jeff@dciem.UUCP (Jeff Richardson) (02/18/85)
> Anyone who says "For the past 20 years, music has been one of the few > parts of our culture to be almost free of racism" is obviously > 1) white > 2) male > 3) a non-musician You're right. I am all three, but when I read the above article it was the third point that made me realise that my statement was probably wrong. If I were a musician, even without being black or female, I would probably realise that there are racist (and sexist) attitudes standing in the way of struggling musicians trying to become popular. (I can picture a record company executive saying, "it's not bad, but whites won't buy it.") However, when I made that statement I was thinking mainly of artists that are already popular. Among artists that have already become popular, the races are pretty well equal, since once they're reaching the mass audience, it's up to the listeners to decide, and they'll listen to whatever sounds good to them, regardless of what colour the artist is. Since the American Music Awards deal only with artists that have already achieved mass popularity, I think my argument against racist awards still applies. Awards for STRUGGLING black musicians are a different story, though I'm not so sure that they would be such a good idea either. (Ask me if you want to know why. I won't go into it here.) -- Jeff Richardson, DCIEM, Toronto (416) 635-2073 {linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd}!utcsrgv!dciem!jeff {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!dciem!jeff