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Nat'l music education director: "Blacks and Latinos lack the keyboard skills needed for this field."
https://alternateroots.org/why-we-must-have-inclusion-diversity-and-equity-in-the-arts-a-response-to-the-national-association-for-music-education/WHY WE MUST HAVE INCLUSION, DIVERSITY, AND EQUITY IN THE ARTS: A RESPONSE TO THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR MUSIC EDUCATION
By Keryl McCord, Operations Director, Alternate ROOTS | May 4, 2016
There may be a thousand problems in the field of music education, but black and Latino students aren’t one of them.
On Tuesday April 26, 2016, the National Endowment for the Arts convened a meeting with national arts service organizations. The meeting’s focus was Diversity, Inclusion and Equity in the Arts. Approximately sixty-four people were in the space, representing a range of arts service organizations including NEA staff, and Chairman Jane Chu.
Arts service organizations were asked to, in small groups around tables of eight, identify the challenges they and their fields face as they seek to address issues of diversity, inclusion and equity.
Representing my organization – Alternate ROOTS, where I am Operations Director – I was seated at the table with Mr. Michael Butera, Executive Director and CEO of the National Association for Music Education. Each of the organizations at the table articulated how we were attempting to deal with issues of equity, inclusion, and diversity within our boards, staff, membership, and our fields.
Mr. Butera told us that his board was all white and that he couldn’t diversify his board because they aren’t appointed but, rather, they are elected by the membership. Further, his membership isn’t diverse because, “Blacks and Latinos lack the keyboard skills needed for this field.” He also intimated that music theory is too difficult for them as an area of study. It seems that music education is on an order of magnitude of difficulty akin to medicine or law. Yet there are thousands and thousands of black and Latino doctors and lawyers.
SNIP
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Wasn't it Billy Joel that said that if the Music Hall of Fame wanted to depict reality, there'd be nothing but black people in it??
This is exactly the kind of bullshit that OneGrassRoot is always talking about. The "diversity" councils and groups that are compiled of nothing but well meaning white people that are every bit as culturally clueless and insular as non-well meaning white people. And they are the ones that create the desperately needed opportunities for youth to grow and expand. I'm sure you could count the number of opportunities this guy/group came up with for children of color on one damned finger.
Here are a few more black folks that somehow were able to put aside our sub-human natures and learn how to play a piano:
Alicia Keys -
and John Legend -
but I have a different name for them. This is about keeping white spaces white, plain and simple. They know if we get a foot in the door, we'll take that damn door off its hinges, and other POC will walk through. Fuck Mr. Butera.
