How Many "Drops" ?
Yo-Yo-Ma, and members of his Silk Road Ensemble were guests of the Charlie Rose show last night.
Among those in the Ensemble, it was obvious that Yo-Yo was the only one with skin dark enough to not "bleach" under television lighting. Assembled with a noble cause to use the Arts to break down barriers between East and West culture; the Ensemble may be perpetuating one of the oldest "sins" of the Arts -- skin color discrimination against "darker" artists and their talents. The Art and those artists who derive from "darker" peoples must, also, be allowed out of the shadows before those artists die!
From the Jim-Crow-era definition of "one drop" in the Supreme Court Plessey decision, to the "brown bag" color line adopted by black college students in the early 20th Century, a first glance continues to speak volumes today; whether in the Arts, Politics, Education, Employment .. the list is long. Its importance drives the Tea Party and their backers in their never-ending attacks upon the first black President of the United States. Media stars who may not support the Tea Party, exhibit a type of ambivalence, or denial, toward their racial messages.
Historically, the closing of the Silk Road caused the launch of Columbus and his ships to the Americas, and the establishment of skin color racism on this side of our planet. The failure to acknowledge this scourge could doom Yo-Yo's project . The Ensemble intersects with "Education" in this country; continuing the ugly history of the Arts in racially tainting the perceptions of young children.
Our nation wastes billions of dollars, insisting that color doesn't matter in the education of children in 2013. Children are continuing to be "taught" by people who do not identify with them racially, culturally, economically, or politically. Impacted by these practices in our "integrated" classrooms, all children in K-12 exhibit steadily-declining learning performance. Our "educators" have perverted Ralph Ellison. He did not advocate "invisibility" nor "color-blindness; he knew the problem lies deep in the psyche of all persons on our planet. Its roots extend back 3500 years to Zoroastrianism.
Those whites who are disturbed by their declining numbers in the world; as demographic trends march forward, may be heartened by Yo-Yo's project, however; he may have found a large group of "new whites"?
Stay Vigilant! Skin Color Racism, and the religions that spawn and perpetuate it, must be confronted.
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