Rock against Racism....or whatever?

For my free topic I decided to analyze this years Rock against Racism event on the Old Main Quad. Last Sunday the event took place from around noon to ten with live music, speakers, vendors, and food. This is the 8^th RAR and I decided to write this story because I was surprised about some of the performers and the overall event. I love the event, but I question the progress of it. This year’s musical performers really seemed to show up empty in terms of “rocking against racism”. Last year Immortal Technique headlined and to me, was a good headliner for an event such as this because, as some of us may know, Technique is very up on his politics and well educated about racial fault lines. Bassnectar, an electranica DJ from San Fran had little to say about why he was doing this event. At one point he said he wanted to “shoot Dick Cheney”, but gave no educated reason behind it or how that would solve any issues of racism. Guest speakers could not be heard well and they were the only people talking about anything relevant to the events theme! If you want to rock against racism, then do it productively! This years RAR didn’t really seem to do that though, but it did make for a good story!