Disco Demolition Night: An Exercise in Right Wing Racism 40 Years Later

Arrogant Bigot Steve Dahl posing in front of the bin full of Disco records he hates

Gloria Gayner, one of the singers Steve Dahl and his posse targeted.

Bee Gees, another anti disco target

Chic, featuring Nile Rodgers.  Another favorite anti disco target. 
Nile Rodgers compare the Disco Demolition Night to Hitler's burning of books during the Nazi Regime

Who would object to this pretty queen of Disco, Donna Summer?

2019 marks the 40th year of the disgusting racially/ethnically/culturally motivated Disco Demolition Night at Chicago's Comiskey Park.

Right wing shock jock Steve Dahl led the crusade against Disco music saying that genre went against the so-called sensibilities of Midwesterners, never mind that Midwesterners are racially and ethnically diverse.

On the fateful day of July 12,1979, Steve Dahl and his extremist followers went to Comiskey Park on a double-header night.  Stadium officials expected the crowd to be over 40,000.  However, the official count was over 59,000 including those who sneaked into the stadium without paying.  Steve and his followers brought thousands of disco records to be detonated between the headers.  After Dahl's anti-Disco antics, the mob stormed into the field, putting the players in danger.  So much that the players had to retreat back in the trenches to avoid getting injured by the mob's antics.

Record producer Simon Napier-Bell tells Timeline regarding the movement to destroy disco: “The ‘Disco Sucks’ movement was totally anti-Black, anti-Latino, anti-gay, anti-everything else that didn’t subscribe to the right-wing rednecks’ idea of what America should be. The people who joined it were the Trump voters of the moment.”

In order to understand the right-wing backlash against disco, we need to talk about the historic roots of disco.

To me, the anti disco movement is a symptom of the right wing backlash against Civil rights, women's rights and the like.

In 1979, the late Phyllis Schlafly led the Stop ERA movement to destroy the constitutional campaign for womens' rights.  They succeeded.  Also, the busing, voting rights debates in congress and in state legislators.  The late Ronald Reagan ran for the presidency for the second time.

Around that time, there's a fundamentalist morality group called the Moral Majority campaigned against threats to their version of "family values", i.e. womens' rights

Harvey's take on the Disco Demolition Night- 40 Years Later

According to Wikipedia regarding Disco's origin:

Disco started as a mixture of music from venues popular with African Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Italian Americans, LGBT people (especially African-American and Latino American gay men), and psychedelic hippies in Philadelphia and New York City during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Disco can be seen as a reaction by the counterculture during this period to both the dominance of rock music and the stigmatization of dance music at the time. Several dance styles were developed during the period of disco's popularity in the United States, including the Bump and the Hustle.

By the late 1970s, most major U.S. cities had thriving disco club scenes, and DJs would mix dance records at clubs such as Studio 54 in New York City, a venue popular among celebrities. 

Discotheque-goers often wore expensive, extravagant and sexy fashions. There was also a thriving drug subculture in the disco scene, particularly for drugs that would enhance the experience of dancing to the loud music and the flashing lights, such as cocaine and Quaalude, the latter being so common in disco subculture that they were nicknamed "disco biscuits". Disco clubs were also associated with promiscuity as a reflection of the sexual revolution of this era in popular history.

Disco was the last popular music movement driven by the baby boom generation. It began to decline in the United States during 1979-80, and by 1982 it had lost nearly all popularity there.

Disco had a popular following among Blacks, Latinos, White Ethnic groups, LGBT, women.  Is this why white extremists went after this genre?  Could it be that they hate the unity the genre brought during the 70s when the economy was in the doldrums?   Fear of interracial relationships are another reason why so many angry White conservative men went after disco.  White women starting to open up their dating/mating options to include Black, Latino, White Ethnic men, etc.  Disco opponents didn't like it one bit.

Wow, the arrogance of the anti disco crowd.  Look at the anger, the resentment of mainly young White crowd at the Disco Demolition Night.

Let me tell you something,

Disco Demolition Night= white supremacy plus Racist Republican insurgency in the form of Ronald Reagan, the original "MAGA" architect. White supremacist state legislators want to censor/ban disco as well. So, all in all, the anti Disco movement is a white supremacist project.