It's Our Mess to Clean Up

There’s been a lot of talk lately about structural racism in the music academy, and I’ve had the privilege of taking part in some great conversations about where we are, how we got here, and how we might move forward. The Southern Graduate Music Research Symposium (SGMRS), hosted in turn by the University of Florida, Florida State University, and this year by the University of Georgia, featured a discussion this September on this topic, moderated by Danielle Davis. You can check out her work here, and she’s also featured on my resources tab. If you’re reading this, you’re likely already aware of the problem, and you know that people like Danielle Davis and Professor Philip Ewell have already covered this extensively. Loren Kajikawa’s (2019) “The Possessive Investment in Classical Music: Confronting Legacies of White Supremacy in U.S. Schools and Departments of Music” in Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness across the Disciplines is another great source for how systemic racism is embedded into the musical academy.

My goal here is not to cover what others already have, but to share an analogy I found that works for me, and seemed helpful for others in conversations in our discussions at SGRMS. I can remember that when I was a child my mother would often be astounded at our inability to see our own mess. I can still hear her asking, her voice shaking and incredulous, how we could walk up the stairs and not notice our own backpacks, toys, and books that she had carefully placed on the steps for us to carry up to our rooms. Or how we managed to scan a room she’d asked us to tidy and truly not notice what we’d scattered across the room earlier that day.

When I became a mother myself, I not only understood her frustration, but I began to realize why I didn’t see the mess as a child: it wasn’t something I needed to worry about. Mom always cleaned up; even if she asked us for help, it was primarily her responsibility. Suddenly, it was my responsibility, and I could see every pencil, snack wrapper, ball, book, backpack, jacket, and sock out of place.

We see what only we’re responsible for cleaning up. No, let me amend that—we see only what we take on the responsibility to clean up. White colleagues, let’s not put the burden of addressing racism and micro-aggressions in the academy on people of color. If you’re not seeing these things in your institution, I want to challenge you to start to look for them. Look for them as if cleaning them up were your responsibility. Start to do the work of cleaning up.

Is it exhausting to call out micro-aggressions when we see them? To challenge whose music we privilege in our curricula? To question the white supremacy embedded in pedagogical practices that have “always been done that way”? Of course. But it’s more exhausting to live it. And if you’re looking for me to tell you it will get easier the more you do it, I’m here to tell you that just like the never-ending trail of socks around my house, the more time you spend cleaning it up, the more mess you’ll notice.

Ignorance is complicity. So take a look around, and start with the first sock you see.

References

Davis, Danielle. 2020. Danie Does Musicology. Blog. https://www.daniedoesmusicology.com/blog.

Ewell, Phil. 2020. Music Theory’s White Racial Frame: Confronting Racism and Sexism in American Music Theory. https://musictheoryswhiteracialframe.wordpress.com/.

Kajikawa, Loren. 2019. “The Possessive Investment in Classical Music: Confronting Legacies of White Supremacy in U.S. Schools and Departments of Music.” In Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness across the Disciplines, edited by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Luke Charles Harris, Daniel Martinez HoSang, and George Lipsitz, 155–74. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.