A reader sends me a piece of filth from an unsurprising source: the Village Voice. (Hundreds of other publications die, but they keep marching on, somehow.) One of their bloggers had a comment on my quick post-inauguration notes. He wrote,
“The pre-inaugural musical performance [got?] National Review’s Jay Nordlinger to wondering. ‘How were they chosen? How were they brought together? A curious thing. Was ethno-racial variety a consideration? Perish the thought — perish the thought fast.’ Translation: the great national miscegenation has begun.”
Yeah, that’s the translation, all right: What else could I have meant? My entire career — in countless articles on music and politics and the occasional crossing between the two — I have written against the intrusion of race and ethnicity into the arts. In fact, in this collection, I have several pieces on the subject: including “The Color of Music: Racial politics spreads its poison everywhere.” This is on gross attempts to racialize symphony orchestras and the like.
I don’t think I’ve written on any theme more than I have the destructive nature of racist or racialist thinking. I know a “liberal,” as we call the illiberal these days, can’t talk or write without calling a conservative a racist. But this blogger can go to hell.
And does the Voice still publish Nat Hentoff, or has he had the goodness to leave them (or get fired by them)? If he’s still there: Then I guess I’m glad that, if only for that reason, the Voice is on the street.
UPDATE: Readers have informed me that Hentoff is no longer with the Voice. Well, at least they have those discerning, fair-minded bloggers.