Description

Imperial Laughs: A Soldier’s Song and the Colonial Present

In this article, the author provides a critical reading of a song–controversially called “Hadji Girl”–written by a US Marine deployed in Iraq in 2005 that became publicly known via the Internet. The article discusses the ways in which the song conveys particular logics of dehumanization and “racialization” regarding the Iraqi people. The author contends that the dehumanizing coordinates of the song point to how contemporary US sovereignty justifies itself and its violence through intertwined cultural logics of racial superiority and regenerative violence that is in many ways colonial, or, rather, neocolonial, in character.

Iraq, music, US imperialism, US colonialism, dehumanization, racism

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 37, Nos. 2-3 (2010-11): 73-83.