New Book on Punk Rock, Race and Politics

I hate giving a lot of promotion to books I've yet to read, but this looks interesting as race is sorely overlooked in punk (and later indie) rock: White Riot: Punk Rock and the Politics of Race , edited by Stephen Duncombe author of Notes from the Underground, and Max Tremblay, a writer for the zine Maximumrocknroll.

 I read what I could through Google Books free preview. There's a piece on Patti Smith's use of the n-word in a song title, which I thought went a bit far in trying to justify it, but I'm glad it's being discussed, though, especially in light of  Smith's good standing among critics. Here's a snippet from Drowned in Sound' s more comprehensive review:

One objection – and it’s a large one – is that this neglects to contextualize punk-rock as a musical genre AND social movement, other than in relation to a limited range of black genres. Over and over again, we’re told that that reggae was an ‘absent presence’ for punks, or that ideas of 'blackness' were appropriated by whites as a token of their underdog status. In doing so, it becomes difficult for the reader to see how much punk may have achieved, by comparison with other movements. As examples of writing on race issues that could be called 'proto-punk', Duncombe and co-editor Maxwell Tremblay select several excerpts already found in Ann Charters’ (essential) Beat Reader. All are relevant, but Mailer’s The White Negro, and others, basically serve to illustrate white fantasies and projections without linking them to real social changes after Civil Rights (in the US) and the post-WWII surge in immigration (to the UK). Since punk reacted so violently against hippie culture, it would have been useful to survey (however briefly) the shortcomings of the previous mass youth movement to frighten the Establishment.