Is everything racist? A book recommendation

Hello readers,

I hope to get back to some longer, more involved writing here soon. There are some essays I want to sink my teeth into, and that I hope you’ll want to sink yours into when they come out. Life is busy right now; thank you for your patience with the short bits I’ve been serving lately.

Following the good example of my friend

Holly’s Substack

, I’m spending some time every morning reading a book. On paper. And, thanks to her gift, I’m reading Heather MacDonald’s When Race Trumps Merit . If you’re interested in a well-researched examination of the way our emotions about race are threatening to tear down the credibility of our politics, our arts and their institutions, and our ability to leave peacably, you’ll find it in MacDonald.

It’s not “happy” reading, but it is a clear-eyed view of a serious sickness. Did you know that classical music and its professional devotees are, right now, tearing down the canon and themselves to “save classical music”? MacDonald narrates a conscious suicide in the arts that would be hard to believe in a work of fiction.

In chapter 3, The Crusade Against Classical Music, we find an entire field flagellating itself into likely non-existence.

The roots of it are at least 60 years old. Recounting the early experiences of Earl Carlyss, a member of the Julliard String Quartet, MacDonald writes,

One violinist played so poorly Carlyss mentioned him to the dean. “We know,” came the answer, “but no one has the nerve to boink him.” At Michigan State University, Carlyss tried to correct a student’s sloppy playing. Two weeks later, nothing had changed. “Have you practiced?” Carlyss asked. “I don’t have to,” the student responded. “I’ll always have a job.”—pp 83-84

MacDonald’s book examines the effect of wokeness on medicine, science, the arts, and crime. Recommended.