The director of Washington State’s Olympia School District Board recently discussed cuts in elementary school-level music programs due to their “white supremacist” nature. …

“We also know that there are other folks in the community that experience things like a tradition of excellence as exclusionary,” Clifthorne said. “But that’s not unique to elementary instrumental music. We’re a school district that lives in … is entrenched in … is surrounded by white supremacy culture. And that’s a real thing.”

There’s nothing about strings or wind instrumental music that is intrinsically white supremacist. However, the ways in which it is and the ways in which all of our institutions, not just schools — local government, state government, churches, or neighborhoods — inculcate and allow white supremacy culture to continue to be propagated and cause significant institutional violence are things that we have to think about carefully as a community. And I think that we have to do that interrogation. And we have to address the ways in which it creates challenges for administering the educational day for our elementary learners while we retain the program.