Dismantling Global White Privilege: Equity for a Post-Western World by Chandran Nair

Author:Chandran Nair [Nair, Chandran]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Diplomacy, Imperialism, Social Science, Political Science, World, Race & Ethnic Relations, Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, General
ISBN: 9781523000012
Google: k0MoEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 59146313
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Published: 2022-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Echoing Impacts

The global belief in Western music’s popularity and prestige has serious ramifications. As mentioned, it is of huge economic benefit to be associated with Western industries. But beyond this, Western music also helps reinforce deeper Western cultural norms: music disseminates vernacular, guides our emotions, paints powerful examples of relationships, and describes lifestyles. As the global popular music industry stems primarily from the West and is dominated by its performers, the potential to influence non-Western populations into thinking and behaving like Westerners is very real.

Of course, it is not intrinsically bad to think and behave like a Westerner when it comes to music. But Western music tastes are overriding traditional music traditions at a rate that is silencing and causing the loss of entire non-Western schools of music. Imagine if the number of people playing the violin or piano dwindled, as is now the case with Japan’s national instrument, the koto, and with West Africa’s kora and Zimbabwe’s mbira. It would be a musical tragedy, forever changing the way music is produced in the future. Now imagine that the reason for this is due to instruments from another country taking precedence, and in particular because they are associated with a “superior” culture that is at the same time being actively promoted. Practicing traditional music should not be threatened by colonial history or contemporary globalization, yet it is.

The loss of musical styles is one cultural impact. But it is part of a wider loss of cultural identity as a result of Westernization. Young people around the world are now consuming and relating to music that is largely disconnected from their own cultural settings. For example, the White American singer Lauv has a fan base of three hundred thousand in Quezon, Philippines, alone—the largest of his fan bases across the world. Again, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, but over time the messaging in Western music—concerning Western lifestyles, ideas, and “Whiteness”—has steadily promoted a dislocated Western cultural legitimacy in the minds of non-Western listeners. And as we have discussed, that is a powerful tool for the West, indeed.3

Music is potent. Although it may not be viewed as actively weaponized by the West, it is most certainly actively pushed for its clear impacts that contribute to the everyday promotion of Western superiority and power.

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