ALTERNATIVE ABUSE

Rip It Up, Issue 225, 1 May 1996, Page 9

ALTERNATIVE ABUSE

I live in South Auckland, and I am alternative and extremely proud of the music I listen to and the way I dress. Being a resident of South Auckland, I live amongst many people that are into ‘black’ music, and I accept I am in the minority. I am not against them listening to their choice of music, but I am against them not being able to accept me and my friends for who we are, and that we are into different music. My friends and I can’t even walk the streets without groups of homeys yelling out threats such as: “Hey, freaks, put on some proper clothes or you’ll get your heads smacked in.”,

It is not just in South Auckland we get this crap either. We go into Central Auckland quite a lot, hoping to escape from constantly getting abused. Sadly, most the time we get it there too. I am so sick of it!

I have also been told in the past to listen to ‘proper’ music. There is no such thing as ‘proper’ music. Your music taste is determined by who you are and what you enjoy. Not one person has exactly the same music tastes, and I think people need to accept that. What has happened to our teenage society? Can’t ‘black’ people just accept that people can be different and not deserve verbal or physical abuse? In Auckland there is such a stereotype on what kind of person you should be. I think that is totally wrong. Be your own person and don’t follow the crowd. And to all you ‘hip-hoppers’, just accept that there are alternative people out there ,and live with the fact they are never going to change. Melissa, Papatoetoe. PS: I am not against the colour of these people’s skins, but the way they act towards ‘different’ people. Not all blacks are like this either, just the ones with the attitude I am writing about.