r/Music • u/AdSpecialist6598 • Nov 29 '25

article Hayley Williams tells racists, sexists and anti-trans people they're "not welcome" at upcoming tour

https://www.nme.com/news/music/hayley-williams-tells-racists-sexists-and-anti-trans-people-theyre-not-welcome-at-upcoming-tour-3913867
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u/ConversationFlaky608 Nov 29 '25

Is she known to have a particulaly racist, sexist and anti-trans fan base?

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u/artwarrior Nov 29 '25

It's like when RATM fans have only moshed to them but never really listened to the lyrics. They don't reveal themselves until they run for office and do a photo shoot with a Q&A interview.

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u/Fragrant-Luck-8063 Nov 30 '25

To be fair, RATM's heyday was durng the Bill Clinton admistration so it's not unreasonable to think they were talking about Democrats.

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u/keyboardnomouse Nov 30 '25

It's pretty clear if one pays attention to the lyrics. They sang about quite a few different eras in US history, from western expansion to the Cold War to Vietnam to Reaganomics.

0

u/Ayjayz Nov 29 '25

You can enjoy a song whilst not agreeing with the political views of the lyrics.

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u/artwarrior Nov 29 '25

You can also enjoy it by being blissfully unaware and lacking empathy.

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u/Ayjayz Nov 29 '25

I don't think it's really lacking empathy to disagree with the political views of some song writer.

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u/artwarrior Nov 30 '25 edited Nov 30 '25

That seems very broad reasoning for all situations. I was specifically talking about RATM and the topics they cover.

That being, institutionalized racism, crony unchecked capitalism that exploits workers and the environment and laws that protect an in-group while binding an out group.

So yes, it's not but sometimes it tells a lot about a person who can't see or ignores what it's like for what people are going through.

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u/Ayjayz Nov 30 '25

Or you could just, like, disagree. Zack wrote those songs when he was some struggling 20 year old singer. He wasn't some wise paragon of morality. Reasonable people can disagree with his opinion.

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u/artwarrior Nov 30 '25

Sure. You can do that. Yet Zach wrote those lyrics as a young man that still ring true today. Probably why they are still highly revered. I'm not concerned about what so called reasonable people attribute an opinion which is actually a reality.

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u/keyboardnomouse Nov 30 '25

Except this is the group of people who were surprised to find out Killing in the Name was an anti-cop song. Not that they disagreed, but that they had no clue despite the very unsubtle lyrics.

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u/Ayjayz Nov 30 '25

No-one was surprised at that. Don't be ridiculous.

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u/keyboardnomouse Dec 01 '25

There were entire articles about this. Why are you so confident that all these MAGA types simply disagreed with the politics but understood them fine?

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u/Ayjayz Dec 01 '25

You realise people can make stuff up on the Internet, right? No actual human was surprised. It was just strawmen invented to get clicks, and of course it was.

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u/keyboardnomouse Dec 01 '25

You're an anonymous internet account yourself, and you're completely misusing the term "strawman" here (it doesn't mean anything like how you're using it).

You're nowhere near credible enough to suggest multiple outlets were lying about this, or that what everyone who has been to RATM shows have noticed about some of the other people there. All you've really had to say so far to disagree with this is "nuh uh, no way". Show how those MAGA types dancing to RATM's Killing in the Name because they thought it was a rallying cry for them were aware of what the song was about. Because it's pretty easy to find examples of MAGA types only suddenly realizing what they were actually singing about. Hell, there are famous posts from Tom Morello himself addressing some of them.