White Punk's Burden

Being an African-American is still somewhat new for Francois, who moved to the United States from Haiti in 1994, when he was in middle school. "People would call me boat people, and I was like, 'No, I flew here.'" Lately, he's been reading up on the African-American experience because he knows that he's perceived as a black man, not a Haitian, and he wants to understand what that means.

He deals with these issues in his work. He's been taking pictures of break dancers, creating a sort of "I Danced Here" memento showing where he and his friends have made their marks in this town. He's still trying to solve the problem of how a dance can last. And this is important because he's trying to reconcile who he is with where he is. "I live in both worlds," he says, "and I go back-and-forth every day."

Francois sometimes goes to punk shows with Toth, and he likes them. He heard Minor Threat for the first time in Toth's car. "It got to me," he says. He remembers how powerful it was to hear people expressing their anger, yelling so hard that the lyrics became almost secondary. Similarly, his first punk show was an outing to hear the Crap Corps. "It was awesome. There was so much energy. Knowing Laszlo as, like, this really calm guy, he basically transformed into this other character. It helped me channel the same thing. I could just feel it and enjoy it."

Francois isn't sure why more black people don't gravitate toward punk. "Being punk is like the black movement that isn't the black movement," he says. "The politics and the social responsibility that come with the punk scene are something that should correlate with black movements. Progressive hip-hop and progressive punk have so much in common, but for some reason they don't interact. Except ... me and Laszlo?"