{"id":122436,"date":"2023-02-13T07:08:29","date_gmt":"2023-02-13T12:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/?p=122436"},"modified":"2023-02-13T07:08:50","modified_gmt":"2023-02-13T12:08:50","slug":"music-scholar-calls-black-communist-dad-racist-for-liking-white-composers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/music-scholar-calls-black-communist-dad-racist-for-liking-white-composers\/","title":{"rendered":"Music scholar calls black Communist dad racist for liking white composers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks his white mom for teaching him \u2018true tenets of anti-racism and anti-sexism\u2019<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A scholar and guest lecturer at Oberlin College reiterated his views that his black father was a racist for liking classical music.<\/p>\n

Professor Philip Ewell is a music theory professor at Hunter College of the City University of New York and previously claimed<\/a> his dad exhibited racism by liking \u201cBach,\u201d though it is unclear which one he meant.<\/p>\n

Now Ewell is making clear that his dad, who, according to Ewell, \u201cbelieved deeply in the tenets of Communism,\u201d was a racist for liking classical music in general.<\/p>\n

Ewell guest lectured at Oberlin and recently conducted an interview with the campus paper. He criticized his dad for being committed to \u201cassimilation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wore tweed coats and drove a Mercedes he couldn\u2019t afford \u2014 he was doing the things that whiteness teaches us, makes us more sophisticated and more civil,\u201d Ewell told<\/a> The Oberlin Review<\/em> for a February 10 article. \u201cIn terms of music, that meant listening to Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin and going to the opera and buying a pair of opera glasses to look at the stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liking music and dressing well is how his dad bought into \u201cwhite supremacy,\u201d according to Ewell.<\/p>\n

He stated:<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what whiteness has taught about what great music should be. My dad bought that hook, line, and sinker. He was extremely committed to what whiteness teaches us is \u201cexcellence.\u201d As part of a white supremacist patriarchal structure, he was being taught to love Rachmaninoff, to go to the opera and watch Verdi, and somehow think that would make him a better person. White supremacy teaches us that there is a mythological goal of excellence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ewell told the Review<\/em> that his white Norwegian mother helped him become a better, more conscious person.<\/p>\n

He told the campus newspaper:<\/p>\n

I often say that while it was my dad who got me started in classical music because he was a big classical music fan, it was actually my mom who taught me the true tenets of anti-racism and anti-sexism. She was a white Norwegian who came over to the country in 1959 and married my father, who was African-American, in 1960. She didn\u2019t have the baggage that whiteness has in our country. She just kind of came here and fell in love with a Black guy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Yale Daily News<\/em> previously interviewed<\/a> Ewell after he won an award from Yale University. The paper reported that the scholar explained how \u201cconcentric circles of white supremacy\u201d can be seen not just in the Ku Klux Klan\u2019s \u201cburnt crosses on lawns\u201d but also \u201ca Black man\u2019s deification of Bach.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE:<\/strong> Professor says using composers’ last names is ‘white supremacy’<\/a><\/p>\n

IMAGE: Public Domain<\/p>\n

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