As part of Music Mark's Research Shorts, earlier this month Professor Robert Mitchell responded after reading 'If I Were A Racist'.
Robert Mitchell is a pianist/keys player, composer, bandleader, author/poet and a Steinway Artist. He is Professor of Jazz Piano at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy Of Music. He has released 14 albums, 2 EPs, 3 books, has toured widely is a Paul Hamlyn Composition prize winner.
The following is an excerpt from his review (Click here for the full blog)
The timing of this book is critical. Although having read it as soon as it came out – by the time I was asked to write this we had a summer of rioting (after a shocking series of murders in Southport, with a mentally ill young black man now awaiting trial.) Some as young as 12 have been appearing in court as a result of violence against immigrants via action and – as happens every day online – through words.
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Many millions have headed to the polls globally this year too. This is a huge barometer being updated on where we are. We will continue to feel the effects of COVID-19 – with sporting events set to bring a potential wave of infections and the sad news on the growing tragedy of Mpox. We see so many intense discussions on AI as the powerful era underpinned by the internet – moves into another chapter as frightening as it could be inspiring. Politics. Medicine. Technology. So – after Race – these were the most potent fields on my mind reading Nate Holder’s essential book. How do we best learn to work together (if we wish to at all!), how do we heal and how do we best use tools that allow us to attend to the above and share powerful ideas/falsehoods instantly and more widely than ever before?
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One memory reawakened by the book: the deep discomfort of having Debussy’s ‘Gollywog’s Cakewalk’ put on the piano for me to study at a certain stage in my music lessons. I would have been around 11 years old. When a piece of music arguably fulfills its artistic aims, but the intent is a caricature of black people – how to resolve what to me was a shocking dissonance? Musical genius and an original – yes. When used to denigrate my heritage – why would I be expected to ignore, accept, or tolerate this? Does this deserve to be known – yes – but I think in a way that contextualizes the fuller range of elements involved. This placed in a piano collection gives one message. The same piece in a book analyzing the circumstances leading to its creation and other racially problematic music – places this in a more penetrating light. Was it of its time – yes. Why was more searching needed to find out about the appreciation of African American spirituals by Dvořák?
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