I didn’t know if I should publish this or not because while this kind of racism (yes, that’s what this is) in our community needs to be addressed when encountered, I wasn’t sure I wanted to publish this message out there for all the beautiful non-white goths to see.
One thing needs to be gotten straight: There is no right hair or skin colour to be goth. Period. Neither skin colour or hair colour defines whether you can be goth or not, and no way is the right way to have them.
The pale red-lipped and black-haired girl dressed in all black might be the stereotype of a goth but that is a very shallow and one-sided representation of the people in the community. How many of us actually fit into that stereotype? How many of us strive to look like that because if we don’t, we will get told we don’t look right? Goth has since its beginning featured many ethnicities, and there is nothing weird about non-white goths in the subculture. Look up photos of the English goth scene in the 80s. There are loads of non-white goths absolutely rocking the original look.
There are many gothic styles I personally don’t like, but it is not my place to tell those people that I don’t think they look good. I wouldn’t want them telling me that, so why would I do that to others? And I’m talking about styles that someone chooses to wear, so can you even imagine hearing it about something you cannot choose like skin colour? I understand that it is your personal preference, but is it necessary to bring it up when all it will do is discourage people from being a part of a community they feel they belong to?
Some goths are black, some goths wear hijabs, some goths keep their natural hair. And they all look gorgeous and have as much right to express themselves in the subculture as white goths. The subculture is extremely diverse but there is so much gate-keeping from goths who think that you need to look like X and listen to Y that we end up only seeing a glimpse of it all. That shouldn’t be, and as corny as it sounds, we should try to create a comfortable, safe community instead of one that shuns people out because they do not fit a stereotype.
