My name is Jim Lian, and I am the lead singer/guitarist of a punk band called Broke Ass Loser. Anyway, last night I read the article about that kid in Amarillo who got killed, and I wrote this….

So, You Call Yourself a Punk
By Jim Lian

So, you call yourself a punk. Well, my only question is why? What makes you a ?punk? anyway? Is it they way you dress? The music you like? Who you hang out with? Fuck no. There are no punks. Calling yourself a punk goes against everything the word (and the ideas it represents) stands for. When you label yourself as a punk, you?re classifying , you are separating yourself or your group, and thus supporting and participating in the act of segregation. People are people, and we don?t need to label them. That?s one of the constant and unifying themes in punk rock. When you say, ?I?m a punk.? You are conforming, loosing your individuality, putting on a front, expressing an overwhelming need to be accepted, selling out, being hypocritical, trying too hard to be different, exploiting musicians and activists worldwide, and missing the point of the music you claim to identify with. Just because you are a little different from the masses, or listen to AFI and NOFX, or even say ?Fuck you!? to society on a daily basis, doesn?t give you the right to call yourself a punk. Think about it.

I am in a punk band, I go to almost all the punk shows that come to town, I express myself in unique and unusual ways, I have a lot of very leftist political views, I am an agnostic (who is very against Christianity) living in a very Christian small town and take a lot of shit for expressing my views, and I say fuck all the time, to everybody. But I would never call myself a punk. A punk rocker, maybe, but not a punk. A lot of my friends, and kids at school probably use that word, but I have no desire to label myself. I am who I am. You see what I am saying? Be yourself, not a punk. That?s the only way you can become all you want to be in life. Labels hold you down, group mentality inhibits your decisions, trying to be a punk is just a waste of time. It?s dangerous too. Just a few hours ago, I read on article about this kid from Texas, this fucking kid who got killed in a fight between ?punks? and ?preps.? The kid?s fucking dead, these assholes killed him because he was a ?punk.? Punks, preps, skaters, jocks, nerds…….who fucking cares! This kid is dead, there is so much he?ll never experience, and why? His life is over because of a fucking label. Doesn?t that tell you something? Even as I read the article about his death, I saw that the author himself had not learned from the incident. The author opened by saying, ?He was a punk, just like anyone of us.? and he kept referring to the two groups as ?punks? and ?preps.? Come on, he wasn?t a punk, he was a kid. A kid who liked to dress different, dye his hair blue, and listen to punk rock. Those kids weren?t preps, they were ignorant dicks. The only way to keep things like this from happening is to forget all these fucking labels. Dress how you want, do what you want, but don?t label yourself or anyone else. Life is hard enough as it is, don?t make it harder for yourself and everyone around you, don?t use labels, don?t classify people. Talk to people, get to know people, don?t call them ?preps,? or ?jocks,? or ?punks.? Call them Jenny, or Steve, or Ryan.

All I am really trying to say is this: Nothing good will come from you calling yourself a punk. Live your life they way you always have, listen to punk rock, dye your hair green, get into the mosh pit and kick somebody?s ass, but don?t call yourself a punk. That kid in Texas died because he was labeled a punk. Kids are fighting, and dying every fucking day in the United States, and around the world because of what group they belong to. And you, you are sitting there in your house, putting on your baggy pants, your wallet chain, and spiking up your hair. Uncover your eyes and look at the world around you, listen to the words of those punk rock songs, understand what the word punk means. Be an individual, but fuck the label. You don't need it. None of us needs it. So you call yourself a punk, huh? I'll just call you by your name.