Black Beethoven

#里茲螞蟻批判性思考寫作專欄 #Alex專欄 #外師每週精選閱讀 
 
Was Ludwig van Beethoven, one of the world’s most widely recognised and highly regarded composers of classical music, whose music greets Taiwanese on an almost nightly basis, and whom the German people regard as one of their greatest cultural icons, in fact a black man? Despite sounding as absurd as claiming that basketballer Jeremy Lin is actually Korean, and in spite of the fact that there is absolutely zero evidence to support it, this method of asserting ownership over another culture’s successes or heroes in an attempt  to undermine the other culture’s dominance, is ostensibly another example of the provocations that have become all too common in the USA’s “culture wars”. 

In the case of this article though, the author has used it as a type of bait – not unlike how the original civil rights activists did – in order to draw attention to his writing. The provocative title is intended to attract as many hits as possible to the article, by inciting debate or, at the very least, appealing to anyone who has heard of Beethoven or the Black Lives Matter movement. However, the disjointed mishmash of content that has little coherent connection besides mentioning Beethoven, and limited engagement with any evidence or facts to support the claims of Beethoven’s ancestry, makes it agonisingly clear that the author has resorted to writing clickbait, serving as a perfect demonstration of how the addiction to attracting more eyeballs to content results in journalists compromising standards of ethics and professionalism to gain more fame or notoriety, and thus raise their profiles.
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https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/sep/07/beethoven-was-black-why-the-radical-idea-still-has-power-today
 
===我是分隔線===
 
💡這個專欄目的是訓練同學聰明閱讀。
 
上面的貼文內容是我們的實力派外師Alex，針對每週一篇英文文章閱讀後，親自寫出的批判性思考文（不是copy & paste的東西啊）。旨在讓同學知道如何用不同的角度來讀文章。你可以選擇先讀Alex寫的批判文，也可以選擇先讀本次的英文文章連結，但最好兩處都要閱讀才能達到最好的效果。
 
這是個訓練批判性思考的好機會，希望同學不要被文字牽著鼻子走，在閱讀時可以多思考。大家可以善用這個寶貴的資源～
 
舊文連結：
https://www.leedsmayi.com/alex-column
 
Alex是我們的御用老師，每週都會幫梅姨、托托、慕華上英文課。目前星期一晚上有開一班 #里茲螞蟻外師應用英文課程 ，程度高級，充滿知識性與深度。有開放單次付費上課。若你想學習用英文來深度探討各項主題，check it out！
 
Alex老師的應用英文課：
https://www.leedsmayi.com/applied-english.html