Town Returns Funds Used To "Combat Goth Culture"

[matcom]

<snip>

The Goth grant is over.

Goth acceptance and tolerance is now in.

Two years ago, Blue Springs got word the Youth Outreach Unit received $273,000 to "combat" the Goth culture, and emotions flew. Blue Springs received national attention, and local youth who dressed in Goth-like clothing worried about being singled out.

Vanessa Fosburgh, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt with a vivid tattoo creeping up her arm, used to be Goth.

"It's just a phase thing," Fosburgh said. "I don't know many people who stay with it past their 20s."

U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-6th, helped secure the grant back in 2002, and both the city and Graves' office trumpeted the news proudly in press releases.

http://www.examiner.net/stories/052004/new_052004016.sh...

[Loonman]

1. Damn media

More fallout from the media putting it's hooks into a subset of folks that are not even associated with each other.


It's not a movement, a cult or a lifestyle.

Goddamn media......

[Beware the Beast Man]

2. It's a damn shame that we can't fight off that Goth culture-

As you know, If you let the kids wear black and listen to Bauhaus, than the evildoers have already won.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

10. Bauhau isnt gothic, its International Style.

....the very antithesis of Gothic. All very modern & rational, the Bauhaus.

[TrogL]

3. I'm encouraging my daughter to go "goth"

at least the look, minus tattoos.

She'll fit right in at school.

.

.

.

OK, so she goes to a really strange school.

[undergroundpanther]

5. I was goth

In the early-mid 70's
I got beat up in school for wearing my black cape when people were wearing jeans so tight they looked spray painted on,and satin baseball jackets.I dyed my hair pink with poke berry juice and wore punk gauntlets,(in the 70's it was more biker)and wild makeup.I made alot of my own clothes. My flavor is very feline themed.
I was scapegoated for my appearance in the bumpkin town I grew up in,(nowadays ironically it is a "nice" neighborhood with expensive houses and lots of Goths who hate living here..too.

I'm 38 now and I still got my Mohawk,and wear my cape and dress in black alot.I wear cat ears and a long black tail.
for me,it ain't a phase,it is what I like to wear.And I have a right to like what I like no matter what anyone else thinks of it,they are not me so their judgments does not apply. I do fine as an artist.I am older but that does not mean I must at some magic number"grow up" which means conform to what other "soccer moms" my age look like and do.
And if people don't like the way I am tough I'm me and they are them and they'll just have to accept I will not become what they want me to be.I say,fuck their chicken shit conforming to be like their parents.
I do not want to be like my parents because they are screwed up.They also had no fashion creativity..
However my hubby looks "normal" and this is how he prefers to be.He has no problem with being seen with the likes of me,and I love him for who he is,the clothes don't matter..Diversity is what makes life worth living.

[Unperson 309]

9. You GO Panther!

Keep those ears held HIGH! Cat pride!

I've worn black steadily since 1966 when "Gothic" referred to cathedrals and the lettering on the Dark Shadows paperbacks!

I'm nearing my 60s and I will wear black *forever*! We kitties have to stick together.

There's a feline between genius and madness! Go undergroundpanther!
Show those kids how it's done!!
309

[Katarina]

4. My kids dress Goth

All their friends dress Goth. I myself love the look. The asshole principal (trust me on this one) at the middle school doesn't understand it. All year this was his "crusade". He made the mistake of telling my 14 year old son that only girls wear nail polish (it was black polish). BIG - HUGE mistake! My son created quite a stink about that with me behind him all the way. They get stared at when we go to the store. They don't care and neither do I. Maybe it will keep the religious wackos away from us.

[undergroundpanther]

6. Whackos

In the silly little town I grew up in in the 70's the local mall put on a halloween window painting contest every year. One year I decided to enter.I painted a big demon with pentagrams bleeding on it's chest crucified on a reversed cross on fire. It was halloween and I wanted to do something spooky,macabre and DARK.Something straight out of the archetyopal shadow!
I won 2nd place ,the winner was a professional artist who had an airbrush and his work was on the window right next to mine.
There were alot of good artists.

I was filmed painting,asked tons of questions.
They asked about my dark dress too.Because nobody else in my town back than dressed like me.
The picture because it was controversial and anti-christian caused an uproar,the local church threatened to throw a brick through the woolworths window,there were vicious church pamplets and newsletters about me..

But dammit I won second place..and when I went to get a picture of myself holding the ribbon next to my work,I discovered woolworths had washed off my art,because of the threats.
Some conservative christians are a hateful bullying bunch,they find power and safety in forcing conformity so they never have to feel cognitive dissonence or excercise thier little closed minds and empathize with someone different, and they do not understand confortmity and appearances do not protect anyone from real life dangers.

They'd rather wash off the painting that offends than look at thier shadows inside and be responsible for the devils they unleash upon others in the name of thier brand of good.

[iconoclastic cat]

7. I bet there are many goths here at DU!

My wife was (and is--I don't know how she gets away with red/purple hair teaching 9th graders), most of my ex-girlfriends, three of my bands, etc. Myself--I was usually called goth, but I really refuse to be classified (you know, the whole label me/negate me issue).

You know what? Every goth, punk, and freak that I knew/know went on to become socially responsible, active citizens.

Most of the higher-tier people from high school are more well-off than the freaks, but they seem much too shallow. Who knows, maybe they're happy in their materialistic slavery.

[Don_G]

8. Would LynneSin's Evita Qualify

To get a small portion of the grant seeing as how the cat is intolerant and anti-Goth?