THE FIRST GREAT EMO WARS

The emo people are being persecuted worldwide (don't laugh) even in the Philippines. Their lifestyle, clothing and music are being challenged by some bigots who have mental problems. You can see that in every comment box of every emo band in Youtube. Though largely ignored and dismissed this hatred has sprung in the most outrageous manner in Mexico! Punks and metal heads are the main culprits. The news is so unreal. At first I thought it was a joke but the video proved it wasn’t.
Unfortunately, the main reason for this anti-emo feeling is homosexuality. Most Mexicans identify emo subculture to homosexuality! Talk about the dangerous mixture of hatred and ignorance! Read on:

Riot police have taken to the streets of several cities in Mexico to ... defend emo kids?

A series of attacks on dyed-hair, eye-makeup-wearing emo kids began in early March when several hundred people went on an emo-beating rampage in Querétaro, a town of 1.5 million about 160 miles north of Mexico City.

The next week, shaggy-haired emo teenagers were harassed again by punks and rockabillys in the capital, prompting police protection and a segment on the TV news. Most recently, a Mexican newspaper reported that metal heads and gangsters have warned Tijuana's emo kids to stay away from the town's fair next month.

But the so-called emos are organizing, too. Last week, they demonstrated against the violence, pictured above, and Wednesday some met with police in Mexico City.

"They're organizing to defend their right to be emo," wrote Daniel Hernandez of LA Weekly on his personal blog, which has provided stellar coverage of the whole affair.

Music-based subcultures have permeated Mexico's major cities for decades, fueled by constant migration from rural cities. But only in the past year have emos begun to make their presence felt in the streets. In response, many of the established so-called tribus urbanas like punks and metalheads are responding with violence. The emo-punk battles are reminiscent of earlier subculture fights among various factions, like the Hell's Angels fighting hippies at the Altamont Music Festival or the Mods taking on the Rockers.

But while videos of Mexican teenagers with pompadours advancing on equally baby-faced emo rockers seem like scenes from a south-of-the-border version of John Waters' Crybaby, there are ugly undercurrents to the story.

First, by some accounts, the emo subculture is identified with homosexuality in Mexico. As Mexico City youth worker Victor Mendoza told Time.com: "At the core of this is the homophobic issue. The other arguments are just window dressing for that."

Gustavo Arellano, the author of Ask a Mexican and an editor at OC Weekly, said that the sexual ambiguities cultivated by emo fashion helped set the group up for targeting by more macho groups.

"What do you do when you are confronted with a question mark about sexuality in Mexico?" Arellano said. "You beat it up."

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/anti-emo-riots.html

Whatever happened to respect in Mexico? The problem with some people is that they generalized all emos as homos. This happens when hate is being tolerated. Any signs of hatred should be crushed as early as possible.

COPIED EMO-TIONS

I saw this report on Kapuso Mo Jessica Soho about Filipino Emo. Emo is from the word Emotional Hardcore – a form of rock that derives its power from extreme emotions usually sadness, disappointment, and lust (marketed as love). Pinoy Emo lovers are literal carbon copy of their Western counterparts. Some even go as far as to cut themselves (encouraged by the music). What a sad development! I listen to emo but I have no plans of hurting myself or copying the lifestyle – there is a limit to my admiration. I don’t take the music seriously as this comes from rich white kids with nothing better to do. Let me remind you they are the offspring of a people that routinely insults us in their TV shows. They are definitely not fooling me with their pseudo-rebellion. Please don’t swallow everything whole – think about it. Have the right perspective - our color is brown and we live in third world country not USA.

To get a proper perspective of our standing in the world, please listen to other forms of music esp. to Filipino-American hip-hop music, which they sing about racial discrimination, our people’s struggle and FILIPINO PRIDE. Do not get caught in issues not our own. The last things we need are Filipinos with alien perspective: physically Filipino, emotionally and mentally white. In the past, I thought hip-hop is the most foreign American cultural import to reach our shores but Fil-Ams like Apl.de.ap and MC Aero (local MC) showed me that convergence of hip-hop with nationalism and ethnic pride is possible. Taking a Western cultural import molding it according to our needs and temperament and finally producing a form, very much our own should be our goal always – e.g. the Puerto Ricans did it with their Reggaeton. Although we haven’t done something of that magnitude yet it would come soon and it would be a victory against massive Westernization.