Imagine going to a gig, festival or club and being quizzed on how well you know the performers’ music. Imagine being condescended to and treated as if you don’t deserve to be there. Imagine feeling sick from being intimidated, isolated and subject to suspicion about your intentions at the event. Imagine feeling physically unsafe when you’ve gone to watch your favourite artist.
Every person of colour, every woman, transgender, non-binary and queer person, knows exactly what this is like: the assumption that because you’re not the default white male fan, you must be some sort of cultural interloper at a music event. In 2008, the so-called risk-assessment Form 696 formalised racial profiling of music events in London; even though it was officially scrapped in 2017, discrimination against fans of colour still continues: global majority music fans attending indie, rock or metal gigs – anything but rap or R&B – are often greeted with surprise or worse. Women are asked to prove their knowledge of an act to demonstrate their right to be there; worse, sexually assaulted. Societal violence against LGBTQ+ and gender non-conforming people doesn’t simply cease when you walk past the box office.
