As
graduating seniors in the Professional Music major we are charged with
designing and executing a project that reflects both our studies at Berklee and
the careers we will be entering. I came to the Professional Music department
one semester shy of a Music Business/Management degree and four years after the
birth of my son. The focus of my course work in MB/M was organizational
structure, business systems, entrepreneurship, and ethics in leadership. In my
life and work outside of Berklee I have been an educator, organizer, and leader
in the movement for social and racial justice. Since my days as a City Music
student in my teens, I had always desired an intersection of my studies at
Berklee and my activism but never found the right outlet. When I met with Kenn
Brass to join the department and learned of the structure of the final project
I realized this was my opportunity.
For
the last 2.5 years I have been a part of Community Change, Inc. (CCI). First as
an Emerging Leader award recipient, then as an Executive Board member, and for
the last year on staff as the Development Coordinator. CCI’s mission and
analysis is key to the development of my project. The mission of CCI is:
…To promote racial justice and equity by
challenging systemic racism and acting as a catalyst for anti-racist learning
and action. CCI makes visible and challenges the historical and ongoing role
racism plays in the institutions that shape all of our lives. We focus
particularly on involving white people in understanding and confronting
systemic racism and white privilege. We
understand racism as a system that impacts every area of life in the United
States from education to law, from housing to transportation, from employment
to media, from religion to artistic expression. It is a system that
privileges white people and oppresses people of color. This gives white people
disproportionate power to:
·
Make
and enforce decisions
·
Access
resources
·
Set
the standards for behavior which are imposed on everyone and
·
Name
the view of “reality” everyone must agree with[1]
The
bolded portion is possibly the most influential piece in the framing of my
project and my question: If racism is a
system that impacts our artistic expression, how does that happen at Berklee
and what can we do to change that?
In
what was supposed to be my last semester, Spring 2008, I had an R&B Styles
lab with voice department professor Larry Watson. He opened the class by
telling us we were going to spend the first couple weeks learning the history
and roots of R&B before we began singing. He shared an illustration with
the class of the Music Tree. At the roots were
“Slave Utterances – chants, moans, cries for deliverance”. The trunk held
spiritual music, with pieces of Blues and Ragtime in the upper third, and then
branching eventually into Jazz, Gospel and R&B. That image stayed with me
for the next four years. I think about Professor Watson’s music tree, and how
in that class very few students were aware that the roots of R&B and Jazz
music were negro spirituals and slave songs. This is important because we as
culture creators do not exist inside a vacuum and neither did those who came
before us. There is a history of pain, oppression, survival and faith packed
into the songs we study daily at Berklee. It is also a history that is not
mentioned at Berklee in any institutional way, be it through our propaganda or
more importantly, our curriculum. To receive a bachelors degree here, one must
take two semesters worth of History of Western Music. Those courses help to
contextualize our classical and traditional studies. We gain an understanding
of how different classical styles and instruments developed, and how the
historical happenings shaped the music “industry” of that time. In short,
classical music as a part of the greater culture begins to make sense. It is
near criminal that there is not a required class of the same structure but
focusing on “jazz and popular music rooted in the African cultural diaspora”[2].
A key component in maintaining dominant white culture and structural racism is
the systemic exclusion of people of color’s accomplishments in history, in
essence naming “the view of “reality” everyone must agree with”. Most
institutions do not do this intentionally. They simply operate within models
that are following the status quo. Unfortunately in the United States the
status quo is one of structural racism.
I
wanted to engage with my fellow students, staff and faculty to dig deeper into
why this disparity may have come to be at Berklee and what action steps we
could take to make a change. I thought about doing surveys to gather peoples
thoughts, but one of the things I’ve always disliked about traditional academic
research is how participants rarely receive any benefit from the study the are
providing data for. Instead I pulled together dozens of ideas for experiential
learning opportunities where the intersection of structural racism and music
would be at the forefront. My department chair suggested I meet with the Kevin
Johnson and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (OD&I). I shared my ideas
with Kevin who encouraged me to focus them and apply for one of the
department’s mini-grants to fund the series. My plan was to hold these events
and pair them with qualitative and quantitative evaluations to create a whole picture of participants experience and voice.
I finally settled on three events: Structural Racism in the Age of Obama, The Hidden History of Boston’s Black Music Scene, and FORWARD: Visioning Student Organizing at Berklee. I designed each to be an independent learning opportunity that any Berklee community member (student, alumni, staff, and faculty) could participate in with different formats to engage various interests and learning styles. I outlined my thesis, created a budget, wrote and received the mini-grant, solicited presenters, designed posters and flyers:
...outreached to faculty and
students, sent follow up RSVP emails, coordinated with OD&I to find space
and food, got W-9’s from my presenters, planned the agendas, created the
evaluation tools, consulted with my mentors every step of the way to ensure
best practices, and finally brought an open heart, deep love of music and
burning fire for equity to the events.
Structural
Racism in the Age of Obama
In
the first event I, alongside Paul Marcus, Executive Director of CCI, helped to
co-facilitate an interactive workshop to provide a framework of structural
racism. Coming from the philosophy that you cannot challenge something you don’t
know exists we created new lenses, moving from an individual understanding of
racism, that is, prejudice and discrimination based on “race,” to a systemic
understanding, race based prejudice backed by systemic power. We then brought
it back to “home” by reading over Berklee’s mission, vision and values, and
naming ways our institutional practices support our powerful mission and places
they could improve.
The
Hidden History of Boston’s Black Music Scene
I
coordinated, designed and moderated the second event. A panel discussion
bringing together in conversation Larry Watson - Berklee Professor &
Cultural Organizer, Dart Adams – Bostonian, Writer, Independent A&R &
Music Historian, and Pamela Means - Guitar Player & Politically-rooted
Singer-Songwriter. Some of the questions we explored before opening the
discussion to the whole room were: What
is “popular music rooted in the African cultural diaspora”? What is Black
music? Where did Jazz come from? Has Wally’s always been the only Jazz club
near Berklee? Is there a Hip Hop scene in Boston? Does race effect independent
artists chances for success? This conversation was invigorating beyond
measure. Professor Watson shared the Music Tree with the audience, and spoke to
his life-long work of integrating social movement work and his creativity. When
Professor Watson shared about seeing racism play out in the upper ranks at
Harvard University, it struck home for me. Having grown up in Cambridge and
moved to the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston as an adult, I have always seen
a chasm of disconnect between the institutions of higher education and the
physical communities they inhabit. We looked at how, in the words of Dart
Adams:
“It
would benefit these students to know that in the immediate area where they live
& study, there was a direct connection between Berklee and the city where
homegrown talent like Roy Haynes, Chick Corea, Serge Chaloff and Monty Stark
shared the same musical heritage as Donna Summer, Arthur Baker, Jonzun Crew,
New Edition and New Kids On The Block.”
Now
to be totally clear, Dart Adams has no official association with Berklee, he
grew up down the street from the college and is Boston’s best music historian
focusing specifically on the 1950’s forward. I found it interesting that having
no internal knowledge of class syllabi or listening selections, every person he
named was mentioned at one time or another in classes I was in over the years. Their
music was mentioned rather, not their connections to Boston.
One
of the most transformative moments came when Pamela Means spoke frankly and
directly to the students in the room about her journey as an independent
musician. As a bi-racial, openly gay artist Pamela has been cited in mainstream
media as the “Black Ani Difranco” and the “White Tracy Chapman”. Both statements
are inaccurate, offensive, and supportive of structural racism since the system
cannot handle duality; surely she must be one or the other.
“Writers
need to be honest about whatever you’re writing and my experience happens to be
on the fringes, of color, I’m gay, I’m female. These songs started to come out
of me about racism and sexism and I was kind of like [makes noises of
discomfort]. But then I thought, I have to. Because what I had been reading
[earlier reference to Audre Lorde and bell hooks] was to write truthfully about
your experience, and mine was such that
it wasn’t going to be on the cover of Rolling Stone. It was not mainstream; it
was not white middle class male. I was kind of disappointed for a little bit
because I knew if I committed to that path I was going to give up my childhood
dream.”
In
my 13 years as a Berklee student in various capacities I had never heard anyone
speak so directly about integrity and artistic values and the lack of those
exact qualities within the music industry at a structural level.
FORWARD:
Visioning Student Organizing at Berklee
For
the last event in the Race, Equity and
Impact at Berklee series I borrowed strategy and process from community and
labor organizing practices. We talked some about current political events; such
as the attacks on Gaza that were happening while we met and what greater
systems of oppression sustain something like that. Students and faculty shared
what they saw as issues of inequity at Berklee and then as a group we identified
different avenues where change could occur be it in curriculum, faculty
training, or community building and awareness. Ultimately students, staff and
faculty were reminded of their power as creative agents of change, that
‘activist’ doesn’t need to feel like a curse word, and ANY change no matter how
big or small will not come unless we demand it.
Race, Equity and Impact at Berklee was a dream come true to me. Through
collaboration I was able to bring 3 original, unique experiences to the Berklee
community that have inspired other students to do the same. One truth I learned
is in cases like this most people don’t know they need something until the
opportunity is presented to them. Every participant wanted to do, learn, and
share more when the sessions were over. Two Liberal Arts teachers even asked if
there was enough space for them to require their entire classes to attend. There
are many ways that structural racism is maintained in institutions, there are
also many ways to challenge it. I believe the first and most effective way
Berklee should address this is by making the course African American History, Culture, and Music 1, already offered as
an elective, into a core requirement for graduation alongside History of
Western Music 1 and 2. I am now working on an official curriculum
recommendation from a group of concerned students and faculty that I hope to
present in the first quarter of 2013 while remaining a resource in the area for
students who need support in creating movement towards racial justice in their
artistry.
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