Beethoven and the Mulatto

There are scattered people who are trying to pass off the idea that Ludwig van Beethoven was a mulatto (actually this guy tries to say that Franz Josef Haydn was also African). Specifically they say that his mother was a Moor. The rumor stems from the fact that Beethoven was reportedly, occasionally referred to as “der Schwarzer”. While this does mean “the black” it hardly means “the Negro” or “the mulatto”.

We’ve all seen paintings of Beethoven and his family tree is fairly well documented. Her parents surnames were Keverich and Westorff, hardly names that evoke visions of Moorish folk. Even if there was some truth to this, the promoters of this fable are hoping to show that he is Negroid, but the Moors are a Northern African people of mixed ancestry (Berber and Arab). You can see how a typical Berber looks here. It’s easy to see that this would do nothing to support a Negroid Beethoven. Of course there is absolutely no evidence to support a Muslim (virtually all Moors are Muslim and were then also) ancestry either.

There is an interesting story concerning the interaction of Beethoven with a Mulatto though. There was a virtuoso violinist contemporary of Beethoven’s by the name of George Bridgetower whose mother was Polish and father was West Indian. His playing so impressed Beethoven that he dedicated a new violin sonata to Bridgetower and entitled it Sonata por uno mulaticco lunattico. “Wait,” you say, “I’ve never heard of that sonata.” Unfortunately, for Bridgetower, the dedication was short-lived. During drinks following a performance Bridgetower made a lurid remark about a lady, so infuriating Beethoven that he withdrew the dedication. Despite Bridgetower’s pleas, Beethoven steadfastly refused, and never interacted with Bridgetower again.

What is this sonata? It’s Violin Sonata No. 9, also known as the Kreutzer Sonata. The irony of the story is, while Bridgetower had reportedly played this piece flawlessly, when the arrangement was sent to Rudolphe Kreutzer, the virtuoso for whom it was named, he proclaimed the piece unplayable, and never performed it.

Asininity and “White Privilege”

The propaganda that the Southern Poverty Law Center promotes through its tolerance.org program is staggering. They offer endless materials to schools and “educators”, and they offer mountains of advice to clueless parents.

One columnist, Elizabeth Bauchner, writes, in her response to her 7-year-old son’s question “Mom, when you grow up, do you get to do whatever you want, or do other people tell you what to do?”

“That’s a very interesting question,” I told him. “In some ways, it depends a lot on where you’re born, how much money you have and what your skin color is.”

I went on to explain in age-appropriate terms that our country was actually founded by white colonists who enslaved Africans and either killed Native Americans or moved them onto reservations. White people have been opening doors of opportunity for other whites ever since, I told him.

Now I don’t know if she makes it a habit of answering her son with non-sequiturs, but what in the world do African slaves and American Indians have to do with his question? It’s clear that this poor child’s mother is suffering from a bad case of misplaced guilt, and has become a very efficient and infectious carrier. Of course, there is also some subtle chicanery going on here, also. White people may have owned African slaves, may have bought them, and may have sold them, but they did not “enslave” these people, they were already slaves. Some American Indians were killed, but this deserves more attention than just a passing statement, suggesting that White settlers sat around plinking at peacefully passing Indians or hunting them as sport. In reality there had been many peaceful interactions between the two races, but these peoples had differing agendas from each other as races often do, and it was simply a matter of time before hostilities arose.

Since she has a 7-year-old son, it’s pretty safe to assume that she didn’t come of age before the beginning of the “affirmative action” era which was set in motion in the 1960’s with President Kennedy’s Executive Order 10925, and taking further form in Lyndon Johnson’s Executive Orders 11246 and 11375. Preferential consideration of minorities in government hiring, increased to required preferential consideration in the hiring of companies with government contracts, to preferential consideration for college admissions and scholarships, etc. Where are the Whites “opening doors of opportunity for other whites ever since”?

She goes on to say:

Here in Ithaca, New York, where we live, we once were labeled the “Most Enlightened City in America” by Utne Reader. But racism is institutionalized here just like in any other city in the country, and outward bigotry exists, too. Out of the eight elementary schools in Ithaca, the school in the poorest neighborhood is largely comprised of African-American children, while the school in the richest neighborhood is comprised mainly of white children.

This lady just doesn’t get it, she’s been blinded to reality. This is not a symptom of “racism”. This is a matter of intelligence and achievement. Despite the fact that extra doors are opened for these people, the vast majority are unable to take advantage of it. Such doors were never opened for the Irish immigrants. These people opened the doors for themselves. For that matter, the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese have opened the doors for themselves, as well.

Later in the article she shows that she knows it’s really about traits present in the white race, but it becomes readily apparent that she is the queen of the non-sequitur.

My father’s ability to move to that neighborhood and start a new business, get a loan and grow his business through word of mouth all had a lot to do with his skin privilege. Sure, his abilities, his math and mapping skills (he was a land surveyor), and his dedication to working steady hours all played a role — a big role — as did the economy throughout the 1970s. But it’s mainly because of his skin color that he was able to move so easily throughout the wealthier side of society, make connections and network, and acquire the means to comfortably support his wife and three children.

It was my father’s skin color that enabled him to essentially do whatever he wanted….

Notice what she said. Her father was hard working, and was skilled at math and mapping, but this isn’t what made it possible for him start a successful business, and support a family to whom he was dedicated. No, the main reason is he was white. Remember that, when you don’t get into that elite college because some Black or Hispanic with an SAT score 200 points lower than yours and a lower grade point average gets admitted. Remember that, when someone with lesser qualifications, skills, work-ethic, and amiability is hired because the company is ensuring that they meet their quota. You have “White Privilege”, and you can do whatever you want!

Gutenberg and the Reformation – The First Information Age

By the early 1500’s, Europe had been prepared for the Protestant Reformation in ways that Johann Gutenberg could never have expected. Circa 1452, this Mainz patrician developed printer’s ink and an alloy for making individual letters to be used in a typeset, which could then be put into a printing press, and used over and over without wearing out. This allowed for the rapid creation of multiple copies of a document.

A providential note is the presence of alphabetic based written languages in Europe. Logographic forms, such as Japanese or Chinese, would have required thousands of different characters in the typeset, and a system of keeping these thousands organized. The alphabetic systems were much easier to produce and organize, and had the added benefit of the ubiquity of the Roman alphabet which allowed more than one language to be produced using the same typeset.

One of the first documents printed was the famous Gutenberg Bible of which approximately 200 were believed to have been made (somewhere around fifty survive today, the left flanking picture is from one of these). This was a Latin text, primarily the work of Jerome.

Much like new technology today, the first products of this printing press were expensive, but soon costs began to fall as the technology spread. It spread very quickly with probably more than 2500 cities having operating presses by 1500. By the early 1500’s printing had become fairly economical.

While the publishing of the Bible in many languages was very important, this was still a large book requiring a lot of labor and materials. As such, a Bible was still costly beyond the means of the majority of the people. As the Reformation grew, a more readily available resource was the variety of tracts, pamphlets, and sermons, or Flugschriften, produced by numerous reformers (Martin Luther, Martin Bucer, John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli included). These allowed for the rapid dissemination of Reformation literature easily and inexpensively. (Ironically, some scholars believe that one of Gutenberg’s early jobs may have been printing Roman Catholic indulgences.)

These products of the first Information Age, beginning in a town in Germany, had an incredible impact on the course of human history, affecting the entire world, and breaking the stranglehold of the corrupt Roman Catholic Church. I hope and pray that as we continue into this second Information Age, God will send us a reformation exceeding even that of the 16th century.