The Healing Arts

The cover headlines of the Sept. 6 Calendar told a truth that the story itself failed to address. Beneath the banner headline--”After the Riots: How Can the Arts Help Heal L.A.?”--came provocative subheads about “the answers on the street” and “who is being excluded?”

Yet the article itself ended up excluding the one art form that speaks directly to today’s youth and is absolutely critical to understanding and bridging the gap that led to the L.A. uprising.

In today’s society, it is music that serves as the primary means of communication between children and parents, between black America and white America, between the status quo and the socially forgotten. To ignore the importance of music in this healing process is, I believe, to miss a large part of the picture.

The sad truth is that, at a time when this channel of communication is most crucial, our music people are on the receiving end of the most vehement campaign against free expression since the McCarthy era.

Meanwhile, music and arts programs are being gutted from our public schools in record numbers. Writer Wanda Coleman’s assertion that there is a “correlation between the rise in gang activity . . . and the decline in humanities and arts departments” is right on target. How can we expect to instill any sense of pride or hope in today’s youth if they are deprived of the keys to their own cultural heritage?

Music education programs must not only be increased, but they must also be broadened so that all of America’s children derive inspiration, motivation and a unique sense of pride from the knowledge that America’s multiracial tapestry has been the fountainhead of unique artistic contributions to world culture.

One of the lessons to be drawn here is that we need more dialogue between all factions, including those who align themselves with fine art versus popular culture--categories that have become increasingly less distinct.

Our survival as a society is directly linked to our cultural survival, and music must play a vital role in drawing us all together.

MICHAEL GREENE

Burbank

Greene is president of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences Inc.