Dear Hendrix,
I have a confession to make.
I am an American Goth. Some call it Black American Goth. Some call it Southern Goth or Afro Goth. But I am a simple gal. I am an American Goth. Let me explain what I mean…
It’s a new concept—at least, new to me. For a long time, I knew I felt a strange way. A way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I felt melancholy, dark. It wasn’t depression—though, I think at times I assumed I was depressed. It was more like an absence. A lack of identity. I was a thing without a name.
Like me, Henny, you have southern roots. One side of our family is from Louisiana. The American South. We’re that hosting-a-funeral-with-an-open-casket-in-the-living-room kind of southern. Death has never been taboo. My mother once told me your great-grandpa’s best friend, who was a mortician in New Orleans, would come home from work in his blood-spattered clothes and greet visitors before offering the southern hospitality staple: food. As if anyone would have an appetite.
I guess death isn’t a big deal when you see it all around you. Henny, your grandparents used to have to drive with a piss pot in their car. They’d use it instead of stopping at whites-only places in Mississippi or else risk their death. Somehow, they meandered through their lives, though, never complaining.
While I knew these roots, it took me a while to put my finger on who I was. When people talked about goth, it was always in reference to European goth. But that makes sense. The style originated in Germany. And while I dig goth bands like Bauhaus and the Cure, the version of goth that my dark heart identifies with always felt different.
I never totally understood it until a few years ago, when my dear friend and KEXP colleague Sharlese gave me a book to read, Darkly: Black History and America’s Gothic Soul by Leila Taylor. It opened my eyes to new ideas that I’ll remember forever. I won’t go into a full book report here, but I did want to highlight a thing or two for you, dear gal.
The concept of American Goth is dualistic (what a word!). It points both to how I feel and how I feel about my country. I love America, but in loving it, I am also observant of it. I know its triumphs, and I know its dark histories. I can’t help but feel a certain dark heft in my heart when I consider all this. And that dark heft is American Gothic.
Darkly also talks about music. One song it mentions is “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday. To me, the song, which was based on the poem “Bitter Fruit” by Abel Meeropol, is the American Goth anthem. Holiday’s song recognizes the tragedy and looks at it unflinchingly. It knows this country was built by the dark-skinned people who the light-skinned people considered to be heathens. And yet Holiday still mustered the strength to sing for the ages. Listening to old blues music, you hear the hurt, the struggle, and even dark humor in the fight to survive. It’s INCREDIBLE!
Henny, I wanted to write this letter for two reasons. I wanted to tell you a little bit about how I feel and how I came to understand that feeling. But I also wanted to share these thoughts in case you have them, too. It can be hard to understand who you are, deep down inside. Your father often says that to “know thyself” is every person’s duty, and I agree with him.
Goths in Europe invented their own fashion, music, and places to be themselves, to be weird and underground and creative. That is similar to the Black experience in America. We’ve had to create our own music, styles, and cuisine—much of which has since been adapted into the mainstream. It’s an amazing subversion inside a country that has often shown Black Americans severe hate.
How can you not want to wear all black when you think about that?
How can you not want to put on Billie Holiday?
Henny, if later in life you find yourself in a similar position, feeling that kind of way, wondering what that absence in your gut is… You might be an American Goth, too.
Eva Walker is a writer, a KEXP DJ, one-half of the rock duo The Black Tones, and mom to her baby girl, Hendrix. She also co-wrote the book The Sound of Seattle: 101 Songs That Shaped a City, which was released in 2024. Every month for The Stranger, she writes a letter to Hendrix to share wisdom learned from her experiences—and her mistakes. Read all installments here.
