The instruments themselves aren’t the culture-it’s the way they are played. Black people made the sax, the drums, the piano, the guitar into what they are in American music-all white people did was to imitate what black people had done, and then earn ten times as much money as the black musicians who created the sound they imitated.

That doesn’t mean white people never displayed any talent, but it does mean they owe a huge, and largely unpaid debt to the black people who created virtually all distinctly American musical idioms.

What is the harm in admitting that?

What is the harm in admitting that the U.S. is not an exclusively European culture and that what makes our culture(s) distinctive is the ways in which they diverge from European culture?

And in admitting that, what is the harm in admitting that all the cultures of all the peoples of this country are equally valid, equally deserving of respect and preservation, and equally American?

In admitting that, does any white person lose anything we actually need?