Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Access: What’s the Hold-Up? - an interview with Dr. Karen Howard

Welcome to the MusicEd Forward Podcast, transforming students, teachers and communities through music education. My name is Nissa Brown with MusicEd Forward, musicEdforward.com. You can follow MusicEd Forward on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Be sure you don't miss an episode by subscribing on Stitcher, Spotify or Apple Podcasts. This podcast is the first in a series called Moving Music Education Forward. In this series, we'll meet educators who are working to move MusicEdducation Forward through their research, leadership, writings and teachings. While our guests work may differ in content, their vision, perspectives and voices provide a growing edge for our profession as a whole and offer us multiple ways of moving MusicEd forward. Welcome to episode 14 of the MusicEd Forward Podcast, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Access. What's the hold up? An interview with Dr. Karen Howard. It's so wonderful to welcome Karen to the podcast this week. We set up the interview with formal question and answer, but the truth is, as we talk about in the podcast, Karen and I go way back. We'll leave it to you to do the math, but be kind with your numbers, please. Seriously, this podcast is some real talk about what diversity, equity, inclusion and access is, what's standing in the way of us moving forward, and some steps even of small that might take us there. This conversation has research, theory, resources, publications and practical tips for staying engaged in diversity, equity, inclusion and access work in ourselves, our classroom, our curriculum, our schools and beyond. My favorite reminder from this podcast, the more power and privilege we have in the current system, the more responsibility we have to move diversity, equity, inclusion and access forward. Let's meet Karen. Dr. Karen Howard is an associate professor of music at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota in the United States. Karen has extensive training in global vocal, instrumental and dance traditions. She's presented nationally and internationally helping music teachers around the world to make meaningful connections with music, dance, and people of diverse cultures, and navigating the creation of learning experiences that promote and celebrate equity and fight racism. Her research interests and publications include works on ethnomusicology, critical pedagogy, knowledge construction, anti-bias pedagogy, and global music traditions. Let's dive into the podcast. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Karen Howard. We're so glad that you're here. Thank you. Well, we're just going to jump right into our first question if you don't mind, and if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and your work in music education. Sure. Well, I'm from New England originally, and I can't talk about my experience in music education without a shout out to my high school choral director, Michael Rivera, who convinced me to apply to school, who helped me fill out the applications, who drove me to my audition and stood in the hallway. I wouldn't have even bothered to have gone to college where it not for him. So I'm always grateful that he saw something in me worth his time. He was that sort of educator. And then I became an elementary music educator for most of my 18 years teaching in Connecticut with a little bit of a middle school stint in there, and some choral directing with the Connecticut Children's Choir. And of course, always my school groups. But over time, I really became interested in working with practicing teachers, particularly as my interest in diversifying music education practices grew. And I became, I suppose obsessed is the only fair word with traveling and studying and figuring out how to interpret these music that I was learning in a way that worked in the new setting, which was my classroom, how to honor traditions and practices, how to uplift and celebrate marginalized and underrepresented traditions. And that led me to eventually go back to school at the University of Washington, Boudon Huskies, so that I could then switch over to full-time university teaching. And so then the last seven years have been at the University of St. Thomas in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, where I teach all sorts of things. Lots of music education methods courses related to elementary general, secondary general, vocal pedagogy, diction, sometimes choral methods. And lots of new graduate courses that I created, including the Smithsonian Folkways World Music Pedagogy course, which I didn't create. I got a lot of that Campbell and Christopher Roberts and Amanda Sotos baby, but we started our own branch of it as part of the family, and as well as a Latin American music course, which focus cultures change each time I offer it. And a class for choral directors where we study different global singing traditions in order to help them diversify the use of their voice and their knowledge of different repertoire and techniques. So that's been my teaching background. And then I really became interested in writing and picking up where Judith Cook Tucker left off when she retired World Music Press. We know each other back from our Connecticut days. And so I think I'll talk a little bit more about that later in our chat, but I've become really dedicated to trying to create materials that help our hardworking music educator colleagues who don't necessarily have the time. To create these materials for themselves to help them navigate diversity, equity, inclusion and access a little more confidently. Awesome. And I love the fact that we've been friends for over 20 years, and I did not know that undergrad story of how you started your undergraduate career. I have all the stories we've told I didn't know that one. That's so fun. It feels only right though that we share why we know each other. I feel this fun. We did not say I suppose that's true. So how do we know each other, Dr. Karen Howard? Well, this brown firstly, I remember knowing of you, because I heard of you as an undergraduate who had spent some time in Namibia. When you came back, I heard you were giving a slideshow and I thought, well, that's up my alley. So I know we met there and knew we had common interests. But of course, then our real connection was then you crazily enough requested to student teach with me. So that's that's that was 1997. And so actually we're heading towards 25 years because we're old. That's insane. Good thing we were both only 12 when you were teaching and I was student teaching that worked out. That's right. Exactly. I was young. That's amazing. Well, and actually, yes, you are my first and only choice of someone to student teach with. We had done all kinds of observations like lots of folks do in undergraduate classes. And there was no doubt in my mind that yours was the classroom I wanted to be in. So, yeah, well, that's how I felt too. All right. And we digress. But I'm glad you brought that up too. That's that's yes. That's very important. All right. So you just mentioned D E I A. So before we dive into talking about diversity, equity, inclusion and access. Can you give us some of your definitions of those terms and also how they relate to each other? Yes. Happy to do so. Sometimes people say D E I A for access has been added in over the last few years. I think it's important to point out that we not use D E I as a name because then it means we're not thinking about what each of the individual letters means and what they require and the sorts of interventions that are particular to each. So if we think about diversity, equity, inclusion and access, they broadly represent efforts taken to create a more welcome environment for marginalized or underrepresented or less privileged identities. Right. So a music educator working toward these is seeking systemic change toward a more equitable music education for all. So I'll take each one now breaking apart. I'll start with D for diversity. And there are so many different diversities. There is race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio economic status, language, culture, national origin, religion, age, disability with this and parentheses, disability status. All of these representations of all of our varied identities, both collectively and individually, creating an environment, if we really wanted to be a diverse celebration, creating an environment that honors and proactively engages a variety of perspectives, finding value in our differences. And this takes intersectional diversity into account as well and intersectionality refers to not just that we are made up of many pieces of our identity, but intersectionality comes from originally from the work of Professor Kimberly Krenshaw in law where she was examining when people have, in her case, she was looking at black women in the legal system and that they were getting both hit by the marginalization of being black and of being a woman. And if being poor entered into the equation, then it was three marginalized pieces, intersectional pieces, creating an identity that each needed consideration, both separate of each other and how they impact each other. Okay, diversity. Equity related, but not the same, right? Because you can have diversity that doesn't equal equity. And I'll say more about that. When music teachers are working toward equity, it means that they're responding to bias and discrimination based on all of the previously mentioned categories. So equity is responding to discrimination against someone based on, again, a short version of it, that list, race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, etc. It means somebody working toward equity is seeking an equitable music education. This means seeking fair treatment, fair access to information and resources and equality of opportunity, both for the people in your classroom and for the people represented in the sounds and the scores that you bring and the way you represent and speak about and value and treat the sounds and the scores, the repertoire that you bring in. There's a wonderful branch of the YMCA in Boston, which is one of the, one of their leading groups in empowering women and fighting racism. And I took this quote from them, quote, "an equitable lens recognizes that if people of color and women could have ended racism and sexism years ago, they would have. Therefore, leadership must ensure that white people and men are committed to change on an institutional level." So that's why W. Boston. They have a wonderful website which documents there endeavors in this regard. But what I love about that is look, if the people that were marginalized could have changed this, don't you think they would have by now? Meaning, white people and men need to be committed to these changes, which is where I come in in my work as a white person I'm committed my whole career, I guess I've been finding my way in whatever way that I can, whatever way people would allow any forward progress where I was involved to try and diversify and create an equitable environment. Now, inclusion, inclusion, again, related, not the same, means that everyone. So if we think about this in music, everyone has the opportunity to participate in a way that is equitable and actively encouraged. And if we think about the structure of a lot of our music ensembles, it's not actively encouraged because they're select. So it doesn't mean that we shouldn't, that we should abandon the select or advanced model. This is typical across many disciplines, not just music, but are we creating something where all people everyone is actively encouraged and can see themselves having a place where they would feel valued, welcomed, respected, and supported. And in inclusion work, words matter, but more than words, action matters. What are the steps being taken to actively involve? Access means the ability of all people to have equal opportunities to everything that we offer in music education. Right? Often we think of matters of representation, transportation, financial concerns, home environments, right? We're just recovering from a recent major, major to-do in our field, where a white music educator implied that only certain students of certain socioeconomic backgrounds should be allowed to play certain instruments. Right? That's anti-access work. And I think that person has probably had a wake-up call in a painful way. I wish there was a way somebody had reached that person sooner so that the number of people that were angered, hurt, embarrassed by that didn't see it. Each of these factors or sections or components have different steps, diversity, equity, inclusion, and access, and they require different interventions that are specialized to achieve that. So if somebody says, "Oh, we're going to put together a DEI committee," they often leave out the A, "What is its purpose?" I mean, that's so broad, it's like saying, "Well, we're going to put together a school committee." Well, what do you cover? Well, on earth, which your initiatives be. Right. So again, diversity, as I said a couple of minutes ago, it diversity by itself does not equal equity or inclusivity. However, if you achieve inclusivity, it likely equals that diversity as present. Right? Because you can add in some diverse repertoire. You can bring in people of color or wherever you find that your shortages are in different diversity categories, but that doesn't mean that they feel welcome. That doesn't mean that they feel integrated into the program. You can bring in, add in, repertoire. It doesn't mean that it's treated as equal and valued as other repertoire or composers or eras or singing sounds. And diversity, equity, inclusion, and access, it's not just referring to race and gender, it's all systemic issues of inequity. So this is why one committee, one committee to address all of these things, who is possibly equipped to do all of that. And for us, it means creating a welcoming music education where all individuals feel they're being subordered. Wonderful. That was a very thorough answer. And I appreciate you talking about the interrelationship for them because I agree that the acronym DEI is thrown around. And I really appreciate you saying speaking out those words reminds us of what we're really talking about. And that's really, that's a really powerful thing. So all of us who are listening to the podcast, remembering that we need to say the words diversity, equity, inclusion, and access every time we talk about it. So it's not a DEI committee, it's a diversity, equity, inclusion, and access, group, or meeting, or initiative, or whatever so that we're constantly remembering what those things are called. And what's important? What's what we're really holding at the center? And also, if I can add at this point, it feels the right moment to add that after speaking to many different music educators in public schools, private schools, university settings, community music schools. There is a universal virus that hits the DEI committee just about everywhere has one now. But then what seems to happen is they're bootstrapped by the inability to get any initiatives to move forward. And I could talk more about that later. But we get a group of people together that have some ideas, very different levels of experience for white people on the committees, varying levels of understanding whiteness's impact on education, including their own whiteness on their own teaching identity. And it makes moving DEI initiatives forward like moving through tar. When not everybody buys in, when they're still trying to make the case for status quo, if they're still feeling fragile in their whiteness, if they're still overtocking voices of people of color in the committee. And sometimes white people will say, well, there was somebody of color in the committee and they didn't say anything, which is showing a lack of awareness that there is a power dynamic in play. As soon as you have a committee that is likely predominantly white, likely overloaded on white men, and then you bring in a voice or two of color. And there's quite a bit of research that confirms for us that people of color will often retreat when in a mixed group with white people who are over talking or over fragile, or fighting for the status quo, in other words, undoing. And so a person of color who I won't speak for, but I can only speak based on research that either I've conducted or have studied, the tendency might be what is the point in this particular meeting at this table. For anybody that would like a contemporary example of this, I highly recommend Esa Rae, the brilliant Esa Rae's show, insecure, and she is in the show. She's the only black worker in an all-white office that is a not-for-profit education initiative to help quote urban kids. And one of her white colleagues, they want to know what being on fleek means. And they say, oh, ask her, ask her. And so she comes in the room. And of course, she knows what it means, but she acts as if she's never heard of it before, because she does not want to be dragged into the conversation with white people who are trying to show hip-ness with whatever the latest phrase. But when I watched that, I thought, oh, I bet that happens. All the time. Yeah. There was one other word that you threw in here that I think lots of folks are now much more familiar with. But just in case anybody listening to the podcast hasn't heard the term whiteness, can you just give us a context for what that means in case that's new to anyone? Yes. And much as I may wish with many working in racial activism that it's not a new word, you are correct, that it remains a new and surprising word for many. And whiteness refers to something that has been invisible, because whiteness in the US is dominant in every public infrastructure, whether it's education, whether it's the medical system, whether it's financial institutions, whatever it might be, it's structured around a frame of whiteness with our education system, educating for dominance to keep whiteness, also known as white supremacy, which makes some white people curl up when a ball. But white supremacists does not mean members of the clan. White supremacy means efforts that keep whiteness and white ways of knowing and doing as the norm, the lens, the gaze through which everything else is filtered and evaluated. And in music education, if you read a music history book of music education, you would think that music was invented, created, solely continued by white people, white men, in particular. Right. Wonderful. Thank you for clarifying that just in case that caught anyone's ear. So can you tell us a little bit about some of your examples of your recent work, either academic wise or teaching wise? What are the current things that you're interested in? What are your current initiatives and current-- what does your current work look like? Yes. Well, I just maybe later today will put the final period and grammar check on the final report of a study that I conducted over the last year and a half, where I was looking at coral directors, repertoire selection, and whiteness. So I was examining how does whiteness inevitably impact the way that coral directors go about the ritual of repertoire selection. And I spoke with a pool of 12 coral directors of a diverse range of ages, ethnicities, experience level. And found three main themes that I examined. One was based on a branch of critical race theory developed by Joyce King, which is called Disconscious Racism. And for some of the coral directors involved, their approach to repertoire selection demonstrated this Disconscious Racism, which is, quote, "an uncritical habit of mind," end quote. That kind of says it all, right? An unreflective, an uncritical habit, a way of being and thinking as an educator that is not reflective on current research, best practices. It's not staying in touch with current events and the civil rights movement that developed a new-- and at times, it seems that that takes almost a willful effort to stay unaware of such things. Another theme that emerged in that study was-- I connected it to Nell Nottings' work in developing care theory. She's known for many things, but her theory of ethical care, which what I focused on in this work is, as teachers, we say we care. I mean, we know we care. We care. However, do the cared forers feel cared for? And when it comes to matters of race, gender, and the other factors that we've been talking about, is our care making people feel cared for? And in this case, I was looking at, does reputar selection in your case or your case or your case make the people in your audience and in your choir and in your community feel cared for? Wow. It was a yes and some it's a no. And then the third theme was, again, connecting back to many of us that work in this area are deeply impacted by the work of Brazilian pedagog Palo Féri and his support of a critical consciousness for teachers. And that was the third theme that I looked at, which was the teachers, the choral directors, that either from being a person of color, from being marginalized, developed a critical consciousness early on, or white people who had experiences, likely being trips and stumbles that helped them come to the beginning stages of a critical consciousness, or almost a an absence of one. I looked at how that presented across. So that's a recent study that I'm just wrapping up. I'm just starting a new study where I'm examining a local music initiative here in Minneapolis, Shiroch Shiroch, which started as a girls' rock camp kind of coming out of the girls' rock movement. And they are an organization for female identifying trans and non-binary folks to come together and learn all about songwriting and all different kinds of music and performing in a really wonderful-- and I'm examining that through Empowerment Theory. I'm very interested in how the particular structure of this organization is aimed at empowerment and helping to develop a critical consciousness in their members, which range from young, youngsters, children, all the way up to senior citizens. So they work with everybody. Wow. Yeah. Another large initiative that I started a couple of years ago-- again, I mentioned Judith Cook Tucker and her groundbreaking work with World Music Press that she started in the 1980s. She retired about 12 years ago now. And I, with her blessing, have picked up where she left off. And I convinced GIA music-- thank you, GIA-- to be the house for a new series of which I am the editor in a series called World Music Initiative. I know. I know. World Music is the problematic name. We all know it. However, we need a name until all music is world music, and we're not there. So World Music Initiative is dedicated to uplifting and focusing, marginalized, and underrepresented music traditions in a way that is thorough and in collaboration with people of the culture and music educators, so a pairing of experts. And the first book that came out in that series was a collaboration with me and my longtime teacher, Quasidinho from Ghana. And that's called Dance Like a Butterfly Songs from Nigeria, Liberia, Senegal, and Ghana. And it comes with-- I wanted people to have everything they need, because I've heard every excuse there is. I don't know how to teach it in another language. I can't remember the words. I don't know how to pronounce it. I can't do the two parts. I don't know what the choreography is. I don't know what it sounds like. So I've given you everything-- the PowerPoint slides, video clips, pronunciation from native speakers, recordings, videos of children. So all of those things that make people scared, we're including them. We have another book coming out. It's in Layout Now by Dr. Le Zhang from China and Dr. Sarah Watts from here in the US at Penn State. And it's a beautiful collection of Chinese children's songs. And it's called Song Collectors, Colin. And then there's a Thai song. after that because they've collected every song from a musician who's an expert in a particular region and they're interviewed and it tells their story and there are recipes and paintings that were commissioned in folk tales. I mean, it's a gorgeous one. So that'll be the next one that's out. And then we'll have the next book I think in the pipeline is by two local educators, Corsha Hassan, a Somali American teacher who is our Minnesota teacher of the year this year. And Becca Buck, who is a music educator here and they've worked for about two years on a collection of Somali American children's songs, including going to every family's house of a child that shared a song, having dinner with them, seeing them play the game or sing the song or do the hand game together. Then we've got another book with me and my dear colleague, I've learned so much from him, my dear friend, Kedman Mopana, who is at the University of Dara Salam in Tanzania. So I would say we're about two thirds through a book on music, a lot of school songs from Tanzania. And I say school songs because they're not local indigenous songs. I kept finding all of these songs that said they were indigenous and I would sing them for Kedman and he would say, "Oh, that's a school song." What it like we meant was somebody collected it in that village and so thought it was of that village. No, they were just singing there because they learned it in school. So that's been an interesting learning curve for me. Most of what I found were school songs. Yes, and then, yeah, so that's going to be an ongoing project where we're trying to really contribute sources that will walk the walk, I guess. We're saying what we think we need out there, so we're trying to create that. Trying to create it. I'm so glad that you listed specifically what is available and what is coming because I think it helps, it helps us think about, helps us envision what's possible for our classrooms and it helps us believe that we can do it as well and take those steps. So there will be links to the things that are already published in the show notes, but you can also go to GIA to find those as well. If you search Karen Howard, you will find those her the books that she's done at least. So let's talk a little bit more about diversity, equity, inclusion and access. So in professional settings or professional development settings, how have you seen diversity, equity, inclusion and access handled in the past. And I'm going to put two questions together. What has diversity, equity, inclusion and access training or work, however it's manifested in your experience in schools or your universities and professional development conferences. How has it worked in the past, how effective have these models been that you have experienced up to this point. Yes. Well, I wish I could say I thought they were effective. I have not personally experienced any that I have found to be effective. So in my university level, I think our main issue is they're not mandatory. So two years ago, we actually had a wonderful two day seminar classes were canceled so that we could attend. And only about half of the teaching staff attended. And this is something that I think is common. If it's not mandatory with follow up after, then the people that go are the people that are likely already practicing efforts to create diverse and equitable and inclusive settings that have access for all that they're probably already doing that work. In the study that I just completed, for example, one of the participants, a choral director said that she never went to anything labeled as what she called DEI. And when I asked her why she said, well, that wasn't me. I already thought I was inclusive. So why would I go to anything. And again, I think where we've made mistakes is separating diversity sessions related to diversity, equity, etc. onto separate tracks. You know, sometimes when I'm asked to present at a conference, and then I have to check off where my sessions fall, I can't pick multiple tracks. And so if I click diversity, then I can't pick other categories, right. And so who's going to come to the session? The people that want to learn more about diversity, who doesn't want to learn more about diversity, people that want to hold the status quo in place. People that are interested in keeping what they know as the dominant. For example, in music departments, we know in many cases not all I do meet music teachers in my work who actually have freedom. And are making choices that I met somebody recently in a Zoom workshop. And I said, what you just described sounds like utopia. And as he was allowed to craft what he saw that fit the diversity of his community, there was no pressure for him to do, you know, the white composers, etc. So I think that's one of the big issues is when the stakeholders are more interested in not having to do more work, not having to do more study when they feel that their expertise is being threatened. And so they say things are what we now know as white fragility. But we have a lot of white people that don't know what that is yet. And they certainly don't recognize it in themselves. And so they're not able to grapple with it and get better at it and get over it. So maybe your department, if you're in a place that's big enough, what if you're in a small district and you're the only music teacher, what training did you get? And certainly your university teachers likely have had none because it's not mandatory. We had a mandatory in theory implicit bias training a couple of years ago, but there was no follow through. There was no consequence if you didn't do it. And you then didn't have to be at the meeting where we unpacked it. That was voluntary. Then again, you're left with the people that are already doing the work. And this is what led me to post something recently about how are we supposed to make any progress if you separate us all of the time. Right. Why wouldn't a session on band repertoire need to have a lens that considered these four facets? You're going to talk about repertoire. Is it have you checked it? Who's represented? What voices are in this method book? I just was talking to a graduate student who's looking to do a project related to band method books that her district uses. And every single method book contains at least a couple blackface songs. And I said, do your students have to pay for these books? And she said yes. And I said, I would start there. She was talking about maybe doing supplemental materials, you know, and I said, why, why privilege the publisher of that book? Why reward them once they can't longer for not being responsible? It is inexcusable to continue to publish materials when we know better. And yet I say that and I am certain there are people still as I just discovered in this study that do not know what I mean by blackface songs. They're in our profession, they're in our field, and somehow they're isolated from all of the ongoing dialogue. And how do we reach those people? They're probably not being given release days. They probably are not with pay cuts and all of the stress of quarantine teaching. They might not have access to journals where these topics are being talked about. They might be busy with their own families and not have time to watch the myriad of amazing webinars that have been available for free since George Floyd's murder. So, you know, I don't know how else to get it to somebody, but there will still be people that a don't know or be no, and it doesn't bother. They're not concerned by a publisher earning money on songs that dehumanize black people that that was their intention. And so there's a big gap there. There's a big gap. And in every just about every group that I work with, that tension is apparent. You can almost feel it. Yep. Yep. And I think for many, it makes them just throw hands up or for orgs. you know, there are all these dynamics that are in play in teacher groups. At least for me, when I'm brought in, I come in as an outsider. I don't have any skin in the game, no pun intended. And I just do the best that I can to as a white person to bring white people forward. I can't speak for anybody of color. I, you know, I, of course, in my work, try to make space. You know, if I'm invited somewhere, I try to say, yes, not every time. You know, I'll say, thank you for the offer. Are you aware of, especially if it has something to do with race or diversity? You know, I'm trying, I'm trying to bring along people that know far more than I do, but aren't being asked the same rate because I'm white. And so I just get more experiences. Right. So yes, I'm absolutely honoring that obligation to be in this work. But where I'm really focused is as a white person talking to white people. And as I learned very recently, sometimes my very whiteness exposes me to push back that white people might not dare say to an educator of color. But yet there, I'm among my people, this comes out. Right. Yeah. So it's an interesting, it's an interesting, as I said before, a pool of tar trying to move forward. Right. And then there are days like this morning before we talked where I'm really just talking myself back up, you know, there's an initiative that has been frustrating. And what I'd like to do is quit the initiative. I'd like to just step off the other white folks are not in a place where we can move anything forward. And I spent the morning putting myself back together to say, if you don't do it in this particular grouping of people who's going to do it, you don't get to say you believe this and step off because it's hard and somebody here at your feelings. You don't get to. You don't. Right. So there's a lot of things that you've mentioned that have not been successful in the past. And so I, and I know so many people listening to the podcast want to be, they want to step in, they want to stay in this work, they want to stay in the being a part of the solution. So what things can we change based on the work that's being done in terms of diversity, equity, inclusion and access from your perspective, how can we make that work more meaningful and, and frankly, effective in tearing down the inequities and the institutionalized systemic oppressions. And yeah, inequities within our educational systems. And I'm thinking, I mean, I'm just, I'm wanting to get as laser specific as possible because I think people want strategies. We want to be able to be effective and we want to know what we can do. So I'm thinking teacher training, I'm thinking about our professional development at schools. I'm thinking about conferences. I'm thinking about whatever else I'm not thinking about all of it. What are some specifics? What can we do better and differently? Well, I thought about scaffolding my answer as you were describing that. So I'll start very micro with a teacher at whatever level, elementary, middle, secondary, because secondary teachers, elementary teachers would like to, you to stop leaving it to them to solve all of this. I'm just going to speak on their behalf for a moment. And if you're a secondary band teacher or a choir teacher, we're really talking to you. Stop leaving it to your elementary colleagues to be the ones that do world music, right? That's a, that's a big barrier is the misperception of whose responsibility is this. It's everybody's responsibility. So what I would encourage, again, on a micro level is for each person, each music educator, whatever your discipline is, is to take a look at your repertoire. We're about to do this in our department. Take a look at your repertoire over the last year and just catalog it for race catalog it for gender representation, right? If you know about sexuality orientation, that's often unknown. It's often kept private, but sometimes it is a known. If you know that factor, do a cataloging up, who are you programming? Who are you representing? How many languages? How many cultures? If you're a symphonic band teacher, how many arrangers are any of them women? Are you performing any music by women? And then when you get your numbers, except for a handful of people, that is going to be a hard number to swallow, right? When we don't have the data in front of us, it's easy to think, oh, I do diverse stuff. We did a spiritual or whatever it might be, but when you when you actually have that number in front of you, you can see who you prioritize. And it's usually Anglo or white Eurocentric men is usually usually where it lands. And then the next question is, what ratio is acceptable to you? What ratio is okay? Is one woman enough when the US has a higher percentage of women than men? Does that seem okay? You know, so really have a conversation. If nobody else in your department is ready, have it with yourself. What percentage feels fair? Yeah. When you look at the fact that our student population is now more than 50% not white, more than half of the students. Your school may be all white, but you're just one school in a world where your students have to live and function and operate, right? Right. So if you teach in an all white school and you think, well, then I only have to teach all white music, it's an impoverished approach that is disabling your student's ability to really develop their humanity and their empathy and their curiosity towards others. So I would start there on a micro level. What's your repertoire? Get a real number and then ask yourself, oh, and by the way, maybe it's an arrangement of a South African folk song, but who arranged it? Is it a white guy from the US doing an apartheid era South African song? Don't cut it. Don't count that song. Right? Okay, I realize there is more nuance to that last comment. So I would, I suppose I would start there. Getting any larger than that, I honestly don't know if we're ready because every DEIA, whatever you want to call it, committee that I've been on. And over the last few years, it's a lot for a lot of different organizations, local and statewide. The initiatives come, the ideas are developed and then nothing happens. So you have this committee, you make a slate of suggestions for said organization, elementary school, a band, a school district, a university, a community music school. And then unless that committee picks up that initiative and walks it to each person to see it through to the next step, nothing happens. So what we're seeing is a general failure of the committee does its task. And then the leadership, whoever is above that committee has to take it on and see it through because nobody is accountable to the committee. We have an anti-racism committee, nobody is accountable to us, they're accountable to our chair, they're accountable to our dean, they're accountable to our provost. So we need, you know, constantly barrage our poor chair with can you send this through, can you request that people do this survey because my asking, I'm just a colleague. Right. So it's getting the stakeholders involved in a way that involves action. Like I said earlier, when it comes to inclusion, words matter, action matters more. Yeah. You can have a statement. Everybody came up with a statement after George Floyd's murder, right? Every organization had pressure put on them, some refused. And the ones that refused outed themselves as having certain racial ideas, right? Everybody had a statement, but what did anybody do about any of them? If we went back and looked at everybody's statements, you know, our state organization vowed to really rededicate themselves. And then booked diversity sessions on its own track and booked them against each other. Right. So people that wanted to go to things that were three at once at the same time slot. Right. Yeah. I was, I was just thinking about if one of the most important things and any of us have worked in education for any period of time, know how absolutely vitally important good leadership is in all areas, including when we're talking about diversity, equity, inclusion and access. I was just thinking to myself, allow this is not a question that we had planned. But how do we support our leaders in this work like as teachers like are there things are, is there, I mean, And I was thinking to myself, you know, relationship is everything. So of course you want to have a good relationship with your leader if possible. And then could you go and talk with them and say, Hey, I know some people, perhaps who could, you know, be helpful. Is there a way I can support this work? Like have you seen anything be effective? Do you have any, you're too sense? You're smiling. So. Well, I, in an ideal world. I mean, this is the story of our friendship, right? You see the bright side, the hopeful side. And then my northeast mentality comes out, right? Yeah. Yeah. What I was thinking was the fish rocks from the head down. That's what I was thinking. No, really, really. Because once you get to be our age, right, I've been teaching a long time. I have had the luxury of working for an effective heart-centered student-centered leader. Yes. I have had the absolute opposite experience. Yes. And almost left teaching because my teacher's spirit was so burnt. Crushed in years under that kind of leadership, which wasn't even aimed at me. I had just witnessed it. You know, I witnessed what I was doing. And so I really feel, I don't know. I mean, it depends. I've worked for leaders that are so far away from caring about this concept, particularly in music. But maybe not more than another subject. It's the only subject I feel equipped to talk about. They're so steeped in. My job is to bring the great masters to be more. And that is so far removed from a place of caring for the human. Right. That was talking about before with Nell Notting's ethical caring. That I, you know, I'm going to quote Tess Fah right now, who was a brilliant choral director here in Minnesota, who talks about this idea. And he talks about it publicly, this idea of capital, capital being your activist energy that you spend and the potentiality of the white person that you're talking to, to activate and create some kind of change, right? And he has become paraphrasing here, but he's become more selective in how much capital he'll spend because he may need to keep working with that person. And if he tips too far, then he may lose the ability. And I think it's a sad statement on that we sometimes have to accept somebody being stuck or not caring in order for other pieces of what we need and other places for our activism to succeed to be able to happen. Right. I think he talked about that on the choral comments in his interview, this wonderful idea of kind of to weigh, you have to weigh the cost, benefit, ratio of the reality of what your life will be like. I just received the note last night from a music educator that was not renewed for aggressively, aggressively criticizing, critiquing maybe as the better word, the lack of initiatives towards diversification and equity. Wow. And that was stated as the reason. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Right. So there's a way to do it. There's a way to read it. It feels inauthentic at times. Even I were just talking about being our authentic selves and how it feels right when you're able to be it. And there's a high energy cost when you're not. Yeah. And sometimes in this work, I'm not able to be my full self because I'm trying to balance. I'm trying to walk a line in the hopes to move something forward in a way that benefits people. Yeah. And sometimes it means closing down parts of what I think or believe or feel. Yes. It might be a smaller step toward. Right. Right. I'm not so great at that. I don't know about that. But everybody who throws me personally, they're like, come on, be real. You're not awesome at the subtle. I think I am, but my face is a reader board. I have a natural RBF and my face is a reader board. What can I do? Even what I'm just thinking about bunnies and goats and pajamas, apparently my face does not reflect it. So it's a challenge. Yes. But I think it's a very, it's a very real thing for folks to consider is how can we be, because part of my question really was about being effective at moving things forward. And you just spoke specifically to the effectiveness that we can't control how fast our systems or colleagues or teams or leaders move forward. But that doesn't mean that we should stop doing the work. However, that does inform perhaps how we go about doing that. And I think that that's what you were just speaking to. So we need to manage, we need, we need to, we need to go for effective and take the steps that we can get and continue to move forward as quickly as we can. And I guess the other thing I would say a couple of other pieces is for people that in music education that are really interested in this, I'm speaking to white people right now. Get your house in order first before you go looking to talk to anybody else about their own work. Because I'm seeing a lot of white people that are really wishing to do, they want to do the right thing and especially teachers, oh my goodness, we want to be seen as good doers, right? Doers of good deeds. But if you're coming at somebody in a way that is reflecting that you have done your own work, what about your own repertoire? What about your own practices? What if we looked at your programs? What if we called you out in that way? Would it make you feel motivated to move forward? And I've said before, I'm a proponent of calling in with love even when it makes me cringe. Call in, call in, call in, call in because I think people that have said, I never heard of a blackface song before. If I shame them in that moment, that might take them out of the conversation altogether. I may have lost an opportunity. So if I call in and say, you're not alone in that and we're hoping to change that. Right. And no going to your colleagues of color to teach you is not where you should go. Let me as a white person help you find some resources. Right. These kinds of things. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think if I can equate that and I know it's not exactly the same thing because you're talking about adults and I'm talking about students. But we were masters most of us as teachers at differentiating for our students. Being where a student is at and figuring out hopefully how to help them move forward with whatever they're stuck on. Right. And again, we can only do that to the extent that we are aware of ourselves and the student. However, we're really good at reading situations and figuring out how to move things forward. And we can get stopped, especially I think as white teachers. By the topic of race, we can just shut down. So I think some of those skills that we have as teachers about how to help facilitate learning and movement forward can get shut down when we're talking about race specifically, as well as other things, but race specifically. And we have a lot of tools in that area as well that we've honed with our students. I don't know, that was a connection for me. We don't give up on our students. We keep figuring out a different way to ask the question a different way to say something until we help them move past whatever it is they're struggling with. We've got a lot of skills in that area. And I guess the difference, I agree with the connection you just made, the differences the children have to be or the teens or whatever. College students have to be in your class. Teachers often don't have to be in a certain place. I mean, really, how many unpodcast land show of hands, how many meetings have you been and were the person who's been in the crossword puzzle and the person across, you know, people are texting each other across the room, how else do we survive these meetings? Right? So it doesn't mean it doesn't mean. You're a real caretower. We know we're fully engaged. You can be physically present and mentally and ethically gone. Yes, indeed. Indeed. Yes. And if you're in the middle of a difficult, even if it's not a meeting, but a one-on-one conversation, the colleague with whom you're speaking doesn't have to stay engaged in that conversation. They could walk away. Whereas the student has more inclination to stay in your room because of the way the system is set up. So yes, I absolutely see the difference as well. So for folks who are interested in more ideas. about implementing, just moving this work forward that we've been talking about, diversity, equity, inclusion, access. Wanting that work to be more transformative more quickly. Do you have any resources? If they fall in the category of me as a white person doing my own work, that's fantastic. If they fall outside of that as well, more systemic approach, great. Would you have resources that you would point people to help us move this forward? Yes. I think reading is great, but reading and then not taking action is just reading. If you are reading wonderful, pair your reading with action steps. Just about every book that white folks have been reading, which by the way, if you're reading white fragility, read some by people of color as well. There are countless fantastic award-winning books like Black and Brown and Indigenous authors that can guide you and almost all of them have practical steps, some have workbooks, some have. If you are one of the people that's been on reading and I'm listening, do more. Read and plan some action steps. I would also highly, highly for years. My whole, they started in 1993. I've been talking about this organization. It was called Teaching Tolerance until a couple of weeks ago. Now they're learning for just this.org. This is a 30-year organization through the Southern Poverty Law Center. It is free, free, free with incredible materials for learning things yourself. Really, who was Rosa Parks? She was so much more than somebody who was tired at the end of a work day. What's the real story of Martin Luther King? What was the civil rights movement really about? How do we talk about things such as George Floyd's murder? Whose responsibility is it? I teach choir. Yes, yours too, because you likely have singers in your room that were impacted by it, because they're alive and they exist, right? It's got a script for how you can help. You can take the script and modify it. From start to finish, it matters of indigeneity, gender issues. That's their whole purpose is matters of diversity, equity, inclusion, and access with free materials that are developed by educators and experts in these topics to help you feel more confident and to find the language that nobody gave you, especially the white. Yeah. Right. To be my big go-to's. Wonderful. We will link to that also in the show notes too, so that for folks who may not be familiar, or are still working on the name change from teaching tolerance to learning for justice that they can find the materials as well. Is there anything else that you would like to add to our conversation today? Anything you haven't said that you wanted to share or contribute? I suppose a couple of things that have come to mind. One is that as a white person in this work, I really do feel my main desire, my main goal, is to celebrate and uplift students, teachers, community members who have been marginalized and dehumanized in some cases in my work and using my platform that I get as a white person to continue to bring attention to marginalized and underrepresented communities and what they share their experiences are. I want to make space. I want to give my platform over. I want to bring them in as authors. That's why I created this series. I want to see them speaking when they choose. If they want the opportunity, I want them to have opportunities that they can say, "No, thank you. I'm too busy at times." And at the same time, I know that in order to do that, which is my main goal, that I need to focus my work as a white person on whiteness and whiteness impact. I need to make whiteness visible to white people so that we can see it is something that we can absolutely affect change upon. Once we know a thing, we can wrangle with a thing in order to really achieve some sort of diversity or some kind of equity or some kind of inclusion or real access. I have to get the dominant group on board to make space, make change, give up, share, allow in, not just add on, share. Right. Right, share the plenty. And the only other thing that I thought was that in order to do this, it's relentless. It's unending. It's exhausting. It's relentless. It's unending. It's exhausting. That's just the deal. But the goal is worth every second. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And our, you know, exhausting and endless as white folks, I mean, we can, we can turn it off. I mean, we can, we have the power to ignore it. We are not affected by it the same way that some of our black, brown, Indigenous, and Asian colleagues are. And so I, I remember that too on the days that, that are hard, that that's one of the most important things is that, yeah, it's hard. And, yes. And for our gender, fluid and trans and non-binary, you know, there are so many people or, or for our friends, colleagues, students, family members that have a visible disability. What that is like, or an invisible disability, how their experience in the world is, you know, I, I, I have a lot of progress. And I, I'm aware they give me space to talk. So I'm trying to try and make it work something. Yeah. Wonderful. Oh, thank you so much. So we will put your contact information and the resources that you mentioned at the bottom of the podcast page. But if folks would like to continue to learn from you, how can they do that? Well, they can come see me and join us for the ball that we have in the summer. Yes. Yes. Music education. This summer, I'll be running the Smithsonian Folkways World Music Pedagogy course, the week of 1828. In person, safely, the two weeks before that, I'll be teaching a global traditions and choir class, half day every day, where we focus on a different world singing culture. And then in July, I'll be doing a Latin American music course. And I'm doing a week long online course to the Kodai Music Institute later in July. That's what's coming to mind. Or they can always, the only social media I do is Facebook and I don't do it so well at that. But they could find me there. Wonderful. And email me. That's St. Thomas. Wonderful. And we will put a link to the courses as well. If folks want to go to the podcast page and just find the link to the graduate programs, they can connect with you there as well. All right. Well, thank you so much, Karen, for being here today and for sharing your heart and your research and your mind and your passion for teaching and human beings in general. So appreciated. Thank you. Thank you so much for all you do, Ms. Brown. Thank you. You inspire me. Right back at you. My pleasure. [laughs]