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I'd like to remind you again of HN's guidelines about trying to respond to the strongest interpretation of others' comments. Not because it's a rule that must be blindly followed, but because I think that it's a sensible bit of advise that promotes reasonable and useful conversation.

Of course I'm bringing the guideline up because I don't think you're responding to the strongest interpretation of my comments. I think you are instead responding to a very weak interpretation that only suits very low-quality debate where the point is to claim a moral high ground, rather than to learn anything new.

A few examples. You say that the following sentence is "very dismissive":

> The article makes a very strenuous effort to make a point about something something racism in rock that sounds a bit boring and trite to my ears

You don't say who it is dismissive against. My comment is dismissive - it is dismissive of the article, not any other person or group. In your previous comment you were concerned about my stance against black musicians. My comment above says nothing about black musicians, or black folks in general.

You say that the following comment comes across as judgemental:

> Why Rihana and Beyonce, rather than a new Jimi Hendrix? Female, even. Why is Rock 'n' Roll pretty much dead to black kids, nowadays?

You don't say against whom my comment is judgemental. My comment is judgemental against Beyonce and Rihana, because I don't like their music. But you are concerned about my behaviour with respect to all black musicians. You have to make a great big leap from Beyonce and Rihana to all black musicians, for example Fela Kuti would probably be unhappy if you compared him to Beyonce. Maybe not.

Finally:

>> And specifically about Beyonce, I don't really see how you can watch this video and then assert she ain't punk rock as fuck:

I'm afraid on this, I'll have to disagree. I see a bunch of people, men and women, shaking their asses. That's not my idea of punk. My idea of punk is young anglo kids getting wasted and pretending to be rebellious. You pointed to the X-Ray Spex. Punk of their era was 80% male, 99% white. I don't even begin to see how Beyonce shaking her money maker is punk, except of course that the famous punk rock bands of the '80s famously went for the money grab in their later years.

Edit: to avoid further confusion, I should point out I think punk is and has always been 99% rubbish. Same as pop.



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