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Comment by blacktriangle | Hacker News Reader

You do realize that lots of popular old music was written by all races?

Stop trying to see racism everywhere where where there is none, it'll do wonders for your blood pressure.

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, and especially not on generic ideological flamewar tangents: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor....

I know the GP contained a provocation, but that's no reason to single it out, pour fuel on it, and light it on fire. When you do that, you seriously damage this place.

The intended spirit of HN is curiosity (specifically intellectual curiosity), and that implies a completely different way of behaving: overlooking provocations and focusing on something else that's interesting. Please do that instead.

Flamewars, especially on classic flamewar topics, have nothing interesting in them because they're so tediously repetitive, and of course inevitably turn nasty as well (perhaps as a way of making them less boring [1]). So they do multiple kinds of damage here. That's not cool.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

I agree with everything you said, but on the flip side, I do not see provocations like the GP getting flagged, which causes the exact same decay of the community that you are trying to avoid. So in the absence of moderation on those pushing his angle, I'm not sure what we the users are left to do other than push back?

EDIT: Actually, I think this is where HN's lack of a universal downvote button is a weakness. Had that been an option, I'd have simply downvoted his provocation and moved on.

It doesn't cause the exact same decay because the original comment was about lots of things, whereas the response was just about the flamebait. The original comment was also about the article, whereas the response was a meta leap into flames of poison. That's a noticeable decay rate.

That said, the GP comment was also a bad post for HN and I've posted a scolding here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27373460.

Preface: I know you act in good faith.

I don't think it's fair to let one person call people racist for being snooty about classical music, but lecture the person who finds that offensive and inappropriate on its own.

It's not possible for moderation to be perfectly consistent. For one thing we don't come close to seeing all the posts, and we can't even read the ones we do see particularly closely. There's just far too much content.

I've taken a closer look and agree that the originating comment was also bad, and have posted a reply up there now.

I mean, you're not wrong, but you're also pretty damn far from the truth. Any way you slice it, the music industry of yore was affected by the same latent racism that plagued everything, and it's no surprise that white musicians account for a disproportionate amount of music published before the civil rights movement.

Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington and Chuck Berry among others made old popular music. I'm not seeing any of their names here. The author restricts it to just "classical music".

Omission is not restriction. Specifically the author is directing the reader to instrumentals, so none of those distractingly awesome folks would apply.

Even recent music history is steeped in racism. Its not imagining racism to notice that some peoples views and tastes 'just happen' to only include white people.

See: Music Theory and White Supremacy by Adam Neely[0]

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA

The TL;DR for people who will be immediately triggered by the title and not bother to view is that Western music theory was intentionally designed around white supremacist ideals. It is exclusionary of the ideas and contributions of non-European cultures, and purposely so, as it deems them inferior.

I haven't finished this video yet, but its thesis so far seems rather absurd. It mentions a variety of music styles produced heavily[0] by white people (country, rock, EDM) which are not well suited to analysis by music theory, but then goes on to claim that music theory is about promoting "whiteness". This is a rather large hole, one I'm doubtful will be closed.

[0] if not exclusively.

None of those genres are produced exclusively by white people, and two of them are direct descendants of African American music.

I assume you've finished the video by now, so I look forward to reading your informed opinion of it.

Racism is everywhere if you look hard enough. The trick is to not actively look for it, else you'll become permanently disillusioned with the human race. We are imperfect beings, full of faults.

we are imperfect! ignoring systemic racism and personal bias does not seem to be the way forward though.

I think you are seeing racism where sometimes there isn't any. I like music when I hear it and I like it. It happens than most of what I like is made by white people? Is it racism? No, since I don't judge music on the skin color or race or ethnicity of the creator. I also don't think that the music I listen to is "better" than the music other people listen to, we just happen to have different tastes.

i think it is very interesting how some people are taking a statement that could (and does) mostly refer to broad and historical trends seen in individual practices and taking it as a statement about themselves as individuals.

if producers don't produce music of non-white people does that induce a racist bias? if educators don't include music of non-white people does that induce a racist bias? it was really not that long ago that other cultures were disregarded as uncivilized and unworthy of inclusion and in fact in need of destruction.

it does not require any active malice on your part for us to be living in a society that is the product of active and generational racism, and you might want to question why you think music is somehow exempt from this.

I don't think everything is the result of "active and generational racism". I live in a country from western europe, and it's hard to find asian food outside of specialized store. Is this because of racism? No, it's mostly because most people don't really eat asian food. People that do eat asian food have special places that cater to them because that's how markets works.

The same is true for music. People listen to pretty diverse things, and considering the success of rap music here (especially our own's country rap), it's hard to call that "active and generational racism" when it's one of the if not the most successful genre inside our country. Most young people listen to rap music and it's seen by older people as a bit weird/worse not because of racism, but because that's how old people see young people's music (The same thing happened with rock, and is still happening with metal. No racism here considering how white metal is.)

Producers do produce music of non-white people, non-white people are currently more popular than white people in music. I can't really speak about musical education since I didn't study it after high school, and before that we only had some bits, but I remember clearly that we talked about blues, jazz and their influence on modern music.

Racism exists, systemic racism exists, personal biaises exists, I'm not denying any of it. But personal preferences also do exists, and respecting them is important. Of course it's not easy to take that into account, because you could use "personal preferences" as an argument to only hire people like you because you "work better with them". But that's public/professional life. What I do in my private life is up to me. I'm not posting racist things, I'm not saying the music I listen to is better. I just support the artists I like and most of them happen to be white. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure I listen to and support more transgender people than the majority of the population. Does that means that they are transphobic? Probably not. They may be, but not because of what they listen to.

I think this is that white fragility thing I've heard about? You're just immediately on the attack, and sort of intentionally going for really bad examples. Did anyone suggest not being able to get asian food locally was racism?

Further, I can't speak for your country, but in mine explicitly racist policies have been the norm in living memory. You might look up 'red lining' and start there.

"Imagining racism" is pretty much exactly what I would call the way you are judging other people's tastes in music.

Why people like what they like is complicated. Often it's connected with what the people around them listened to. There is also research suggesting that aesthetic preferences can be tied to certain personality traits (which themselves are somewhat heritable).

To suggest that one might prefer music by white people is the result of conscious animus towards non-whites is reductionist in the extreme, and provides essentially no useful insight.

And even if that preference is rooted in racism, is what someone prefers to listen to in the privacy of their own home really something that should be a collective concern? I really doubt it.

Regardless of the motive, calling someone's tastes is music "racist" is probably the least effective way to get them to try out other kinds of music.

I exercise for my blood pressure (you might've caught that in the comment you were responding to), but thanks for the suggestion!

He specifically says classical music is the only acceptable kind, and the vast majority of the history of classical music was devoid of non-white people.

You should read the things you're responding to a little better - it'll do wonders for your comprehension.

Because non-white people do not have classical music? I agree with the parent, you see racism where it doesn't exist. Why would your mind go to only "white" classical music?

PS I'm Iranian-Armenian; both have rich "classical" music history. I have myself enjoyed Celtic, Chinese and Japanese folk music. Music and rhythm is so ingrained in us that I don't need to do research to know all other nations had music in all eras too.

> Why would your mind go to only "white" classical music?

Because the literal definition of "Classical Music" is Western music from the period of 1750 to 1820. The "Classical Period". [1] It is by definition music from old white dudes from Europe.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_music

It's not an unreasonable assumption given the website's graphics all focus on Western European classical art, it's even in the hyperlink. How often do such people mean classical music of non-European genres when they refer to classical?

The blogger uses Big-C Classical Big-M Music, which almost always means European classical music, pre-1900 [0]. You won't find many non-white composers in that particular group.

Capitalization matters, it creates a proper name out of something whether we agree on that name's appropriateness or not (Classical Music being so narrowly defined could be considered a misnomer, as you've pointed out there's a lot more classical music out there).

[0] I couldn't remember when I initially wrote this when the Classical Period ended, it ended earlier in the 1800s than I realized, by the common definition apparently 1820. The start was 1730 (using the earliest time people use to be generous) so "Classical Music" defines a period of less than one century of, specifically, European music.

Classical music doesn't need a big C or M. Simply the lack of additional qualification in "classical music" informs us that it's the historic western practice. Other classical musics are identified as such, e.g. "Indian classical music". Or else a context is established where that qualifier is understood, and then "classical music" refers to "Indian classical music".

The point is that you directly suggest that to hold classical music in high regard could be a signal of racism.

So you just said to every person who prefers classical music, "Hey, I think you could be a racist because I correlate a fondness for classical with racism."

I notice you don't decry the lack of female representation in classical music. Is that because you're sexist?

There isn't a lack of female representation in classical music. There were fewer composers or performers before modern times, but hardly unknown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_composers_by_bi...

https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/page/1900

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/latest/great-women-...

One can also find lists of prominent non-white composers:

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/black-composers-who...

https://adaptistration.com/2018/06/04/the-composer-diversity...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_composers_of_African_d...

the vast majority of the history of classical music was devoid of non-white people.

But it's a disingenuous (and sadly all-too-common) leap to conclude they're racist. People like different things. Get over it.

Amen

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