The avant-garde and the rearguard, the devout and the secular, the learned elite and the lay public all seem to want to enlist nature on their side, everywhere and always.
— Lorraine Daston
Racist claims offend most 21st century ears, no matter their source. They're not only boorish, but, as Spock would say, most illogical.
So I was surprised to hear a racist claim voiced this week during an interview on NPR.
Brandon Keith Brown, a Black classical conductor, was asked to expand on his recently penned article, "It's Time To Make Orchestras Great Again—By Making Them Blacker."
Brown argued that Whites, by design, exclude Blacks from participation in classical music, because they fear Blacks' innate performative superiority.
Were they included, Blacks would soon "dominate concert halls," as they came to "dominate basketball courts" soon after they were admitted to the NBA, Brown said.
Most illogical.
Also most illogical: the fact that NPR sanctioned Brown's claim by airing it.
The network would never permit, for example, a White biker to claim Blacks purposely exclude Whites from dirt biking the streets because they fear Whites' innate stunt-driving talents.
Racist claims like this ("Whites are better stunt drivers than Blacks") commit what philosophers call the "naturalistic fallacy."
This logical fallacy places races on a par with individuals, attributing their talents to entire races and creating convenient distinctions ("Black," "White," etc.) as if they were established by nature's law.
It's pseudo-science to claim, "Whites are better stunt drivers than Blacks." A scientific statement would never encompass an entire class, but would be empirically about individuals and attribute a range of talents to some Whites and some Blacks.
Considering the network insists its mission is to "create a more informed public," I find NPR's willingness to broadcast eristic, disrespectful and toxic claims simply, well, fascinating.
