Back in 1998 Chicago hardcore band, Racetraitor released their debut album Burn the Idol of the White Messiah. The confrontational album dealt with issues such as white supremacy and social and economic privilege. During there in your face live performances they would engage with their audience, openly inciting political debate. By 1999 they broke up. Twenty years later they released their sophomore album, 2042.
In an interview with Shouts, bass player Brent Decker made the following statement on why the band chose to reunite: “The climate around the 2016 elections was the motivating factor for me. Don’t get me wrong, all of the previous US presidents have been illegitimate and served the interests of the white ruling class. Obama, who was the best president we will ever have, is a fucking war criminal. There just seemed to be something else opening up in terms of outright fascist and white supremacist thought which felt different. I mean now 2 years later we see things like the immigration policies which are literally referred to as the “Muslim ban”and it is completely normalized. We have always seen punk and hardcore as cultural resistance and we wanted play our small part.”
“BLK XMAS” addresses how religious extremist tries to impose a faux cultural purity by insisting that Jesus was white and by exploiting Christmas to promote racist ideologies.
The music video powerfully chronicles the history of political and religious oppression over the years, including footage of 1950s race riots.
Racetraitor expose their listeners to potentially uncomfortable subjects that have been whitewashed over the years. True progress won’t happen without uncomfortable discourse.