Hate crimes against goths and emos

Here in the UK, the trial is currently taking place of a gang of teenagers who [are accused of] savagely attacked a goth couple, leading to the woman dying and the man suffering brain damage.  The attack appears to have been motivated by nothing more than the desire to have fun attacking people who looked different. It's nothing more than racism in another form.

Then I see a report on Blabbermouth that:

According to La Crónica de Hoy, several hundred Mexican heavy metal, "skate punk" and alternative rock fans joined forces last Friday (March 7) in the in the center of Querétaro, Mexico to confront a group of "emos" (followers of the "emo" subculture, which is short for "emotional") who regularly use the city center as a gathering place. Four people were injured and 28 persons were arrested (22 of them minors) when more than a thousand youths clashed in the area of Jardín Guerrero, Plaza de Armas

Equally disturbing is that:

An Internet campaign is reportedly being waged to launch attacks against "emos" in other parts of the country, with various web postings portraying emos as "homosexuals" who give a "bad image" to tourists who visit their towns.

Now I'm with a large section of the metal world in that emo leaves me cold, but I really feel on the wrong side of the battle here. This is the side of the metal world that makes me sick. The side that, for example, made Kurt Cobain despise the metallers amongst his fans as they reminded him of the bullies and jocks in school.

Metallers didn't attack the goth couple. In fact there are sections of the metal world that, to outsiders, probably look similar to goth. Still, when anyone is attacked for being a member of a youth/music culture the metal world should be on the victim's side.

Comments

[Picard]

I wonder if we're in face of a "social- musical" tribal war or in face of a more "global" social clash: I can remember jokes about goths or metalheads in my youthtime, but I do not remember any fight due to differences in the choice of "musical tribe".
Are these hate crimes against emos and goths or hate crimes without consideration about who the victim is?
One thing puzzles me, the "battle" in Mexico: it sounds like a reminiscence of the fightings between Punks and Teddy-Rockers in 1976-1977 or the fighting between Mods and Teddies in the 60's.
The difference may be in the scale: when you got a dozen of punk or mods against a dozen of rockers in the 60's and 70's, you have now "several hundreds" (real figures?) of people beating other people.
Not a progress.

[Tim]

I believe when the metal community is not on the side of the 'victim' it is (subconsciously) because it does not want to be associated with the sort of lonely, introverted, effeminate image associated with emos and goths. Also I think it's a reaction to outsiders lumping metal, emo and goth into the same thing (e.g. at school it didn't matter which one you were, you were simply a 'mosher' or a 'goth' of some sort). A lot of metal fans like the metal subculture to be more self-assured in manner, I've noticed, and as a result think that metalheads should be arseholes. I have similar reservations about the emo and goth subcultures as most metalheads do, but I generally sympathise for anyone who is attacked for looking eccentric, but mainly because I strongly dislike the primitive behaviour of the attackers, who like barking dogs, aren't really programmed to tolerate.