(Alas, a thread):

I have to say, this morning’s news on this specific matter really struck a note with me to a level of intensity where I had to take a brief walk just to calm down. Below I shall explain: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53774289

As it happens, I wasn’t born in the U.S., but I emigrated there with my parents when I was very young and before de-camping to Europe some 14 years ago, I was for all intents and purposes, as I felt it, an ‘American.’

That is to say, as my father always reminds me: my parents came to the U.S. because they believed in American values, and my mother always told me that we were now Americans. They and their community also are rather loyal, July 4th-celebrating, self-described ‘Americans.’

But when I see this, I am reminded of my somewhat complex feelings about cultural self-definition in American classical music and why I think that the conversation over it is much more complicated than an issue of ‘white vs black’ (with all the connotations associated there with)

I always felt that it was made quite clear to me — sometimes explicitly, most implicitly - that classical music in the U.S. is possessed by an idea that it has cultural power in deciding who gets to be an ‘American artist.’ There are myriad examples of this.

And for some reason, this reminds me of the harpsichord column in a fairly well-known American publication on...let’s say keyboard instruments...which for 45+ years is manned by the same writer who does his monthly round-up of American harpsichordists.

And will always make sure to mention every last continuo gig in an opera house - even by an American in Europe - and who, a few years ago, even did a piece on ‘current work by American harpsichordists’ all around the globe, and for some reason I always felt ....

...that by omitting me, he was making clear that I wasn’t an American. It didn’t matter where I came to play even in the States — Lincoln Center, Carnegie, any of the major orchestras, Aspen Festival — it reminded me of the saying that ‘you are seen but not acknowledged.’

So when otherwise reasonable (white, native-born) Americans scratch their heads and wonder how anyone could believe that Kamala Harris (or indeed Barack Obama) could be thought as having been born elsewhere, I think you might be missing the point.

The message from the Right is that “we decide who belongs.” And this message, even implicitly, is often disseminated amongst the pearl-clutchers who have taken on the mantle of deciding who belongs in American culture. Anyhow — just a little rant and the product of a long walk.

folks will say: “but you went to Europe, make a good career - what are you complaining about?” And this is missing the point entirely. You, the birthers, the journos being ‘clever’ by saying that by asking for equality you’re being ‘controversial’ just miss this point entirely.