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Path: utzoo!dciem!jeff
From: jeff@dciem.UUCP (Jeff Richardson)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Music Awards
Message-ID: <1385@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Feb-85 09:45:43 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.1385
Posted: Wed Feb 13 09:45:43 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Feb-85 12:01:51 EST
References: <77@ISM780.UUCP> <1127@houxm.UUCP> 
Reply-To: jeff@dciem.UUCP (Jeff Richardson)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 21
Summary: 

I didn't see the American music awards (I hate awards shows) but even amongst
those who did, there seems to be some disagreement over whether the black
categories were for black musicians, or for traditionally black music.
If they were for black musicians, then I disagree with them.  For about the
past 20 years, music has been one of the few parts of our culture that has
been almost free of racism, and I think that it's a big step backward to put
racism back into music by having awards that are only for black musicians.
Racism is racism no matter which race it favours.  (This is not the proper
news group to talk about racism in general, as some have been doing, but it's
okay to talk about racism in music.)  If the awards are for traditionally
black music, then that's fine, but they should be renamed to "R&B", "Soul",
or whatever so that people like us don't get all upset about them.  After
all, I don't think country music has ever been called "white music", even
though it's just as traditionally white as R&B is black.  Categorizations
like "black music" and "white music" tend to put up barriers that may cause
a lot of great music to be overlooked.  I don't care what colour the artists
are as long as they sound good.
-- 
Jeff Richardson, DCIEM, Toronto  (416) 635-2073
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