Music
Calgary's Viet Cong has show cancelled because of their offensive name
by Tyler Munro
March 3, 2015
Until now, the buzz around Calgary band Viet Cong had been picking up steam for all of the right reasons. That changed when an Ohio promoter revealed that he’d cancelled the band’s March 14 show at Dionysus Disco amid complaints about their name.
The promoter, Ivan Krasnov, shared a statement on Facebook apologizing for booking a band whose name “offends and hurts Vietnamese and Vietnamese-American communities.”
I acknowledge the problematic nature of a band naming themselves ‘Viet Cong’ and extend my apology to anyone hurt or made uncomfortable by the name and its connotations.
Krasnov notes that it’s not only problematic for four white Canadian dudes to call themselves Viet Cong, but that they’re utterly remorseless about how it might affect people. He links to an interview the band did with Le Guess Who? where they pass off criticisms about their name with a blasé “sorry, not sorry” attitude.
Vietnamese immigrants—the Vietnamese Canadians and Vietnamese Americans—will write us an email saying that their family was tortured by the Viet Cong for five years in a prison camp.It’s just a band name. It’s just what we called ourselves.
Basically — stop being so sensitive. Sure, the Viet Cong assassinated nearly 40,000 people in a five year period. And sure, they bombed restaurants, used flamethrowers on unarmed civilians and conducted mass murder in South Vietnam. But that was in the past, man, and it’s totally not the band’s fault you’re offended by it.
Justifiably, Krasnov writes that while he believes in the band’s talents, calling them a “formidable act,” he cannot “with good conscience put on this show knowing that it hurts others.”
“The onus should absolutely not be on those who are hurt to educate the rest of the community on why this name is offensive,” he writes. And he’s right. [p4k]
