Whatever is going on, whites show up, in large numbers, ready to rock. That’s about all we need, if you think about it.
The other night I saw AC/DC at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. For those out of the know, AC/DC is an aging Australian hard rock band (founded 1973) famous for thundering, simple-themed songs that revolve around alcohol, women, and rock. Its guitarist, a pale, slight Scotsman named Angus Young, is known for performing while wearing a British schoolboy uniform (jacket, tie and shorts) which he sheds (except for the shorts) mid-concert and duck-walks the length of the stage with sweat and hair flying.
Of the thousands of human beings packed into the arena, I did not see a single non-white face. They may have been there, but in numbers that can only be described as statistically insignificant. They were working-class class whites, for the most part, spanning a range of ages, with the occasional obvious yuppie-with-a-black-T-shirt-for-the-occasion thrown in.
The swarms of whites did not go unnoticed by the smaller crowds of blacks orbiting the Verizon Center that night. They seemed slightly alarmed by the rugged whites, many of whom sported Celtic cross tattoos, Germanic cross T-shirts, and other signs of whatpsychologistKevin MacDonaldimplicit whiteness.” Some taunts were thrown in our direction by a group of black girls, and one black man was prompted, for reasons I could not discern, to bellow “suck my d***. Suck my big black d***” for all to hear. calls “
The only blacks who interacted with whites were ticket scalpers, whose activities were ignored by the all-black police force on the scene.
Inside, the concert was an electrifying spectacle of deafening anthemic rock that drove the crowd nuts. Smoke, lights, a giant inflatable “Rosie” (you had to be there) and, for the finale song of“For Those About to Rock, We Salute You,” six full-sized battlefield canons were wheeled onto the stage and blasted at the appropriate moment. Women wore flashing devil horns, which went nicely with songs like “Hell’s Bells” and“Highway to Hell.”