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Race-Blind Racism
09/02/2003

Jay Nordlinger devoted today's Impromptus to race. Most of it was copied from an article of his in the last National Review, but this item was new (to me), and appalling:

An infamous and signal event occurred in 1989. In that year, a couple of Detroit reps in the Michigan state legislature threatened to withhold funding for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra unless it hired an additional black player, pronto. (The orchestra had only one.) The DSO — like all other self-respecting orchestras — had always had blind auditions. You play behind a curtain: They can't see you. They're not supposed to tell whether you're young or old, a man or a woman, or whatever.

It is irrefutable evidence of a pathologically racist society that it finds justice in racial quotas for jobs that are filled in a completely blind audition.

Posted by Justin Katz @ 07:49 PM EST