This is one of the better "guys, have you realized Morrissey is racist?" accounts but the prosecution's case is still sorely lacking. It's easy to cherry-pick signs that Morrissey is a middle-aged racist. It's also easy to run down a list of signs which, if they don't exonerate him, profoundly complicate the picture.
We're all familiar with the list of offenses. It's dutifully recited with each new essay or review expressing horror at what Morrissey has allegedly become.
There is also a list in his defense: his wholehearted embrace of his Mexican fanbase, his surprising cosmopolitanism (songs about Mexico, France, Turkey, Israel), attacks on America in the Bush era ("America Is Not The World"), support for Obama, a few newer tracks like "Who Will Protect Us From The Police?" with its closing refrain of 'Venezuela!', his recent use of an inspirational image associated with the Black Panthers, and on and on and on.
Sure, every one of those points can be contested, but so can all the damning ones. To take just one example from Hatherley's essay, yes, "Panic" contains a withering line about DJs. But to say it's about "black music" is to ignore the song's direct inspiration. Immediately following a story about Chernobyl, Radio One played a Wham track, a disconnect which stunned Morrissey and Marr into writing the song (it is Marr, whose politics are not in question, who affirms the truth of that anecdote). "Panic" is obviously an attack on mainstream pop.
Well, but didn't Morrissey hate reggae? Here's an excerpt from a 2003 Guardian article about Morrissey's revived Attack label, an imprint of Trojan:
"Despite his gibe about reggae, made to the NME in the 1980s, Morrisey picked a ska track - Swan Lake by the Cats - when he curated a compilation of music for a series devoted to famous artists' influences.
Commenting on his choice, he told the music magazine Word: "I once said, 'Reggae is vile,' did I? Well, several tongue-in-cheek things were said in those days, which, when placed in cold print, lost their humorous quality.
"This track, along with Double Barrel and Young, Gifted and Black, were staple teenage necessities to me."
He added: "Anyway, annoying the NME always has value."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jun/07/arts.artsnews
Really, there's almost no offense committed by Morrissey that doesn't have another side which overturns or heavily qualifies it. Again: if not an exonerating side, then a side that complicates and muddies the picture enough to make any reasonable person back off from slamming him with terms like "racist" and "suburban fascist".
The truth is, Morrissey's songs and public persona have always presented a difficult ambiguity, both in The Smiths and as a solo artist, and if one is too narrow in one's interpretation, if one only selects some aspects of his work to examine and not others, the wrong conclusions will surely be reached.
This is even clearer with respect to his public remarks. Has anyone read the article in 1985, after "Meat Is Murder", when a writer notes he's wearing leather shoes and he brushes it off? Has anyone read the piece from the mid-90s in which Morrissey-- Morrissey, writer of "Margaret On The Guillotine"-- laments the "public decapitation" of Thatcher? Does no one remember when he called Americans, not a "subspecies", but "a few steps above diseased orangutans?"
What's changed comes down to art, not politics: Morrissey is currently taking a beating among critics and industry peers because his music is no longer compelling enough to make them do the tricky work of unraveling his ambiguities. Unlike his time in The Smiths, when the music was so good critics were willing to take on the thorny task of figuring him out, Morrissey's solo career has been so artistically patchy and culturally irrelevant that no one bothers to investigate what he's actually saying anymore. Can you imagine what Simon Reynolds would say if you asked him to approach "I Am Not A Dog On A Chain" with the same enthusiasm and depth of interpretation he brought to his excellent piece on "Viva Hate"? He'd chew through his own leg to avoid that assignment.
So we're flush with public condemnations sent down from people who haven't bothered to pay attention since 1987. Among writers and critics there's no investment in understanding Morrissey. Why bother? It's easier to scan headlines. Easier to wag a finger about a badge than it is to dwell on the giant photos of James Baldwin and Bruce Lee he used as backdrops on his last tour. The badge tells a simple picture, just like the Union Jack at Madstock. Low-hanging fruit for shocked leftists too bored by Morrissey's music to do their homework.