A round a decade ago, I attended a primary music education conference in which delegates were treated to a superb Gospel choir from London. As their music took my atheist soul to the heavens, something remarkable dawned on me: the entire choir was black, apart from one member, and almost everyone in the audience was white – and in 1930s Alabama there would have been signs up enforcing this.
So, in modern Britain, how had this come to pass? I was keen to find answers, and attended one of Nate Holder's lectures on Critical Race Theory (CRT).
At that time, Nate's work was uncontroversial. It was widely accepted that there were enormous issues with under-representation of Britain's diverse communities in many areas of musical life, for performers and educators alike.
The reactions to the murder of George Floyd in 2020 started to see the voices of academics such as Nate, and movements such as Black Lives Matter (BLM), become amplified. Primary schools started to explore the history of canonical children's songs – especially those imported from the US – and were often horrified by what they found. Songs written for minstrel shows, specifically to mock black communities, were being heartily sung in music assemblies. Much healthy debate and discussion ensued as schools worked towards more inclusive curricula. Philip Ewell, in his introduction to If I were a racist, and Holder both mention ‘tectonic shifts’ and the intensity of discussion at the time. However, with reactions come counter-reactions, due to what Holder describes as people ‘feeling fed up with constant conversations, questions and accusations’. Ewell's introduction talks of a pendulum swing, with ‘efforts to diversify structures and include all peoples … under attack’.
Holder's original poem, ‘If I were a racist’, which this book expands on, was written in the eye of this storm, a month after Floyd's death. While the poem garnered worldwide attention and acclaim, there was also the pendulum swing – the war on CRT and BLM became part of the ‘war on woke’. The poem was removed from a Facebook group, and Nate was treated to ‘insinuations and aggressive language’ from some music teachers with very defensive reactions.
The book is the literary equivalent of a director's commentary for the poem, in which each stanza is analysed and explained in detail. However, Holder's commentary on the poem is concise and thought-provoking, with important historical and social commentary added. He highlights 11 aspects of music education for our consideration. First: is the language we use necessary, stylistically appropriate and inclusive? Second: are we whitewashing musical history by playing Bob Marley's ‘Sweet songs of melodies pure and true’ but not ‘War’ or ‘Burning and Looting’, for example? Further: what roles do notation, audiation, sheet music and improvisation have in western and non-western music? Are we being representative of and respectful towards the enormous cultural diversity of Africa? What happens if we flip the way we describe ‘African’ music to considering ‘European Music’ as a monoculture? Jazz musicians consider artists like Miles Davis and John Coltrane to have just as much ‘cultural capital’ as Brahms – should music education reflect this? How are we dealing with the issue of enslaved people in music history? What exactly is ‘world music’? What is informing our choices of musical instruments?
Holder's aims are not to virtue signal, provoke white guilt, or label fellow professionals as racist. Instead, he invites us to contemplate which elements of our work may be problematic. Such provocations are vital for the healthy discourse and development of inclusive music education and something much needed. Whether we agree and change our practice, disagree and contemplate counter-arguments, or partially agree and make modifications, thinking about these issues will improve our work and may well lead to much better engagement from some students. For example, I teach Italian musical terms and will stand by this; I don't want children to be cut off from that world. However, I will also take great care not to exclude alternative descriptions and terms, and to point out to children that these might be better for specific musical contexts – asking a punk band to do a rallentando, for example, may not go down too well.
If I were a Racist is a bold, uncompromising and provocative book. It is also thoughtful, well-researched and concise. If you are anything like me, you will easily devour it in a few short hours, but your reflections will linger far longer. We all know that change is, as Richie Havens put it, a ‘long, hard road’ – one that we need thinkers like Holder to illuminate.
