If I were a racist

Dr Liz Stafford reviews a new book by Professor Nathan Holder

Professor Nathan Holder is well-known in UK education circles for his tireless work advocating for inclusive and diverse music education. For this work, it is fair to say that he is met with reaction on every level from wild enthusiasm and praise right down to ignorance and abuse.

Despite, or perhaps because of this, Holder’s latest book does not shy away from calling a spade a spade, and doubtless some people will find the title and subtitle of this text somewhat confronting, as Philip Ewell discusses in his excellent foreward.

For those readers who usually skip the foreward and introduction and get straight to the nitty gritty of a book, I would encourage you not to on this occasion. Crucial to understanding this book is to understand the wider context within which it is framed.

Many of us will think ‘I’m not racist’ (or even worse ‘I’m not racist, but...’) with a failure to understand that the systems within which music education - and pretty much everything else in the world - is organised are inherently problematic.

Each chapter of this book takes us on a journey through a different aspect of music teaching, prefaced each time by a stanza from Holder’s 2020 poem If I were a racist. Despite the bold title, each chapter provides gentle, thoughtful and informative discussion of what the problems are and how we as music teachers can solve them. There is zero sense of shame or judgement in the writing, just an acknowledgement that we as teachers can do better than our own teachers may have done to make music education more inclusive, diverse, and equitable.

This book is essential reading for all music teachers, is reasonably priced, and crucially is brief enough to finish in one PPA session! It can be purchased here