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 124: Teaching in a Famous Classroom with Myles Finn
Episode 124: Teaching in a Famous Classroom with Myles Finn
Episode 123: The Belonging Buffet
Episode 122: The Problem of “Racializing” Music with Contraband
Episode 121: When Magic Happens with Chanticleer
Episode 120: Jake Runestad Live in My Classroom!
Episode 119: Yes Middle Schoolers CAN! with Dale Duncan
Episode 118: Leveling the Playing Field with Dr. Chantae Pittman
Episode 117: Finding My Voice with Benedict Sheehan
Episode 116: What is Our MAIN Job?
Episode 115: The A Cappella Revolution with Rob Dietz
Car Thoughts: Thank you for your mistake
Episode 114: Boys Keep Singing! With Martin Ashley
Car Thoughts: Back to School with No Masks and Normalizing Noise Making
Everyone CAN Get an A, But Not Everyone Will
Episode 113: Are We Doing Anti-Racism Wrong? with Dr. Sheena Mason
Episode 112: Arts of Personhood and Shining Eyes
Ep 111: The Righteous Musician with Reena Esmail
Episode 110: Creating Laboratories for Friction with Mónica Guzmán
Episode 109: Doing the Business of Choir with Alex Gartner
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