iTunes is a bastion of free speech. Wait, what?

Yes, you read that right. It seems that the digital download giant (as well as Amazon.com) sells songs and albums by white supremacist groups - even after removing content that was seen as homophobic. Curious? Indeed. I verified this myself and, yes sir, you can actually buy songs by white power bands like H8 Machine and Skrewdriver, the latter of which writes songs like “White Warriors” featuring lyrics such as, “When the battle is over and victory is won/ And the White man’s lands are owned by true white people/ The traitors will all be gone.”

Shocking? Maybe. Disgusting? Guaranteed. Wrong? Perhaps not. Racism is disgusting and wrong, to be sure, but even bigoted morons like the guys in white power bands deserve to have their voices heard. It would appear, then, that iTunes is allowing such a right to be preserved. And, while I vehemently disagree with racism in any capacity for any reason, I do support such views in any media so long as they don’t advocate violence towards a specific group.

Galen Andrews, an iTunes customer, was quoted in the piece as saying

[White power music] made me sick. I think it’s irresponsible of iTunes to offer that kind of music. I don’t like the fact that they’re selling racism for profit.

While the sentiment is respectable in its aim, it is nonetheless only indirectly correct. Yes, iTunes is making money from these bands (and possibly turning a profit) but to say that they are profiting from racism is only half right. They are making money indirectly from hate - I’m not disputing that - but to say that iTunes is profiting from racism would imply that iTunes picked the songs because they are racist in the hopes of peddling said beliefs. I seriously doubt this to be the case.

The piece also states that Andrews doesn’t agree with my argument, and counters that banning the sale of racist music doesn’t inhibit free speech because artists can simply sell their music elsewhere. While that is a valid point, it misses the larger picture: if iTunes bans racist music and other outlets follow suit then, in fact, the free speech of these bands (or any others) will have been taken away.

Honestly, I found the outrage from the Alternet article to be just a tad alarmist. Even more offended was Matthew Richardson of Prefix Magazine. This kind of music isn’t popular. These bands don’t have gold or platinum records; they’re underground bands. Believe me, I checked the RIAA database. These bands don’t sell out MSG or do stadium tours.  They’d be a real threat if any of that were true. But it isn’t. This borders on outrage for the sake of outrage. The funny part is that Alternet just gave free press to the very thing it wants shut down by writing about it. Well done. You might argue that I just did too which makes me a hypocrite. Quite right about giving Skrewdriver free press, but I’m not calling for their (ridiculous) views to be banned so it isn’t the same thing.

Interestingly enough, Bryant Cecchini, a “white power broker” as Hate Watch calls him, wants white power music to be banned. He tells Hate Watch

Make it illegal tomorrow. It would be great. What we do is illegal in Germany and it’s fifty times more popular.

Cecchini argues that if hate music were banned, then artists would have to find subtler ways of expressing their views, making them more powerful because these views could find mainstream audiences. Interesting argument, but it doesn’t fly for the simple reason that if hate speech were banned in music, the law would probably ban anything even remotely construed as such. Therefore, any “hidden” message in a song would be so vague so as to avoid illegality that the message would effectively be rendered meaningless.

At any rate, I return to my earlier point. This music isn’t popular in any measurable way. It isn’t played on KISS FM or MTV. Even more importantly, the music itself is noticeably terrible. “White Warriors” is a horribly constructed punk song. How a band can make a punk song boring is beyond me. Flipping through song of their songs on youtube, it’s clear that a chunk of their music just plods along with no discernible songwriting talent behind them. H8 Machine (wow, that name is nauseating) is just as bad, except they play their hate to the musical abortion known as nu-metal. Then there’s Brutal Attack, a post-punk band that writes dissonant guitar melodies that are just painful to listen to. These bands suck something fierce so there’s no real danger here. So let iTunes continue to sell such ridiculous music. If there’s any justice, digital download services will start to lose enough money on this genre such that they stop carrying them anyway. Yay capitalism.