Back in the days when skin tone was not a criterion for worthy art, I used to attend the opera quite regularly, especially when works from Mozart, Verdi, or Puccini were on offer. I mention skin tone because a black American so-called academic, Philip Ewell, claims that Western classical music is rooted in racism. Phil also thinks that Ludwig van Beethoven is kinda useless, and that our reverence for classical music is just an expression of white supremacy. So what else is new?

I’ll tell you in a jiffy: According to Phil’s obviously oxygen-deprived brain, old Ludwig’s reputation was propped up for 200 years by “whiteness and maleness.” What the moronic Phil doesn’t realize, however, is that poor old Beethoven has had many black academics rooting for him since many a year, namely because they believed he had black blood in his veins.

Mind you, Beethoven had no more black blood flowing in him than I do, but was often painted in dark colors—probably to artistically reflect his moods, which were at times “black” because of his lack of hearing. Beethoven’s ancestry was Flemish, and there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that one of his ancestors had an affair with a Moorish servant, as some black academics hint.

Worse, these same academics insist that his music reflects African rhythms. This really takes the cake. The Moonlight Sonata has an African beat? The good news is as long as they think Ludwig was black his statues will be safe, just like the one of career criminal George Floyd that was just unveiled in New York’s Union Square.

Well, it’s a free country, at least if you’re black, Asian, or Hispanic. Whites, however, have to be very careful what they say and do. Our English cousins are way ahead of us in this regard. Over in Blighty, music history professor J.P.E. Harper-Scott expresses the increasingly common musicological view that “19th century musical works were the product of an imperial society” and that “the classical music canon must be decolonised.” His recommended first step of decolonization is to stop teaching music by Beethoven and Wagner.

In the theater of the absurd we’re living in, once Wagner and Beethoven are out, current living conditions for the socially, sexually, and racially underprivileged will improve. This is what is taught nowadays in certain British schools, so God help us. Not only are the lunatics running the asylum, they are also making the rules for the rest of us. George Orwell must be turning over in his grave in frustration muttering, “Why didn’t I think of this?”

And it gets worse. Orchestras in Britain are letting musicians go because of their skin color. The English Touring Opera is one of these, recently dropping 14 white musicians ranging in age from 40 to 60. “Diversity guidance” from the Arts Council England has ensured their contracts will not be renewed. The Arts Council runs culture in Britain and finances plays, orchestras, and other artistic endeavors. It hands out millions to all sorts of talentless projects, and is staffed by—you guessed it—all sorts of lefty, bearded men and women and even some normal looking people. And yes, Boris Johnson and the Conservatives are in power with a great majority, but the Arts Council and the BBC are British institutions no one dares lay a hand on, despite the desperate need for change.

Has wokeness doomed the arts forever? I would say definitely yes, and soon I am afraid we will reach the hideous point where only blacks and other designated minorities are allowed to play major roles on stage and screen. Whites will only play very bad people, for example Charles Manson. Playing Nazis will also keep white actors working for a long time.

Not to be undone, book publishers are also falling in line, including Penguin Random House. The company sent stern notices to all and sundry in 2018, declaring  that they would need to hit diversity targets related to sex, race, and disability. I wonder what Penguin would decide if a young and healthy Hemingway were to submit A Farewell to Arms today? Or if F. Scott Fitzgerald dropped manuscripts of Tender is the Night and The Great Gatsby in their offices? There are no transsexuals in any of those books, and blacks and homosexuals are also absent. And both Papa and F. Scott were known to drink too much and to like women. With art being judged nowadays by the biography of the artist, both writers would get a rejection slip and a letter encouraging them to seek help.

But back to music and opera and what a genius like Ewell could do with, say, Don Giovanni,or better yet, La Bohème. The Don’s role could easily be that of a black because, like Wilt Chamberlain who claimed to have seduced 20,000 women, the Don’s servant Leporello assures us he seduced 1,003 in Spain, 640 in Italy, and only 91 in Turkey. Rodolfo and Mimi in Bohème could be starving black artists in a Harlem garret. Mimi would die of an infected needle from a COVID shot administered by a careless white doctor. Go get ’em, Phil.