2013 at 2:41 am
I’m an Asian goth (well, half asian), and I have never had a problem with goths about my skin colour or heritage. Normal people, yes, plenty of problems, but not goths.
It might help that I live in the UK where there is a reasonably decent level of cultural mixing that encourages contact between different peoples and reduces the sense of ‘other’ that you get in more socially divided nations.
Also, if it had been a problem, my band wouldn’t have been as successful as it was (not very, but we did well enough) and I wouldn’t be asked to DJ regularly at goth clubs.
April 22nd, 2013 at 1:14 pm
“We should also talk about how incredibly expensive it is to dress-for-acceptance in the Goth/Industrial scene. I feel like Goth has become a haven for petulant, entitled, well-to-do marionettes who think they are hiding their disdain for the rest of us under the guise of a subculture. I find that Goth has become a hang out for those of the “1%” who would like to flirt with “danger” until they “grow up”.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself. This right here summed up pretty much everything here.
As a woman of color who got into “goth” first in middle school as a misinformed baby bat, the only issues I got were from non-goths. I was made fun of for my skin color, a honey-caramel. Not quite dark enough. Not quite light enough. As I grew up and went to goth stores events in NYC etc, I was accepted VERY readily, and attracted almost exclusively white goth and punk guys, interestingly enough. No problems from the actual people. Again, the only issues I got were from non-goths who either knew about the subculture and various related underground subcultures, or people who hung around and were simply racist or fetishized women of color as nymphomaniacs or pieces of meat to try out.
I don’t mind the Nazi-esque imagery, or the emphasis on Aryan-ness as long as it doesn’t begin to become actual fascism. In fact, I am violently attracted to a German goth with a Nazi-esque look, as long as he doesn’t actually follow Nazism. As for Gothic Beauty Magazine, it could be a little stereotypical. I’m not into witch stuff and I’d see some of that in the back where they review books. Race is not as big an issue as belief or religion within the goth community. There is MUCH more hate towards having an individual choice in religion, and a pressure to shock the squares or embrace stereotypes as petty immature revenge for being rejected by ignorant fundamentalists.
I think Jesus would have been the first to talk to the lonely goth kid reading on the staircase during lunch time at school :)
Anyway, I think goths/punks/etc of all colors can be beautiful. What actually matters is a common interest in fashion, music, architecture, literature etc. Although I have somewhat grown out of strict goth-ness (I used to ignorantly whine about the baby-bats who were just like me in middle school too) and now dress more like an alien on acid, but I’ll always have a thing for goth, and I’ll always gladly go to an industrial/EBM club, or 80s night, with The Cure, or Siouxsie or Skinny Puppy playing ;)
May 30th, 2013 at 9:41 am
Came across the link, just wanted to applaud all those who support the Goth community, regardless of how much melanin naturally occurs.
I actually had a discussion the other day with a dear friend, who said she couldn’t consider herself Goth because she tans too easily (she has beautiful olive skin, thick ultra-dark brown hair and sparkling brown eyes.) I told her she can be Goth if she wanted to, and foo to anyone who says different. Then proceeded to tell her about the lovely Lolita I met at Disneyland who sported a beautiful violet dress to complement her dark complexion.
And for extra giggles, I provide this (book) character information. Please view the illustration: http://seananmcguire.com/fgwaheela.php
May 31st, 2013 at 6:45 am
[…] mal, was Coilhouse mit diesem funky Html-Layer-Stuff (wie heißt das genau?) macht. […]