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3.27.07 @ 12:01AM

TOWARD RACIAL HARMONY
Re: Christopher Orlet's Racial Discord:

As a scholar specializing in classical music and U.S. race relations, I feel compelled to comment on Christopher Orlet's "Racial Discord." While I certainly agree with Mr. Orlet -- as I am sure all classical musicians and music lovers would as well -- that the first and foremost goal of professional orchestras should be artistic excellence rather than political correctness, his discussion is fraught with some inaccurate assumptions.

Mr. Orlet compares the absence of African Americans and Latinos in the classical music profession with the widely recognized success of Asian Americans in the field. He characterizes the idea that "blacks and Latinos cannot afford musical instruments and lessons" as "the mummified excuse," and criticizes those who make the point for "conveniently ignoring the fact that the children of poor Korean and Chinese immigrants somehow manage these things, as did the children of Jewish immigrants a hundred years ago." The fact of the matter is, the Asian and Asian American musicians who have entered the top-level conservatories and professional orchestras in the past few decades are NOT children of poor Korean and Chinese immigrants. Of course there are a few exceptional musicians who come from less privileged backgrounds, but the vast majority of Asians in classical music today -- Asian Americans who were born and raised in the United States as well as Asian-born musicians who came to the United States either specifically to study music or for other reasons -- come from professional, middle-class families with a significant amount of educational, cultural, and economic capital and abundant exposure to classical music and other forms of culture and the arts since childhood. Precisely because the classical music field demands extremely high artistic and technical standards, unless one has received formal, rigorous training continuously since early childhood, it is impossible to acquire the specialized skills required to enter the profession. If you or your parents cannot afford the professional-standard instrument, many years of private lessons, and most importantly, the living situation that allows you to devote as many as eight or ten hours every day to practicing, you cannot even consider auditioning for a conservatory, let alone a professional orchestra. It is not surprising that those who come from professional, middle-class backgrounds dominate the field.

In addition to economics, there are also historical reasons for the large presence of Asians in classical music today. When Western music was introduced to East Asian nations -- Japan, Korea, China -- in the late nineteenth century, their governments took deliberate, programmatic steps to introduce this music to the masses through the educational system. Such government-led efforts -- combined with the middle-class aspiration for Western learning, the growth of the manufacturing of musical instruments, and the development of effective pedagogical methods for musical instruction -- resulted in classical music becoming a widespread middle-class, rather than elite, pursuit in many parts of East Asia in the postwar decades. The more Asian students gain exposure to classical music and receive serious training in it, the more of them enter the profession.

It is understandable that relatively few African American and Latino children aspire to a career in classical music. Most people agree that the fact that there are few women in the sciences and engineering is less due to their "innate" abilities than to the years of gendered socialization and the absence of female role models in the field. It is difficult for children to imagine themselves in a field in which they do not see a version of themselves represented. If, in a few classical music performances that African American and Latino children are exposed to, few of the faces they see look like themselves, they are less likely to feel that the music they hear is THEIR music, and they are less likely to feel they belong in that world.

I share the hope with both Mr. Dworkin and Mr. Orlet that classical music be enjoyed by a larger and more racially, economically, and culturally diverse audience. And yes, making classical music accessible to "poor and middle class white kids in rural schools" is a very good idea, and some musicians and educators have been working hard on such projects. I also hope that all children and adults in the United States learn to appreciate cultures and the arts other than the ones they grew up with. After all, the power of art lies in its ability to communicate. Because of the many years of specialized training classical music requires, many classical musicians tend to have limited knowledge of non-classical musical genres, and I believe that classical musicians acquiring familiarity with other genres of music would indeed enrich and expand the musicality of professional orchestras. But greater diversity in classical -- as well as other genres of -- music cannot be achieved by a quick fix such as changing the audition format or adopting a racially based quota system for orchestras at the expense of artistic integrity. It can be achieved only if American society attains greater socioeconomic equality so that children across the nation -- regardless of region, race, class, or gender -- gain access to quality education, including the arts. It can be achieved only if the government, the private sector, and individual members of society make the decades-long commitment to education, culture, and the arts. Yes, it will take at least twenty, perhaps fifty or a hundred, years to accomplish. But that is at least how long it took Asians to come to have a presence in the field.

Finally, it is curious to me that Mr. Orlet cites the military as an institution that has excelled without what he calls "social engineering" for achieving diversity. For, the U.S. military does an excellent job of a targeted recruitment of less-than-affluent minority youths in economically depressed regions of the country. If the U.S. Marines indeed runs so brilliantly as Mr. Orlet suggests, it sure owes its success to those youths who dedicate themselves to serving the nation which has long failed to deliver the dreams promised to them, one that does not even give them access to fine music.
-- Mari Yoshihara
Associate Professor and Graduate Chair
Department of American Studies
University of Hawai'i at Manoa
(Her book, Musicians From a Different Shore: Asians and Asian Americans in Classical Music, is forthcoming from Temple University Press in October 2007.)

EASY BIGOTRY
Re: The Washington Prowler's Schumer's Mole:

Evangelicals for Romney. What a non-sequitur! What an oxymoron! How absurd can they get? Of course the "Evangelicals for Romney" site is filled with lies about Thompson and Huckabee. The site itself is a lie, bought and paid for; no believing evangelical with any understanding is going to help build up the Mormon church by working for Romney. How stupid do they think we are that we can be duped by a website like that? There is a simple fact to be understood here. The evangelicals are the biggest voting bloc the Republicans have...and many of us won't vote for a Mormon, including the writer of this letter. Romney can't win.
-- Greg F.
Delray Beach, Florida

It's no surprise that Fred Thompson is beating out Romney in polls; the conservatives have been thirsty for a real Republican and they hay have found it in Thompson. It's exciting to see his name in more articles every week and I hope that Fred or someone just like him receives the nomination.
-- Adam Jones
Arlington, Texas

HOT UNDER THE COLLAR
Re: Mark Tooley's Prepare for Biblical Floods and Droughts:

It wasn't 6 hours after the IPCC published its report to policy makers that the Catholic USCCB issued a communique that essentially endorsed everything the IPCC underwrote. For an organization that cannot even agree to change two words of the Scared Liturgy as mandated by the Vatican without "undertaking years of study," this was quite surprising. The Evangelical Left appears to be no different; maybe they've just grown tired of "fishing for men"; it is so much more exciting playing the role of a prophet.

In both of the above cases we've seen an attempt by so called people of science to use persuasion that is anything but scientific. The Catholic Bishops' Conference, once dubbed the "Democratic Party at Prayer," appears to endorse any program that will enlarge the state. They even equate their endorsement as advocacy for the poor. The Evangelical Left goes a step farther it seems, and it appears that they've readjusted their eschatology a bit. We are going to Hell, and it has nothing to do with the Forbidden Fruit and everything to do with our use of fossil fuels. One would think the advanced minds of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) crowd would be terribly embarrassed by this new association with Men of the Cloth.

Since the release of the IPCC TAR last February, the people of the world have witnessed an almost desperate public relations offensive by the AGW proponents. Almost daily there are news articles published by the esteemed advocates of science whose "studies" predict everything from the disappearance of winters, 20 foot rise in our sea levels, massive hurricane and typhoon outbreaks, droughts, floods, famines, the loss of entire eco-systems, the extinction of the artic polar bears, the complete melting of both polar ice caps...well you get the picture. Hollywood has got into the act as well (they promise world wide concerts to raise awareness), as has Team KEdwards of 2004 fame, most of the Democratic Party, and the piece de resistance of the AGW PR Offensive-an Oscar for ALGORE. Now, even the enemies of science -- religious leaders -- have been drafted. Never before in the history of science has there been such an effort to persuade the average Joe to accept what last year was declared "Settled Science." The Advocates of AGW even created a set of code words which are supposed to put the AGW Skeptics on the permanent defensive. Skeptics of the AGW are now branded deniers as in Holocaust Deniers. The Settled Science Crowd must also borrow from religion the term Heretic in order to convey the seriousness of their arguments.

Despite the biblical imagery, the religious fervor, and the very modern PR campaign, this has not been a very good spring or winter for the AGW advocates. A two-woman team from Europe trekked to the Arctic Circle last February to raise awareness for the melting ice caps. To their astonishment, the Arctic Circle was...well downright frigid -- like minus 55 degrees F frigid. After suffering near debilitating frostbite they abandoned their quest. To the eternal embarrassment of the AGW Alarmists, ALGORE, has been caught in flagrante burning fossil fuels like there is no tomorrow. As far as the expected political rout is concerned, there appears to be no storming of the gates by the proletariat demanding Congress Do Something. As a matter of fact, if anything there has been on giant yawn across the Heartland. Underscoring the PR failure, a poll of 6th Graders last week indicated that not even children are buying into the Prophets of Doom. If one considers the large sums of money spent on the PR Offensive, at least the most impressionable would be convinced. I mean, they are a captive audience.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Education, Economics, Religion, Environment, Global Warming, Hollywood, Law, Military, Iraq, Africa, Communism, Energy, Oil