Klarinet Archive - Posting 000272.txt from 1999/02

From: James.P.Reed@-----.net (James P Reed)
Subj: Re: [kl] re:Black, or African American
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 21:19:15 -0500

Please excuse my long-windedness. I really just want to know if I
should change clarinet instructors, 8 months into beginning to play my
first real musical instrument (I don't consider my prior history in
percussian 35 years ago as much of a valid musical one). I just feel
the academic need to clarify my biases and assumptions first.

David Blumberg wrote the following

> Ed, I'm not black, but the term "African American" IS the
> politically correct one from all that I have heard, and read. I much
> prefer black (myself), and think that the African American stuff is
> silly, but then again - I didn't make the "rules". (what if they are
> Caribbean american, etc....).
>

I've been tempted to join in on this thread about bias and related
issues but have held off, probably due to not wanting my temper to flare
up. Certainly, Carl S. has outlined a great research approach that I
would like to see carried out by a doctoral student, someday soon.
However, it may still be too politically hot of an issue to risk doing
for a dissertation. Would it make a difference if the research was
undertaken by a male or female, a black or white or
Hispanic/Latino/Mexican or Oriental (there's a white racist term
grouping all kinds of non-similar folks together if there ever was one),
etc.? And, what if the dissertation committee was all white males? The
assumptions research is based on are an element of subjectivity that
scientific methods do not allow us to eliminate - we have to assume some
things and those things are the indicators of our bias.

Anyway, the discussion on black and African American intrigues me, as
does variations on it. Especially being Lebanese and Appalachian
(something folks in my part of the country are extremely sensitive to as
meaning a culturally and economically deprived set of the population) in
my own cultural mix. I've been called black or brown, and even colored,
by some people who adhere to old European standards of considering Arabs
as dark skinned people. This has taken place from Boston and New York
City to Singapore and Hong Kong, over the past 30 years. In the
American midwest, which has a large Arab population, I'm considered
white - plus a member of the U.S.'s most current evil enemy and favorite
target - ARABS (rampant anti-Semetism which is acceptable since it's not
against Jews! FYI, Semites are the descendants of Shem, son of Noah,
descended from Abraham and include Jews, Arabs, and Armenians, among
others. Since Nazism, folks in the U.S. operate on the erroneous and
racist assumption that Jews are the only "legitimate" Semites). Does
any of this really matter? I don't know. I do know it sucks to always
see Arabs portrayed as evil, even though some of them are, just like
with all groups of people.

I also know that during this same period of time, especially in my
classrooms these days, I find that many blacks prefer being referred to
as black and see themselves as being different from Africans who also
see themselves as being different from black Americans (something that's
held true in my experiences dating back to college campuses, from Ann
Arbor to Detroit, in the sixties). At the same time, my white liberal
friends get real upset when I refer to blacks as black and chastise me
for not calling them African-American. My highly empirical experiences
in Detroit, New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago and now, Dayton Ohio,
seem to be fairly consistent on this over the past couple of decades.

As somebody with Arab blood, I'm always amazed that only sub-Saharan
people of African descent are referred to as African-American while
other peoples, just as indigenous to Africa, are not allowed to be
referred to as African-American. There are folks who then draw the
conclusion that African-American is just another, fancier, racist term,
especially since is it used in a discriminatory manner regarding the
peoples descended from Africans - meaning all of Africa, from Egypt to
Morocco to South Africa. Any opinions on this out there?

At least 20% of my students are black females, many of whom do not like
being referred to as African-Americans. They often vocally express the
desire to be thought of as Americans who are black. The whites in my
classes are afraid to not use the term African-American. Since these
experiences come forth primarily in my psychology classes, we often
spend considereable time discussing them, at least until the students
become more comfortable and open with one another.

Certainly, I still experience a lot of racial bias when I appear
publicly, with the black women I occassionally date, going back to the
one I tried to marry in the early seventies, when my family threatened
to disown me and she decided not to come between me and my family. Damn
fun racial issues are.

It's been awhile since I've been involved in primary research but my
experiences in Dayton (viewed by some of us as a very racist community
with blacks on one side of the river and whites on the other) brought
out results that many black residents, when I interviewed them in focus
groups throughout the community, preferred to be referred to as
Americans who are black, rather than African-Americans. At the same
time, their black, community leadership advocates using the term
African-American. This research was done in the early ninties, for the
Medical School of Wright State University, at a time when it began
developing some community health programs for primary care and cultural
training of medical and nursing students.

Much of the time, I don't see political correctness as being much more
than contemporary Nazism anyway - if I remember correctly, they had 16
distinctly, identifiable groups in the concentration camps and only one
of those groups was Jewish. Correctly categorizing and labeling groups
was a white, racist obession with the Nazi's that now runs rampant in
contemporary America. Many people sure use political correctness in a
battering and abusive way, rather than in a constructive or societally
healing manner. Remember, Teddy Roosevelt was the one who did away with
Irish-American, Italian-American, German-American, etc. even though
there was harsh and often violent discrimination among such groups at
that time.

As much as I write and lecture, my email, especially this statement
about issues that I have a history with, as well as an emotional
involvement with, often seem lengthy or disjointed. My appologies for
not being as articulate as I'd like. However, I did feel the need to
present my empirical experiences to this thread of racial bias, as a
prelude to my original question of "Should I switch clarinet
instructors?"

I tend to agree with the folks who argue training would result in more
of a noticable difference when auditioning, than race or gender or
ethnicity or whatever you i-dotters and t-crossers (it must be hell
trying to be perfect/God) prefer to call it - please note on the streets
it's still considered racial bias regardless of oppressive white
language and terminology. While I won't try to split hairs over the
issues of gender or racial or other kinds of bias being detectable in a
blind audition, I'm not convinced music played in auditions for
orchestras or bands has variations comparable to talking about Ebonics
and English. This is a little hard to imagine, the idea that blacks,
women and others would have significant differences in performing,
especially if they were trained by the same musicians.

Do we have any empircal evidence to indicate that black and female
clarinet instructors teach significantly different enough to suspect we
can detect such a bias? Or, have we reached a realm of theoretical
absurdity, comparing language and music over issues of ethnicity and
sex?

More to the point, have some of you been telling me that if I were
studying under a black, female clarinet instructor, if I auditioned
somewhere, I would be descriminated against as sounding like a black
female???????? If so, I' going to quit my lessons with a white male and
seek an alternative instructor!!!!!!

Since my personal and professional experiences have been so diverse as
to include having been around the Detroit riots in '67, to being a 'Nam
vet, to being a political appointee in New York City, when it went
bankrupt, to being involved in urban ministries work in Chicago, I'm
used to being flamed. So, let the fires roar.

Thanks in advance for your consideration of all this.

Jim Reed

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