SXE - The Straight-Edge Monthly
By Nathan Joinick
November, 1999
Yo, what's up. This is Raven again, and I write a monthly column for divisiontwo that talks about life on the Straight Edge of Salt Lake City. This month, I want to lay out the Straight Edge party line and tell you what SXE is and isn't all about. A lot of punks have been going around saying shit that ain't fucking true about the Straight Edge. I've been hearing a lot of shit lately about Straight Edgers being a "gang" of "violent thugs" and that kind of shit. It pisses me off, so now I'm gonna set the record straight once and for all. We ain't gonna put up with shit.
The punks are saying: Straight Edgers beat people up for no reason.
The reality: There's always a reason to beat people up. Like last month, I was standing on Vine and some punk-ass walked past me and said "excuse me" or some shit like that, and I noticed his clothes reeked like smoke. The kid didn't look more than 14 and was half my size, so I kicked the fuck outta him right there in front of his mom. He didn't know why he was getting pounded, but he didn't fucking have to. That shit's my business. I recognized him at school a few weeks later and it turns out his clothes smelled like smoke from a house fire, but whatever. That kinda shit don't matter.
The punks are saying: Straight Edgers are racist.
The reality: We beat the fuck outta all races. It don't matter if you're Black, Hispanic, African, Latino, Jamaican, Mexican, whatever, we don't discriminate. We don't fucking believe that skin color makes any difference to whether or not someone's a punk. If you're a punk, you get stomped. That's that. Like this one time, I saw this Mexican outside The Link, and his eyes were all half closed and shit like that, so I could tell he was stoned. Me and my boy Josiah beat him till he stopped breathing. It didn't fucking have anything to do with the fact that he was Mexican, it was the fact that he was a fucking stoned Mexican. Or he could've been tired or crying or something. But whatever. He was a fucking Mexican so it don't matter.
The punks are saying: Straight Edgers are dangerous.
The reality: We're no more dangerous than the drugs and alcohol we fight against. Like this one guy, he used to grow pot in his basement, so Dave and Josiah and me, we set his house on fire in the middle of the night. The punk got out in time, but I think he lost a son or some shit like that. That's why pot is so dangerous. It can tear apart families.
The punks are saying: Straight Edgers are hypocrites.
The reality: If the definition of a "hypocrite" is someone who bribes a public official, then no, we aren't fucking hypocrites. The Straight Edge isn't about politics. We don't fucking lobby congress or shit like that. We just keep our streets safe and our bodies healthy. We don't drink alcohol because it kills brian cells. We don't smoke pot because it's more addictive than heroin. We don't eat meat because we don't think it's fucking right to be cruel to any of God's creatures for any reason.
The punks are saying: Straight Edgers are followers of Hitler.
The reality: We aren't fucking Commies! Don't confuse us with fucking Commies. There's nothing Communist about the Straight Edge. We love our country and we want to keep it clean. We'd beat the shit out of fucking Hitler-blowing Commies if there were any around.
So there. That's what the Straight Edge is all about, that's what the fucking SXE symbol stands for. So next time you hear some punk who doesn't know anything about us talk shit about the Straight Edge, send me his name and Josiah and me'll beat the fuck outta him. I'm at divisiontwo@yahoo.com.
Out,
Raven