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ARSCLIST  March 2021

ARSCLIST March 2021

Subject:

Re: Liner notes, racial and gender equity (long reply alert)

From:

Carl Pultz <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Sat, 20 Mar 2021 07:46:09 -0400

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (145 lines)

Thank you, Peter, for that lovely message. You have framed so well what is hard for me, as a person of similar background, to articulate. Alex said humility. That's a good place to start and I guess for all of us to remain.

Best wishes,

Carl

-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Giovanni Punto
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2021 3:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Liner notes, racial and gender equity (long reply alert)

Alex, Corey (and all those of you out there in ARSC-land),

Thanks for your responses to the article I shared with the list. I really appreciate the forceful and passionate assessment that Alex presented of how far our organization, the music industry and society in general has to go. First in acknowledging the reality of and then addressing the means of getting to work of chipping away at all forms of bias, conscious, implicit and otherwise.

Yes, it seems that our demographic has moved a bit towards that of society in general in the years since I first had face to face contact at ARSC conferences (it was Seattle, whenever that happened). I do see more women in the general membership and on committees (and president; congrats
Rebecca) and some increase in the POC percentage. I feel that these trends in the area of diversity are only part of a reckoning that is necessary before we can in good conscience say we walk the walk rather than just talking the talk. Even totally societally representational diversity would not mean that all issues that Alex mentions have been resolved for once and for all. I am not dismissing everything that ARSC does and represents regarding equality. I just think that we are still in need of further introspection, each one of us on our own and together as a group.

On a personal level, I remember the tension I felt at the business meeting of a conference not too many years back, when issues related to gender were raised and pursued by several members in attendance. There was pushback immediately and it was forcefully expressed, though far from universal. At the time, it made me extremely uncomfortable and I felt that the meeting was being hijacked by a small number of members on both sides with an axe to grind. I thought we should stick to audio matters instead of going off on a tangent hashing out ills afflicting society. What did all of this have to do with why I belonged to ARSC? *I was totally wrong*. I loved the camaraderie of ARSC stemming from being able to share so much with so many warm. friendly and knowledgeable people. I still do, but I heard members at the meeting describe feeling left out or patronized. I was genuinely surprised since it was so totally opposed to my own experience. My credentials, personal and professional, were (and still are) minimal at best. Still, I felt respected as a peer, even without my being the head of a major institution or having Grammy nominations, serious research and a trail of publications to my name. As I processed these statements vis-a-vis my personal recollections, I could not avoid thinking that being a middle aged (I was still able to call myself that back then), white male had to have had at least a little to do with this divergence in perception. Did I hear or see expressions of racial prejudice, homophobia, gender bias? Not that I recall, but I can see now that all of these ills exist in even the most well intentioned and open minded of us.

I know that my own recent introspection has dredged up unpleasant memories of my own past embrace of just about every prejudice imaginable somewhere along the way in my seventy years. I can think of the attitudes almost universal in the past that made it easy to internalize, accept and express these biases. I can also think that I have grown morally over the years since my "youthful indiscretions", but I can't disown my thoughts and actions over the years.

I love you folk, one and all. I am really not into criticizing anyone, especially those who don't agree with me socially, politically or in our beloved audio area. I hope that some of the time and serious attention we are giving to hydrolysis and other vagaries of tape binder, CD error rates, turntable issues, etc. can be allotted to expanding and deepening the discussion of what we are made of and what to do with what we find. We are ARSC. It's not the stuff we collect, create and take care of.

My utmost best to all,

Peter Hirsch

On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 8:31 PM Alex McGehee <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> No women, no Blacks, no people of color, no LGBT people. It’s like an 
> ugly sign on the gate of a decrepit swimming pool. And you know, don’t 
> get upset if we don’t want you to write our liner notes, or engineer 
> our broadcast, or work as a critic in an area of music you’re solidly 
> grounded in. It’s not such a huge deal. It’s just that, you know, 
> people like to swim with their own kind. Try and understand it from our perspective.
>
> No. This is not a two-sides discussion. No. This is not something that 
> needs a strong statement from the CEO, or the board. No. This is not a 
> TV commercial with lots of different looking people, or one with two 
> men who look suspiciously like they might be a couple. No. Time’s up for all that.
> Action and results are all that count. Those of use who hire, appoint, 
> anoint need to stop blocking the door, laying in another glass ceiling.
>
> Apple is a big name in the music industry. They rule over a very 
> successful streaming platform. They rule over all the apps in the 
> Apple app store. They rule over meta-data for music stored in millions of computers.
> So it was only appropriate that they run a full-on advertising 
> campaign focused brilliantly on the subject of racial justice and 
> inclusivity. Hell, they already had it up and running by mid-summer, 
> not too long after the BLM protests started.
>
> Now, take a look at all the people in the top tier of Apple’s 
> executive suites. Lots of offices, but not a Black face anywhere. 
> Levi-Strauss ran similar racial justice ads. Try looking for a single 
> Black face on the Levi-Strauss BoD. Oh, wait, they’re about to get 
> one. There are endless current examples of all this. And wow, I almost 
> forgot that Tim Cook is gay. But then he had to be dragged out of the 
> closet. Apple isn’t progressive. Apple makes money.
>
> The old lesson yet again. Watch what they do, not what they say.
>
> All of us at ARSC should take a hard look in the mirror in this regard.
> And there are many, many mirrors to go around for other groups and 
> organizations to take their own hard looks. But don’t look for long. 
> Time’s over. Time to act and time to be held accountable.
>
> Alex McGehee
>
> > On Mar 16, 2021, at 7:08 PM, Corey Bailey <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Peter,
> >
> > I too am a liner notes nut. Half of the fun of finding a nugget at 
> > the
> thrift store record bins (Why do they always put them on the floor?) 
> is reading the liner notes. I was very disappointed when the industry 
> shifted towards CD's.
> >
> > Years ago, when I started as a recording engineer, there were very 
> > few
> women in the industry. Even though it has been scientifically 
> documented for some time that women can generally hear better than men.
> >
> > Be safe,
> >
> > CB
> >
> > Corey Bailey Audio Engineering
> > www.baileyzone.net
> >
> > On 3/16/2021 10:53 AM, Giovanni Punto wrote:
> >> Those of you who follow the MLA list or other sources of 
> >> information may have already become aware of this article. I rarely 
> >> feel that press coverage on music, recording and related topics, 
> >> even that coming from persons with music credentials in their 
> >> resume, gets it right. This is
> an
> >> exception despite, or maybe because of, it coming from someone 
> >> whose professional background is sociological. She gets deeply into 
> >> the
> cultural
> >> roots of music commentary expressed in liner notes and criticism in
> general.
> >>
> >> As a seventy-year-old white old fart male, I have eagerly devoured 
> >> liner notes since my day one LPs, somewhere in the mid-sixties. It 
> >> did not
> matter
> >> if it was hard historical facts on the content or if it was the 
> >> writer riffing on the music and musicians. I have lamented the 
> >> major label's
> trend
> >> of either phasing them out in favor of meaningless graphics and 
> >> artwork
> or
> >> putting a puff press release in their place for years now.It has 
> >> taken
> this
> >> article to get me thinking about the notes having been nearly
> exclusively
> >> written by guys with similar backgrounds and concerns to my own and 
> >> why that matters. Just a few years back, I'm sure I would have 
> >> shrugged at
> its
> >> well stated message(s) of inequity, as I guess most of you would have.
> It
> >> was pretty easy to think that that's just the way things are and 
> >> what's
> the
> >> problem? Now, not so much. Daphne Brooks gives us a lot to think 
> >> about
> and
> >> digest (IMHO):
> >>
> >>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/12/arts/music/thulani-davis-grammy-lin
> er-notes.html
> >>
> >> Peter Hirsch
>

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