LETTER TO A FRIEND...
Hi there!
I have sat on your last 2 emails for quite a while trying to decide how to absorb the music conservatory news. And I still don't know what to say. I don't know if I will ever be able to come to terms with the music industry's attempts to address racism. I won't ever forget what happened to me in Houston at the audition some 25 years ago. I think if it were not for their affirmative action program, I would have that job. Did it ruin my career? Maybe. Did it ruin my life? My life would have been hugely affected in a positive way if I had won. Not only would I have had my dream, I would have had a raised position in my family, monetarily. The balance of power would have been changed. There would have been no move to the boonies. There probably would have been no suicide attempts. There would undoubtedly have been less depression.
Therefore, I can't really weigh in on this. Music is already biased, political, and trauma-ridden. Add affirmative action to lessen your chances for success. If I had seen it coming when I was younger, I would not have stayed in music. There ya go.
On a wider plane, racism is an enormous and real problem in history and in our world. Something has/had to happen to equalize people. It is (as they say) an Original Sin and a waiting time-bomb. History, politics, and Our World inevitably had to collide to create this mass movement: BLM.
Speaking of history, I have discovered in my studies that my 5th great-grandfather, Robert Pollock, from Pennsylvania, was probably a slave trader. I'm attaching an image of some newsclips. I don't have absolute proof of this, but he owned several sloops that went from Jamaica all over the world. Sigh.
So, in a way, I have been a direct recipient of corrective actions taken because of people like my ggggggrandfather. In some parallel universe or mystical other-world, perhaps there is no differentiation between me and him. Maybe, in that place, I am Robert Pollock.
Hi there!
I have sat on your last 2 emails for quite a while trying to decide how to absorb the music conservatory news. And I still don't know what to say. I don't know if I will ever be able to come to terms with the music industry's attempts to address racism. I won't ever forget what happened to me in Houston at the audition some 25 years ago. I think if it were not for their affirmative action program, I would have that job. Did it ruin my career? Maybe. Did it ruin my life? My life would have been hugely affected in a positive way if I had won. Not only would I have had my dream, I would have had a raised position in my family, monetarily. The balance of power would have been changed. There would have been no move to the boonies. There probably would have been no suicide attempts. There would undoubtedly have been less depression.
Therefore, I can't really weigh in on this. Music is already biased, political, and trauma-ridden. Add affirmative action to lessen your chances for success. If I had seen it coming when I was younger, I would not have stayed in music. There ya go.
On a wider plane, racism is an enormous and real problem in history and in our world. Something has/had to happen to equalize people. It is (as they say) an Original Sin and a waiting time-bomb. History, politics, and Our World inevitably had to collide to create this mass movement: BLM.
Speaking of history, I have discovered in my studies that my 5th great-grandfather, Robert Pollock, from Pennsylvania, was probably a slave trader. I'm attaching an image of some newsclips. I don't have absolute proof of this, but he owned several sloops that went from Jamaica all over the world. Sigh.
So, in a way, I have been a direct recipient of corrective actions taken because of people like my ggggggrandfather. In some parallel universe or mystical other-world, perhaps there is no differentiation between me and him. Maybe, in that place, I am Robert Pollock.
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