Harvard University

“Black Eyeliner does not make you a Non-Conformist.” Several years ago, my mother told me I listened to “white people music.” And I suppose that’s true—rock ‘n’ roll tends to spring from the middle-class basements of young, white men. Though I did not point out that its origins trace back to jazz musicians of the Harlem Renaissance. Also that one of the greatest guitarists of all time—dear Mr. Hendrix; may he rest in peace—was black. My devotion to punk rock began in seventh grade, when Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” came up on my iTunes shuffle. I started looking into their other…