Pop music writing has ALWAYS had a subject/object war - who gets to write? what do they get to write about? How is it done? But we're currently in a fever pitch of argument about the subjectivity of pop writers in terms of race. I see this as sparked by Kelefa Sanneh's piece in the NY Times and BMW, "The Rap Against Rockism," which took discourse about race/genre/subjectivity that had been simmering since the 1970s an put it into the mainstream.

Since then, the war has been raging somewhat productively on the object side as POPTIMISM v. ROCKISM but less productively on the subjectivity side. See this Obsolete Vernacular post "Open Letter to Oxford American" for an example of how messy it can be when one person criticizes another publication's mix of writer's subject positions. The publications editor Marc responded, but did not address the second point of the blog's critique - not just that there were not enough minority voices, but not enough women. I think Marc brings up valid points about his limited abilities to find writers to diversify his masthead in as much that the problem of respresentation is one that is deep-seated, related to education, interest, economic incentive, racisim, sexism, and all those other things George Lipsitz writes about as the historical constructions that make white maleness the deepest unmarked privledge in America. I also see quite blankly that Marc doesn't even both talking about gender because like many attacked about the subjecthood of their employees, he responds about the "real" problem of ethnicity, not the often relegated to second order problem of gender. They are comingled, copresent and demand more difficult answers.

At the point Marc sits, what CAN he do? This is the question everyone working in situations of institutionalized inequality may ask themselves - what can I do in this situation, when there are so many GOOD (straight) well-educated white male writers who I can work with easily? The others aren't as "good," as easily put into the house style, as professional, as knowledgeable, as bold, as opinionated, as loyal to the music, as confident. I will not take the time to develop them because I don't have the time. I want good writing, not a diverse masthead, and I will not take the time to develop them both. The thinking here is that good music writers come to a publication fully formed and need no editing, no coaxing, no mentorship to become great. Which is abject denial, as evidenced in jobs across many professions, when "informal" mentorship moments like career talks while bar crawling or going to the gym are classically gender-segregated and account for a significant majority of the important transactions in music criticism as well - people are hired at press events, shows, and other places where male socialization is the norm. It is also a denial of the historical reasons why one may not find it so easy to dally in the economic dilletantism that is music criticism. There are so many good, well-educated white male writers for this among many other reasons, and the question of labor oversupply and limited work is one that is also reaching fever pitch. Here is where I would go into a whole other riff about ethnicity, labor supply, the end of print, niche markets, and capital. But I won't - simmer on those word and I hope you come to some conclusion. Feel free to share.

In the introduction to this year's book, there is a statement. "These essays - a term I use loosely but advisedly - comprise no sampler, mix tape, cross-section, genre survey, affirmative action program, rich tapestry, or tasty gumbo." I did not write this statement and I am not sure I endorse it. I am not referring to the six words about techniques of collaging writing(object) but the one word about subjecthood, one that in context reads like a dismissal of the contested space of the subject in writing. I want to believe it is tailfeather ruffling bravado, a somewhat less incideous flex of white male privledged subjectivity than it comes off in context. It is, essentially, and argument that there is one "best" and that nothing will stop the quest to put together a book reflecting it.

Best Music Writing is a reflection, not an active construction, in as much as we are only printing that which has already gone through all the other mechanisms of control (quality and otherwise). But, as I said above, every single action is a choice to continue this institutionalized sexism, racisim, classism, and homophobia or to find some way to challenge it, to be more open, to be thoughtful of my own subject position and the object of the book. My way of dealing with it thus far has been to interrogate the word "best" as a judgment informed by criteria historically constructed by straight white males and to wonder - what is "best" for people of other subject positions? It seems like a silly thing to deny that aesthetics are situated in education, upbringing, exposure and therefore it seems silly to assume there is one aesthetic judgment of "best" writing. Writing must function in different ways for different people and it's my job, I believe, to try to account for the various and many ways people of different subject positions approach different topics, invigorating the dialogue about music with new forms of critical creative approach. Is art not, in some ways, a walk throug another's eyes? Why would I not want more eyes?