Earlier this week, NPR reported that “Three of the five acts nominated for the 2021 best children’s album Grammy Award” had decided to decline their nominations. Why? “They’re upset that the contenders in their category are all white.”
Alastair Moock, whose album Be a Pain is about “The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Harvey Milk, Rosa Parks, the Parkland, Fla., shooting student protesters and others,” reportedly “smacked his head” after he heard “the news he was nominated along with three other white male acts and one white woman.” Moock said, “After this year, to have an all-white slate of nominees seemed really tone-deaf.” While he said he’d be happy to get the award, he didn’t “want it like this, where the playing field’s not even.”
Moock was joined by “fellow acts Dog on Fleas and the Okee Dokee Brothers.”
Yesterday, we (& 2 other nominees) wrote the pictured letter to the Recording Academy respectfully declining our nominations and asking for our names to be removed from the final round ballot. We haven’t heard back – regardless, we ask voters to please refrain from voting for us. pic.twitter.com/N0vlqX9eSt
— okeedokeebros (@OkeeDokeeBros) December 9, 2020
Such pandering nonsense is demonstrative of a society doing its best to drag us backwards into our horrid history of judging one another by skin color alone.
It doesn’t matter that Be a Pain “is about American heroes who stood up for their principles,” including several Civil Rights icons. It doesn’t matter that the “women and artists of color” apparently “overlooked” are in no way prevented from producing music for children and may therefore be considered for this award. It doesn’t matter that Lucy Kalantari, who won the Grammy Award for best children’s album in 2019 with her band Lucy Kalantari & The Jazz Cats, is a woman of color.
In the absurd and myopic racially-obsessed world the radical Left is working to construct, the only thing that matters is that its occupants provide constant proof of their fealty to the latest demands of “progressivism.”
In reality, there is nothing “tone deaf” about having an “all-white slate of nominees.” Unless certain identity groups are intentionally ignored, the race or gender of artists shouldn’t matter when neither race nor gender is the subject of judgement. Why should we care about skin color when awarding a musical album? Would there be outrage if every nominee happened to be a black woman?
For the radical Left, however, identity group is of primary importance. After all, every instance of “racial violence” is proof of racial inequity and systemic racism. Therefore, regardless of what happened yesterday, we must each prove our “anti-racism” in real-time today. By this logic, unless nominees for a musical award are racially proportional, all prior progress is meaningless.
In response, the award sought by “artists” is no longer a golden statuette. Instead, they crave the abstract societal celebration and adoration that can be garnered by racial self-flagellation. Why have a Grammy — especially when you already have one — when you can adorn yourself with a medal of wokeness?
There are two different directions the world of “awards” can take. The first is to give in to the radical Left and nominate candidates based on skin color and gender, accepting the inevitable destruction of meritocracy and quality that comes with any form of affirmative action. The second is to reward people for their abilities alone, regardless of whether that means nominating five white males, five black females, or a mixture.
It’s ironic that Alastair Moock, whose album Be a Pain referenced Martin Luther King Jr., turned down his nomination, given that Dr. King spoke the famous words “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
By demanding that the Grammy Awards nominate people based on their skin color, Moock and his comrades are proving that they don’t understand these words at all.
Ian Haworth is host of The Ian Haworth Show and The Truth in 60 Seconds. Follow him on Twitter at @ighaworth.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.