Narratives of Musical Resilience and the Perpetuation of Whiteness in the Music History Classroom

Abstract

Situated in departments and schools of music that have been designed to preserve, promote, and replicate the musical traditions of western Europe, the music history classroom is often deeply implicated in a project that centers whiteness and celebrates proximity to whiteness as an admirable goal for persons of color. Our textbooks overwhelmingly feature the creative work of European and European American men, occasionally attempting to remedy these biases by including a person of color or a woman as a token. Although music histories often nod toward the oppression, exploitation, and death of musical African Americans, they seldom point to the individual choices that whites have made to create and sustain oppressive structures of white supremacy. We suggest that a closer look at the 1740 Negro Code of South Carolina and its subsequent ban on the drumming of enslaved Africans offers a useful opportunity to introduce students to concepts of power and to begin important antiracist work in schools of music and music departments in the United States and elsewhere.