Rock Against Racism and Punk. How Music Stood Up Against Racism in the Britain of the 1970s

Abstract

The 1970s in England was a dark decade which brought discontent to a great part of the English society as inflation, unemployment and the oil crisis scourged the lower classes after the vanishment of post-war prosperity. Along with these examples of economic recession and crisis, England also witnessed the rise and success of the National Front, an extreme-right political party that sided with racism, xenophobia and white supremacy among other principles. Racism was soon to surface in the music industry with the arrival of punk and its use of swastikas and other representations of fascism, even if those fascist symbols were initially used mainly as a desire to shock the audience. The racial tensions in England in the mid-70s, however, were taking their toll and right-wing extremists found in punk a place where they could freely manifest their hatred for non-white individuals. Other artists in the music industry, such as David Bowie or Eric Clapton, also shared racist discourses, which caused the movement Rock Against Racism (RAR) to start up in England with the purpose of using music as a weapon against racism and to raise awareness of the racial problems that were taking place in England at the time.

The aim of this paper is to show how music in the England of the 1970s stood up against racism and the alarming increase of National Front and racism by raising awareness of these problems among the masses, most specially among the younger generations. The paper will also focus on the way punk artists disassociated themselves from their fascist reputation (showing their support to RAR) and on the bonds that were established between the punk and reggae musical styles during this period in order to eliminate racism from the industry.