Is Classical Music Racist? Debunking the Myth Through Physics, Culture, and Reason

In recent years, a growing chorus of voices has called into question the role of Western classical music in perpetuating racism and exclusion. Headlines like “How Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony Put the Classicism and Elitism in Classical Music” ask provocative questions. Universities revise curricula in an attempt to “decolonize” music syllabi. Cultural critics suggest that the canon itself is a colonial artifact built on systemic racism.

But beneath the surface of these claims lies a deeper—and often confused—debate about what music is, where it comes from, and how we assign meaning to cultural traditions.

Let’s be intellectually honest.

Western classical music is not racist. The systems that surrounded it—like all systems in human history—have, at times, reflected the hierarchies and biases of their age. But conflating the art form itself with those systems is a categorical error. It ignores history, cherry-picks context, and does more harm than good to cross-cultural understanding in a multicultural world.

This post is a harmonic rebuttal to that flawed debate, grounded in physics, cultural reasoning, and historical clarity.

The Harmonic Series Doesn’t Lie

All music, regardless of geography or culture, is built on the same acoustical reality: the harmonic series.

This naturally occurring phenomenon—governed by physics, not politics—creates the very intervals that give birth to scales, melodies, and musical form. That’s why the Indian Rishabhapriya scale and the Western Ionian (major) scale can both be mapped to the piano keyboard, even if their cultural contexts and tuning systems differ.

The universality of the harmonic series is a reminder that music is a human constant. It transcends race, empire, and ideology. It reflects something deep in the human condition—our shared impulse to order sound, express emotion, and reach for the sacred.

The Western Canon and Its Critics

The most common criticism leveled at classical music today is that it prioritizes white European men while excluding composers from Africa, Asia, or Indigenous cultures. The argument continues: this exclusion must be evidence of racism.

But here’s the flaw: the Western canon is Western.

It originated in a European cultural context. Its demographic makeup reflects the geography, language, and history of the time. To accuse it of racism simply for being demographically European is as misguided as accusing Japanese court music of discrimination because it doesn’t include 18th-century French composers.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t diversify the repertoire or shine a light on neglected voices—it means we must do so without distorting the nature of cultural traditions.

Institutions, Not Art, Are the Issue

Yes, conservatories, ensembles, and funding structures have historically excluded non-white and non-European musicians. These are legitimate critiques—of institutions, not of the music itself.

We must remember that music has always crossed cultural boundaries. Romani musicians helped define European violin tradition. Reformed Jewish congregations embraced the pipe organ in worship. African-American composers studied counterpoint and created symphonies. Music itself is not the barrier—it is often the bridge.

Conservatories weren’t built to keep others out; they were built to codify and protect a tradition. Just as Carnatic or Gagaku training privileges lineages and cultural specificity, so too did the Western system protect its own. The difference is that Western classical music became global—and now faces global scrutiny.

But global reach does not imply a moral obligation to abandon historical identity. We can welcome others into the tradition without denying where it came from—or accusing its foundation of evil.

Cultural Power Isn’t Cultural Oppression

The fact that Western classical music became a dominant global language during the colonial era is not in dispute. What’s in dispute is whether that dominance makes the music inherently oppressive.

The reality is more complex. Colonial governments often imposed Western education and music—but so did missionaries, reformers, and local elites who saw value in Western notation, harmony, and instruments. Many postcolonial composers used Western tools to express their own voices—precisely because music is adaptable.

Bad actors who distorted music’s role and cultural significance should not define the tradition. They are not the standard.

To say that classical music is oppressive because it was once used by oppressive systems is to erase the agency of those who chose to adopt, reshape, and transform it.

Toward a Better Question

Rather than asking, “Is classical music racist?” we should be asking:

How can we honor the roots of all musical traditions without forcing false equivalencies or guilt by association?

Let Western classical music be what it is—complex, evolving, flawed, and beautiful. Let Indian, Persian, Korean, South African, Native American, and Indigenous classical traditions flourish in parallel, without being pitted against one another in a zero-sum contest of virtue.

And let artists choose freely which traditions they inhabit, without being accused of betrayal, colonial mentality, or cultural appropriation.

Conclusion: Harmony Over Hysteria

We live in an age of historical reckoning. That can be a good thing—when it’s grounded in nuance, respect, and intellectual honesty.

But when reckoning turns into revisionism, when art is reduced to ideology, when artists are turned into ideologues, and when traditions are miscast as tools of oppression without understanding their origins, we lose the very thing that makes music sacred: its ability to speak across time, culture, and division.

Classical music isn’t racist. It’s a tradition—one of many. And like all great traditions, it deserves to be critiqued with care, not condemned with slogans.