Trump Used a Music Festival to Begin Separating Whites From Non-Whites
SXSW was the launch of an invisible apartheid
Every year, thousands of people flock to the South by South West Conference & Festivals in Austin, Texas. Spanning nine days from March 10 to March 19, SXSW 2017 booked a shocking 2,011 artists and hundreds of speakers for an overflowing schedule.
Considering its size and location, surprisingly little serious political activism takes place at SXSW. Still, Pres. Donald Trump and his administration used the specter of liberal protest at SXSW as a pretext to launch an invisible program dividing white Americans from non-white visitors.
On March 8, 2017 a federal judge in Hawaii effectively killed Pres. Donald Trump’s latest executive order banning travelers to the United States from six Muslim countries. This came a month after the Feb. 3, 2017 decision by federal judge James Robart to issue a stay on Trump’s original Muslim ban.
But most Americans are unaware of the powers these two policy thrusts granted law-enforcement agencies. Now more than ever, immigration officials have a mandate to detain, harass and deport foreign visitors, all on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Consider what happened to Soviet Soviet, an Italian trio that plays a genre of music I’ll describe as noisecore-meets-shoegaze.
On March 8, 2017, the band arrived in Seattle. Customs and Border Protection officers promptly separated and interrogated the three band members for no reason before sending them to jail. They were deported the following day.
Why? Because Soviet Soviet was traveling on Electronic System for Travel Authorization visa-waivers, which prohibit working for pay while in the United States. Soviet Soviet chose the enter the United States via ESTA because it had agreed to play for free at SXSW.
And yet, according to Soviet Soviet’s official account of its detention, “the control agents who did a quick check on the concerts we informed them of noticed that two of the venues were asking for entry fees and this was enough to convince them that we needed work visas instead of an ESTA.”
Soviet Soviet isn’t the exception. Other artists were prevented from entering the United States for vague reasons, too. This included the Chilean electro-pop trio Trementina, who were left stranded in Mexico plus a British drummer of Middle Eastern descent and the Spanish rapper Yung Beef. A girl group from Somalia, Faarrow, was turned away, as well.
In each of these cases, CBP officers were enforcing strange rules prohibiting certain nationalities from entering America. The zinger here are the visas involved.
For an international recording artist to tour the United States, they need a P-1B visa, which is granted upon compliance with some very stringent guidelines. This allows the artists to travel the country and be paid for their work via percentages of ticket sales, merch sales and talent fees.
However, if an artist or a group is performing without pay, like during SXSW, a B-1 visa will usually suffice. The B-1 visa is intended for a broad spectrum of “legitimate business activities” and many travelers can get one if they’re attending events or conferences in the United States.
In the case of Soviet Soviet and other artists, they were granted B-1 visas and even had ESTA forms for SXSW. They should’ve been able to enter the country without a hitch — but got harassed by CBP goons, instead.
These incidents fueled a separate mini-controversy that began in the first week of March 2017, when an online tiff broke out between some SXSW-destined artists and the SXSW organizers after a clause in performer contracts mentioned reporting musicians for deportation if they performed outside of SXSW.
The negative buzz forced SXSW to release a statement that sort of backtracked from the clause. “We have never reported international showcasing artists to immigration authorities,” the festival insisted. But the damage was done.
None of this drama prepared the Egyptian folk metal band Massive Scar Era for the shit it went through. Massive Scar Era, which is currently based in Canada, was barred from entering the United States this year despite having played at SXSW in 2013 and 2015.
“I hold an Egyptian passport, Dylan [Pieter Wijdenes-Charles, the bassist] holds a Canadian passport and an official native Indian I.D. and Nancy [Mounir] holds a Canadian passport,” Band founder and vocalist Cherine Amr told DEFIANT.
“I had a business visa issued by the U.S. embassy that allowed me to have business meetings and non-paid activities in the U.S. The others were going to cross the borders under the ESTA,” Amr added. “My visa wasn’t rejected or canceled, I was just not allowed to cross the borders along with the other members.”
Amr also clarified the band’s plans after SXSW. “We were going to play … non-paid shows. I think the officer should have followed the U.S. immigration rules and not his own.”
In another baffling twist, Massive Scar Era’s bassist Wijdenes-Charles was asked to provide DNA test results as proof of his First Nation identity. It didn’t matter, since the band’s prospects at SXSW were dead anyway.
In a separate interview with NPR, Amr mentioned how the band had to cancel a non-paid show in Seattle after SXSW, since it could be a violation of the members’ B-1 visas. But the immigration officer who confronted them was more concerned with Massive Scar Era performing at SXSW. “People and media are using SXSW to protest,” the officer said.
“The experience was very traumatic for me, as I had to explain for hours that I’m in fact allowed to get in and I meet all the requirements to get in,” Amr said.
It’s worth mentioning that Amr left her homeland Egypt because her music and lifestyle choices got her labelled a satanist by an ultra-conservative newspaper. To be ostracized in North America, where countless dissidents and exiles have sought refuge from persecution in their countries, is a bitter disappointment.
“I’m a practicing Muslim,” Cherine told me. “But no one has the right to question my beliefs or test it.”
“I moved here [to Canada] to be closer to the industry, to be able to perform freely without sexism, and to build a career. I was actually planning my whole year based on the people I was going to meet at SXSW!”
“For me, I’m 100-percent sure that I was discriminated against,” Amr said. “It seems like there are some hidden un-announced rules. The [CBP] officer was very polite and our conversation was very civilized, but I could tell that he was following these orders.”
“The biggest proof is the [CBP officer] mentioned ‘protesting’ to me. Why would he mention this?”
“According to President Trump, we are the terrorists and Latin Americans are the drug dealers,” Amr fumed. “The only influence on the [immigration officer’s] decision was my green passport, my accent and my color. He even told me people are using the festival to protest. Why would he say that in the middle of the conversation?!”
For the record, there were no large protests or grandstanding activists at SXSW. The only anti-Trump outburst I could find related to SXSW was a lone rapper-cum-activist dissing Trump in a manner that reminded me of hip-hop’s loathing for the Orange Doofus. The video has 10 views.
Massive Scar Era is planning a short Canadian tour to make up for lost time. The band’s 30 Years E.P. is still out.
You can be sure a white caucasian ethno-state hostile to South Americans and Middle Easterners fits into Steve Bannon’s nightmarish vision for an America geared for war.
What these bands heading to SXSW put up with are the first cruel symptoms of this nefarious plot. An invisible apartheid is now taking shape across the United States, separating white citizens from anyone who’s non-white and foreign.
This is exactly what Trump, Bannon and their minions want for their racist Festung America dreamland. This is why you must stay defiant.
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