Notes on Racism, and White Supremacy In Classical Music
To be a Negro in this country, and to be relatively conscious, is to be in a rage almost all the time. — James Baldwin
I know this rage.
I was enraged when Chicago cops ran up to my car at night and put guns to my head. I’m enraged I’ll never drive in the US for fear of being shot. I’m enraged that my heart jumps wherever I see police worldwide.
Growing up in the South, I learned that white words kill. Death has no rules except to snuff me out. Amy Cooper knew. Black men are never believed.
In 2017, white words fired me as Brown University’s new orchestra director.
Before meeting me, white students emailed they were nervous and anxious. Charged with “Not being conducive to our educational and community values,” I was fired after six weeks solely on the word of white students.
What were their values? White supremacy.
Politics is Bankrupt for Blacks
Republicans and overt racist are not the problem. The problem is silently complacent self-proclaimed white liberal allies. They USE liberality as escapism, eschewing reflecting on their racism, while Blacks remain absent from their daily lives, minds and hearts.
Empathy let’s us understand each other, not laws and politics. Sharing empathy through music is the only way to heal society.
As slaves and only three-fifths human, we weren’t at the constitutions table. Gaining full-citizenship in 1868 wasn’t intended. It still isn’t.
Notes for White People
You always say, “I want to do something about racism.”
What needs doing is yourselves.
Focus less on externally undoing racism, and more on the in-doing of racism, requiring deep honest reflection.
Call out fellow racist whites!
75% of white people don’t live around Black people, making the self-reporting of racism suspicious. — Michele Lamont
Learn to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.
It’s up to all of us — Black, white, everyone — no matter how well-meaning we think we might be, to do the honest, uncomfortable work of rooting it out. It starts with self-examination and listening to those whose lives are different from our own. — FLOTUS Michelle Obama
Blacks center your feelings 24/7/365 fearing loss of life, opportunities and relationships.
Help us by listening for shared empathy, breathing through the inevitable handicap of white fragility.
RECUSE yourself from judging racism.
You created it! Stop demanding gratuitous retellings of our racial trauma to judge its veracity.
Learn how your whiteness is detrimental to my life.
Your survival has never depended on your knowledge of white culture. In fact, it’s required your ignorance. — Ijeoma Oluo
White Supremacy in Classical music
I believe classical music can change the racist social conscience of white society.
Classical music is imported. It belongs to everyone.
As the progenitors of jazz and pop music, African-Americans created the most identifiable exportation of American culture. Think Beyonće. If given the same opportunity and support in classical music, we’d define the genre.
Science proves we share the greatest empathy with those we’re most socialized with.
I’m disgusted by major white artists who remain tacet over recent Black lynching’s. You’re complicit in our deaths. Your lack of socialization with Blacks means decreased empathy. If the victims were Jewish or Asian — like most of our peers — you’d empathize with benefit concerts and demonstrations.
You’re not a real musician if you don’t care for my Black life.
Musicians are the doctors of humanity.
Now is the time to prove music’s power to heal!
Now is your chance to connect society!
Now is the time to prove classical music is essential!
Hoarding art to preserve your ego and not offend fellow whites is selfish, wasteful and out of tune with humankind.
Less than 2% of US-Americans attended the opera in 2016. Now, artist managements, orchestras and opera companies are folding, rightfully so. If you had extended cultural membership to Blacks, you’d have more money. Even in cities where Blacks are the majority, we’re excluded from orchestras and audiences.
To preserve audiences and music post — Covid-19, those in power must make a visceral commitment to include Black artists, audience, artist managers and administrators in their business plan.
We must realize that the goal of racial equity in classical music isn’t altruism. It’s to thrive economically at all times, and remain relevant in an increasingly globalized society.
A Note for Black People
Blacks in music must stop centering white feelings, thinking it’ll get them ahead. Centering white feelings allows our bodies to continue to be used as target practice, lynched/hanged, falsely accused and imprisoned upon white whims, reflecting the self-hate we’re taught to believe. Silence on racism eventually causes loss of opportunity and lives. We’re still on a leash. We’ll only get so far until they yank us back. Friends, for the sake of my life and yours, decenter white feelings everyday all day.
Keep race on the table. Serving it up cold only when we’re freshly lynched is too late. Tell them daily how their whiteness marginalizes and threatens our lives. Not doing so is suicidal.
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Noted conductor, educator and activist Brandon Keith Brown engineers society from the podium by decreasing the racial stigmatization of underrepresented minority classical musicians. Brown is a prizewinner and the audience favorite of the 2012 International Sir Georg Solti Competition for Conductors, and guest conducts prominent European orchestras including the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester-Berlin, Badisches Staatskapelle, Staatskapelle Weimar, members of the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Jena Philharmonie among others. Upcoming debuts include the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin, WDR Funkhaus Orchestra Köln, and the Cape Town Philharmonic. Upcoming debuts include the Johannesburg Philharmonic, the Slovak State Philharmonic Košice and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra. He is a student of David Zinman, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, and Gustav Meier. graduating with a master’s from Johns Hopkins University. Initially trained as a violinist, he attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music studying under Roland and Almita Vamos.
Brown is an activist, speaker and writer. Articles on race have been featured on The Medium and in the Berlin Tagesspiegel. He is a frequent podcast guest and speaker on racism in classical music.
For Speaking and Conducting engagements: info@brandonkeithbrown.com
Follow me on Instagram: @brandonkeithbrownconductor
Website: www.brandonkeithbrown.com
