Activist, author Chloé Valdary is a diversity and anti-racism trainer with a refreshingly loving approach. This week, on Valentine’s Day, I am encouraging us to approach our ensembles, our classes, our colleagues and our neighbors with Agape.
In music education, we have a very popular, and important euphemism: “I want my students to see themselves in the music, or in the ensembles I have them watch” based on the finding people who look like them. And this representation does matter! But what I don’t hear enough is, “I want my students to learn to see themselves in everyone, and in ALL of the music we learn.” This introspective approach is echoed in Chloé’s fascinating brand of Anti-Racism.
“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
James BaldwinOne of the core premises that Chloé likes to communicate is that if you can’t apply the principle James Baldwin describes here to YOURSELF, then it will not have any value in healing the rifts between us. If you see it only as a principle that applies to others, we will never enter important conversations as equals. She trains, teaches and advocates for a type of conversation about diversity in schools, groups and organizations that starts with introspection and search for our common humanity.
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From Theory of Enchantment: One particular day, in a religious studies class, my professor, an agnostic, shows us a documentary called Jesus Camp. It follows a group of evangelical Christians at their summer camp for kids. The subjects are not portrayed in a positive light.
Suddenly, a student in our class starts to rail against the Christians in the movie, and I peg my agnostic professor as a person who won’t mind. How wrong I am. It becomes a shouting match between her and the student. My professor vigorously defends the Christians in the documentary, saying we all gravitate toward things that give us a feeling of meaning and significance, belonging, and community.
Then she says,
She defies the agnostic box I placed her in. The frameworks that I am using to find meaning in the world are no longer sufficient. I am desperate for one that is. Slowly but surely, I realize I am outgrowing
my religion.
I grew up in New Orleans with four sisters. We were an extremely atypical Christian family, and my parents deeply inculcated a strict religious philosophy. We didn’t observe Christian holidays, we observed Jewish holidays. Church was on Saturday instead of Sunday, and Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were celebrated instead of Christmas and Easter.
From my mother, a homemaker, I absorbed a deep inquisitiveness about human beings. From my dad, a banker, I gained a reverence for the numinous and the transcendent. But I also came out of childhood dogmatic in certain ways.
I went to a performing arts high school then to the University of New Orleans, where I became an activist.
Episode 160: Practical Vocal Acoustics with Kenneth Bozeman
Episode 159: The Entrepreneurial Future of Choral Music with Ryan Main
Episode 158: Is All Art is Political? With Melissa Dunphy
Episode 157: Civic Renewal Through Ensemble with Chris and Beth Munce
Episode 156: Choralosophers Livestream on Burnout, Literacy Instruction and the Moral Injury of Educators
Episode 155: What I Wish I Knew As A Young Conductor with John C. Hughes
Episode 154: Turning Title 1 Challenges into Success with Mark Bailey
Episode 153: Going Deeper on Gender Equity in Music Ed with Dr. Melissa Baughman
Episode 152: Prioritizing Context and Connection with Zanaida Robles
Episode 151: Omni-Musicians with Greg Thomas
Episode 150: Choir After the Pandemic with Emmy Burch and Chris Munce DURING the Pandemic
Episode 149: “Tár” Movie Review
Episode 148: The Arts and the Exceptional Child with Dr. Matthew Zakreski
Episode 147: Leveraging Artificial Intelligence in Music Education with ChatGPT
Episode 146: The Vibrato Question with Dr. Jennaya Robison
Episode 145: Teaching Skills, Not Facts with Melanie Trecek-King
Episode 144: A Thousand Tiny Cuts with Jasmine Fripp
Revisiting the Anti-Fragile Choir: Resilient, Robust, Powerful with Eric Barnum
Episode 143: Toward a Diversity of Diversities with Survey Results!
Episode 142: How the Sausage is Made in Sheet Music with Dan Forrest
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