Teen Gothic

I think that a lot of people truly downplay the impact of racism in the goth scene.

It's definitely there. If it's not evident by the fact that a lot of non-white people come into our subreddit and post questions like "is goth for white people only?" or "can I go to a goth event if I'm not white?", then I don't understand how much clearer I can make it for you.

Perhaps it's never even crossed your mind if you're a white person in the scene because it's just not something that you've ever had to consider.

As a POC goth myself, I've experienced some racism from the online community– after a few of my Instagram posts gained some traction, I received a comment from an individual stating "White people thing only, stop embarrassing yourself" in reference to the clothes and makeup that I was wearing. He then proceeded to call me a "dirty filthy black".

Not long before this, I stumbled on a comment about the goth subculture that stated "Maybe white people are so gatekeepy about the goth term because they have no ethnic culture". Time and time again, I've encountered plenty of people who either believe that goth is only for white people, forget that black people can also be goths, or legitimately ignore and exclude them altogether.

And can you blame them when a majority of our "goth icons" are pretty much all white? When you can listen to a popular goth song and hear a white man say the n-word? I mean, sure, you can talk about this idea that goth is supposed to be controversial, but I don't think that the point of "controversy" and "satire" are supposed to be about punching down. You're supposed to say "screw the man", not join the man in the same exact oppressive behavior.

If we want to encourage more POC to join this scene and we want them to stop asking questions about whether goth is race-related, maybe we should make more of an effort to make it blatantly obvious that POC are welcome and racists are actively shunned.