Yes, the RAC guys exist, but they never share the bill with the bands that comprise today's main punk underground. They're marginalized. Today's underground punk scene is extremely internationalist. Half the bands I like are non-American and many are from non-white countries, for ex. Many are South American and Japanese, with more and more from places like Malaysia and the Phillipines and China.
On May 18-20 the Chaos in Tejas festival in Austin, one of the biggest annual REAL punk festivals around, featured bands from Japan, pro-queer bands like Limp Wrist & The Dicks, bands from other countries, etc. The simian bigots who get together and start the bands from that RAC list have no place in that scene and are their own special, ignored ghetto. One of the best contemporary hardcore bands, the anti-capitalist and anti-Bush World Burns to Death from Austin, regularly open for touring Japanese acts, toured Brazil, etc. (I played a Chaos in Tejas sampler show at Radio Schizo a couple of weeks ago if you want to hear Limp Wrist, the Japanese punk bands, etc: http://www.metalwarfare.com/radioschizo/2006/05/radio-schizo-14-chaos-in-tejas-2006.html )
Yes, there were dumb numbskulled attitudes early on in punk (and there still can be, as with anything). "Love in a Void," as Wendy Lyon says, had the "too many Jews for my liking" line, which Siouxsie changed to "too many bigots for my liking." Minor Threat had "Guilty of Being White," Black Flag had "White Minority" and even the all-African American Bad Brains had an anti-gay song "Don't Blow No Bubbles." Later, the folks in Minor Threat became some of the biggest lefties around, going onto Fugazi where they wrote lyrics like "Smallpox Champion," which I posted here. Black Flag dropped "White Minority."
An early 80s influx of bands like MDC, the Dead Kennedys, the whole Crass label of strongly left-anarchist and vegan bands, DRI, the UK's SUB HUM ANS, and volumes more, with The Clash in the mainstream, pretty much decidedly sealed hc/punk as a left cultural force, albeit one where the participants don't openly or consciously embrace leftism the way someone like a Yoshie Furuhashi does. (It's a lot sloppier and beer-soaked, in other words.) But if you read MRR or Punk Planet or Profane Existence or any punk zine with any credibility, it's always left-of-center. There are fuck ups in the bunch here and there, with some shock rock nonsense at the beginning of punk (swastikas, but also hammer and sickles, remember), but punk came around to being fairly radical lefty and bands that are racist aren't welcome. (Trivia: The singer of recent hc/punk band A//Political, Stanislav Vystovsky, has become some sort of teacher at Northeastern University, and his work has revolved around studying racism in the US: http://home.comcast.net/~vysotsky.s/index.html )
Mentioning RAC to damn punk is like mentioning NSBM bands (Nat'l Socialist Black Metal) to damn all of heavy metal.
-B.
Dennis Perrin wrote:
"So, in other words, you meant that a bunch of minor-league white skinhead racist punk bands sang racist, queer-bashing songs. "