White out

Lloyd whitewash's our notions by selling out on his own name. He cashes in on the race card, whiting out his own point of view, coloring it with perceptions of color to paint our perception a ghostly shade of disgusted.

Enough punning?

In any case, Whitesell does evoke images of race to prove a point about minimalism being a reaction to black culture, simplified into matter that can be digested by white people. In reality, does race matter? Using race as an argument for anything in this day and age is a total farce.

He states that the white man is now without race, but that is a matter of simplification rather than specification in our culture. It used to be that in America we were British, Irish, German, etc. Today however, we are all interspersed, rather than saying "I'm 1/4 Irish, 1/8 Finnish, 3/8 British, 1/8 Polish, and the rest is mixed." We simply are European descent. By allowing race to play a role, he is in fact propagating racist stereotypes and ideals.

In the beginning of the article, Whitesell talks about how the energies of Jazz permeate the works of Stravinsky, and Ravel, two composers who knew very little about the ways of Jazz and it's culture. The influence of Jazz no doubt lies within their works, but to say they brought the energies of the genre into their works is a stretch to say the least.

He later uses Cage to make his point, putting in that Cage seeks 'somehow to disempower or jettison the traditional systems of signification of Western musical culture altogether.' Cage never does this! He never seeks to destroy the system as we know it. Often times his notation style even falls into what we consider 'normal.' And yet, he is doing something different. Cage, I think, is challenging the norm of what we say music is, to ask the question "Why is that music better than this?" or "Why cannot sounds be considered music?" Rather than disempower the structure as we know it, Cage seeks for his audience to understand and appreciate sound for what it is.

The biggest hurdle blocking the way for Whitesell's article is the color section. He begins: "The color white often stands for emptiness and colorlessness." In my experience, the most often associated idiom with the color white is purity or virginity. He continues to use this basis, this notion of what white represents to apply the idea to people of European descent as a whole?! This idea being that white culture sees itself as one without characteristic, without prejudice or stereotype as it were. How can he not take into account the fact that through anything, he is looking at his argument through a white lens. If he can use the race issue to propagate his belief, than it can be used to unravel it as well.

If you want to talk about Whiteness in Whitesell, let's look at the racial background of his own sources. From those he quotes from, for example. Throughout our article, Lloyd uses 17 different people for quotations. Of those, 1 is not white, she is African-American. Toni Morrison is quoted to define whiteness in her eyes, she writes: "Whiteness, alone, is mute, meaningless, unfathomabl, pointless, frozen, veiled, dreaded, senseless, implacable." Wait, so black is not veiled, nor dreaded? Children of all races are afraid of the dark, and darkness covers the earth, veils it from our view, for several hours each day! Racism aside, that is science.

Listening to Whitesell drone on about the concept of race permeating minimalism was a real struggle and source of irritation. Lloyds lame lines of logic lulled my lucidity into a lump of lard. A long read to be sure, and in more ways than one.