Perhaps this is not related to feminism in an obvious way, but with the US elections looming and everything that's going wrong in my home country of Britain thanks to patriachy's latest war and our moronic male-dominated government, I remembered this song, dug it out and have been happily rocking all day to it. I reckoned it's worth posting here because this whole 'current situation' is inseparable from the context of patriarchy.
I don't know if Riz Ahmed is at all famous in America, but just in case he's not, he's a British actor and hip-hop/rap singer, and this is his first and probably most famous song, 'The post 9/11 blues'. It's a satire of the media and government responses to 9/11, so obviously if this offends you, don't watch.
N.B. Mentioned in the song are a whole load of british things like Guy Fawkes and the gunpowder plot, the tube, and chavs. I don't know about you lot, but mostly when I'm talking to Americans, they don't know what these things are any more than I knew what a taco or a burritto was until very recently, so just wikipedia them. ;)
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thanks for the video! i'm never quite sure how i feel about something like this. i like the song, i fully understand his point of view. i'm definitely not offended. i think any discomfort i'm feeling is that i'd rather it was directed at bush/the bush administration/the iraq war/afghanistan/etc. than 9/11 itself. real people, innocent people died that day - and real people/innocent people lost their loved ones that day. bush is evil, and he's caused a lot of evil. the u.s. has caused a lot of evil. but, that didn't make the loss of lives on 9/11 okay. so, yeah, i am a little uncomfortable with light references to 9/11. kinda wish he'd made the song more about "war on terror blues". though i suppose it's not as catchy.
btw - last year i went through a random obsession with chavs. i couldn't get enough of watching youtube videos re: chavs. i don't know why - but they really fascinated me. there was some guy who made alot of fake chav videos that were hilarious, too. and entire websites devoted to the hating of chavs. they remind me an awful lot of white trash in northern ohio. i think that was the basis of my obsession - that reminder of how we're all humans, regardless of what part of the globe we're from, even when it's something as ludicrous as white trash/chavs. and i hope i don't offend anyone saying "white trash". the paternal side of my family is what i consider white trash. they do exist. i once watched my aunt pick mites out of my cousins back at the dining room table. he lived in the attic with the pigeons, and was infested with some type of mite that lives on birds.