LogFAQs > #946056281

theiwantsong posted...

I think this is a bit regressive.

it's not

Like...music theory itself is not racist. The events in history that led to music theory being as it exists today were racist.

the music theory curriculum was designed by people who were explicitly racist, and it was designed specifically according to their racist views. it is therefore reasonable to call this curriculum racist.

The system itself is not like...easier for white people to understand or something.

correct, but that is not the only criteria for determining whether or not something is racist

It's not racist lol. If it were then English is racist.

admittedly, I don't know much about how the study of English literature developed into what it is today. was it developed by a man explicitly for the purpose of glorifying English writers whom he believed to be of a superior race? I don't know. but if it was, then sure, I'd say it's reasonable to call it racist.

in my experience, there is not much concrete structure in an English literature curriculum -- even at the high school level, the specific material studied is mostly left up to individual teachers -- so I'm inclined to say that the blame is more on individual teachers and the specific materials they teach rather than on any overarching system.

(I studied English in university, so I'm fairly interested in this topic, and there are people close to me who teach English at the high school level, so I think I tend to be fairly aware of this type of thing. it may very well work differently in different places though)

by contrast, people are largely taught music theory through a system that was designed first and foremost to analyze the works of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven -- and again, they were selected specifically because the guy who designed this system wanted to propagate a sense of German cultural superiority.

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