Without diversity we cannot survive

Without diversity we cannot survive

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norman lebrecht

December 21, 2019

‘I come from a biracial family,’ says MacArthur “genius” says Francisco J. Nuñez in the latest Zsolt Bognar interview on Living the Classical Life.

Nuñez started out on a Salvation Army piano.  Since 1988 he has directed the Young People’s Chorus of New York City to offer a channel of hope for thousands of children from many backgrounds.

 

Comments

  • Mustafa Kandan says:

    It is very inspirational, particularly because it is not only a feel good project that he is involved in, but also the musical results are impressive.

  • Caranome says:

    This obsession with race is really boring and banal. You are biracial, so what. Your character, integrity, talent, hard work and other attributes are more important and interesting to other people.

    • Konas Jaufmann says:

      The progressive left is the real source of racism.

      • FrauGeigerin says:

        Progressive left is one of the new forms of authoritarianism: the imposition of an uniformed thinking by imposing a political correctness (via media/social media) people are afraid to Express themselves against.

  • Sarahs says:

    I am the only one who finds this US-American thing of giving the gender/race info upfront unnecesary unless the card plays a major role in the person being given public attention? When a musician is interviewed and spends time talking about race or gender and equality I always wonder…

    • Refurbishedmotto says:

      Yes, I remember 5 or 6 ago helping a friend with choosing his students for a summer masterclass in East Europe… one of the applicants wrote in the comment session something like “as a female Latin American pianist living in America I want to attend the masterclass to give visibility to my gender and ethnic group”. I thought “she must be a terrible pianist if she has to say such thing”. I was right: the playing in the application tape was hopeless. There is no need to mention sex and ethnicity, and usually when it is done in these things is when hoping to get some advantage. Never heard a true genius saying these things.

      • John Borstlap says:

        That’s why I never mention my white kaukasian background – it has remained completely and safely undetected.

  • John Rook says:

    That first sentence makes no sense.

  • sam says:

    That’s just a biological fact.

    Left to its own, no European country “native” population would survive because of its low birth rate.

    It’s either go extinct, like their Neanderthal ancestors, or diversity.

    • John Borstlap says:

      In real terms, there is no real ‘native’ European population. To begin with, neanderthalers mixed with the new arrivals from Africa and looking around today, the neanderthaler genes are still present in many parts of the populations (they vote for rightwing extremists). Then, large masses of people from the east poured into the west during the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, and again in these days lots of people are ready to refresh the European gene pool from outside. In the end, all of them become European locals.

  • BrianB says:

    E pluribus unam.

  • Mark says:

    Actually, we can. And we can also survive quite happily without the endless repetition of tiresome liberal mantras.

  • Dennis says:

    The Diversi-cultists won’t be happy until everyone everywhere likes and does the same thing. At heart what they really want is an homogeneous, globalist mono-culture (lead by themselves of course), not true diversity.

    And it always only works one way: if the classical music world is mostly white, that’s bad; if hockey players and fans are mostly white, that’s bad (according to a recent WSJ editorial). But none of these people carping about lack of “diversity” in classical music or the NHL would ever issue editorials complaining about lack of diversity in the NBA.

    • John Borstlap says:

      Interestingly, the french philosopher Alain Fienkelkraut argued that the idea behind multicultural society (related to the idea of ‘diversity’) is, that an individual with an ethnic background different from the usual ‘local’ European white variety, is first and foremost seen not as an individual, but as representing a group. Such person is then treated as a representative, embodying the assumed characteristics of the background community. This is, says Fienkelkraut, dehumanizing and in stark contrast with Western Enlightenment thinking. So, unintentionally, multicultural and diverse politics, which try to support minorities within a modern Western context, push the individuals concerned back into their background which hinders integration. It is a rare case of respect and emancipatory thinking which results into the opposite.

    • FrauGeigerin says:

      Indeed. Most people are blind to what really is happening in the world and what is behind the diversity and political correctnnes agendas. What is seemed is uniformity. Uniformity of everything (most importantly, uniformity of thinking) is what makes the population easier to control. And that has been done by many authoritarian regimes (Nazi Germany/Austria, Comunist Russia and China…). We live now in fantasy, and illusion of freedom (in every country in the world, including Europe and the USA): we can think and say what we want unless it goes against the politically correct.

  • Zsolt Bognar says:

    None of the comments indicates that anybody watched the feature—a beautiful one indeed; the episode had little to do with what is being debated. People who have seen it call it a particular favorite of the series. Thank you for watching!

  • ALEXANDER PLATT says:

    Anyone who’s doing something to enliven the ever-shrinking classical music scene in New York gets an “A” in my book.

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